BreakQuest Message Board

Hi there! It’s Alexey Menshikov from Beatshapers and I’m pleased to reveal our next game – BreakQuest: Extra Evolution is coming to North American PlayStation Stores today as a PlayStation Minis exclusive (PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Portable), priced at $3.99.

This game has a long story: the original game was released back in 2004 on PC by Spain-based Felix Casablancas and Nurium Games, and was the best breakout-style game at its time featuring something very unique for the genre – fully interactive physics. We were one of the biggest fans of the game and when Sony approached with introduction of PlayStation Minis; we decided to bring this game to minis in 2010, which was quite successful.

A year after the PSP minis release, we thought about its sequel with the twist – at that time we had a feedback from the PSP version players, so we decided to improve the gameplay and design: we took best game and design elements of original game and rebuild it from scratch, incorporating our vision and our inspiration from the original BreakQuest. As a result, we have created a great game full of immersion and style, which really gives a new experience to players.

One of the most valuable features of original BreakQuest was 100 unique levels, each featuring its own interactive physics design and layout, art and sound theme, so we redesigned all of them preserving their original mechanics following our lead artist’s vision. Actually, it’s got 101 levels; we have a secret one, try to find it!

Moreover, we decided to create 10 boss levels, each is unique mini-game: bosses attack your shuttle with a weapon which makes your shuttle unresponsive, reverses the controls or kills the bumper for a short amount of time, so you have to destroy bosses with strategy. The brute force method is almost possible.

BreakQuest: Extra Evolution’s new Energy Shield mechanics help to keep balls flying if you use it wisely. Once a ball launched, the charging lines grows from the left and right sides until they meet each other in the middle. When the shield is fully charged, you can activate it via L or R buttons (for each side respectively).

Gravitor, another unique element of BreakQuest, attracts the ball to the shuttle’s bumper. We made it unlimited to use, not dependent on expendable energy as it was in original game.

Each boss unlocks a new shuttle which can be selected from Options menu, up to 10 shuttles in all. Every new shuttle comes with activated power-up: gun, sticky bumper, rockets, multi-ball, etc. to help you finish the levels faster and score more points.

And last but not the least, the game features 33 new absolutely amazing music tracks from created by the SandS Band, whose soundtrack will be released shortly. We hope you’ll love the new evolution of the BreakQuest as we do. Find more information on http://beatshapers.com/breakquestee and at twitter.com/Beatshapers

Hi there! This is my first post for the PlayStation.Blog, so I’ll give you a brief introduction. I started my video game career in 1998 as an audio designer, working on the Carnivores series, EA’s Black and Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and many more. More recently, myself and key team members were responsible for IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey for the PSP, MelodyBloxx, Rhythm of War PSP, and BreakQuest (see below).

So, NormalTanks! This game is an old school-looking, fast-paced, multi-directional, top-down arcade shooter set in a sci-fi universe.

There are eight challenging, dynamic, and hazardous environments to tackle: inside enemy bases, outdoor jungles, mountains and more. Every level has its own end-level boss to defeat. Generally, the game features more than 30 different enemy types including tanks, heavy machines, helicopters, robots and bio mechanical creatures, SSM missile sites, and heavy cannons.

To destroy enemies more effectively, there are special red-star bonuses that help upgrade your tank abilities: main cannon, machine gun, armor, and movement speed. The downside is that, when you get killed, you lose your bonuses. On some levels, your tank will transform into a tiny mine bot to stealthily pass by enemies and deactivate electric energy fields. In other levels, your tank turns into a giant walking robot, which demolishes everything on its way to the final level’s alien hive!

This year, NormalTanks received an “honorable mention” in the Independent Game Festival, Student Showcase.

We also didn’t get a chance to talk about our recently released BreakQuest PlayStation Mini, which was released on the US PlayStation Store on March 18th. Let’s fix that now!

The concept behind BreakQuest was created in conjunction with an advanced 2D physics engine, which gives a completely new game experience through a freely shaped world and reactive environment. There are 100 levels, especially adapted for the PSP’s wide screen, and every level features its own colorful design, unique sound theme, and elements behavior. Another breakthrough in BreakQuest is its huge palette of power ups and power downs. This including nine different weapons: guns, rockets and mines, various balls and bumper shapes and sizes, multi- and fire- balls, block wall and magnet, and much more.

Learn more about our PlayStation Mini games and new titles on the Beatshapers website, and you can follow us on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook. From time to time we do exclusive download codes giveaways, so don’t miss out!

This paddle is too slow. This paddle is too fast.

One of the oldest styles of gameplay gets a brand new shiny twist!

The world currently faces a crisis of epic proportions -- a global shortage of Breakout-esque games. Without competition, the few entries in this brick-smashing genre have monopolized the market, leading to a lack of competition, which will lead to another gaming industry crash, which will lead to complete economic collapse, which will lead to the nuclear apocalypse. Fortunately for us, indie developer Beatshapers will try to save our world this October with a ball-and-paddle PSP Mini titled BreakQuest. Okay, the demand for Arkanoid clones is considerably lower than the previous paragraph may have indicated, but we admit -- BreakQuest looks pretty stylish. Well, as stylish as an under-100MB Breakout title on the PSP could look. Check out the gallery below for a fresh batch of screenshots. [Via IGN]