Rotastic Message Board

Hi there, PlayStation Blog readers! This is Martial Hesse-Dreville from Dancing Dots, here to tell you about our game — Rotastic — arriving on PSN tomorrow!

Now, how to best sum up what Rotastic is all about… well — imagine a knight. Got it? Good. Now give him a rope with a hook. Ok? Very well… now swing that knight around 80 levels filled with jewels and gems to collect. Sounds simple? Well, maybe then I should tell you about the hundreds of deadly traps, cannons, razor-sharp blades, crazy chickens, black holes, flying dragons, and killer bats… it won’t be easy!

The whole idea behind Rotastic is simple: we wanted to provide tons of fun while using a very simple game mechanic, and I think it worked. Using just one button, you latch your grappling hook onto the nearest anchor point, many of which are scattered around each level. This swings you around to propel your knight through the stage, catching gems while avoiding traps and dodging enemies. With 80 levels (including 10 exclusive new levels for PlayStation 3!) of increasing difficulty, you can be sure you’ll find a good challenge!

And that’s only half the fun: there’s also local multiplayer that lets you play with three other friends. As you collect gems, the goal is to swing around and cut your opponents’ rope, sending them flying to their death! We can tell you… it gets crazy in a hurry, and if you plan to win, you’ll have to employ some treacherous tactics.

We hope you’ll love playing Rotastic as much as we loved making it… and as much as we love playing it! It’s frantic, old-school action at its best.

Ryan and Vinny check out this spintacular, gyrmazing, and downright whirlstonishing XBLA release.

Rotastic finally has a release date. The peg-swinging, rope-cutting, gem-collecting, erm ... sim(?) will arrive on Xbox Live Arcade on September 21 for a cool 800 MS Points ($10). Eager PSN and PC players can take Rotastic for a spin in early 2012.

Martial Hesse-Dréville, Dancing Dots Studio's managing director, explains how his studio came up with its energetic name. No, they're not fans of Dancing with the Stars -- turns out, the explanation is much more straightforward than that!

"I named Dancing Dots just for the fact that what we do, at the core, is making pixels move. Moving pixels then lead me to think of dancing dots. It's a catchy title and playing a game is about having fun, something that dancing is too. Dancing expresses that something is fun."

Dancing Dots Studio is currently working on Rotastic, due out on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade on September 20 and September 21, respectively.

Like this feature? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name Archives.

Snag more crystals than your opponents as you spin yourself dizzy!

A look at two of the game's modes in this fast-paced puzzler.

We know you're probably not at E3, but if you are, drop what you're doing and check out Rotastic, a charming sort of multiplayer action puzzler from French studio Dancing Dots. Through tons of single-screen levels, players use their grappling hooks to swing between pegs collecting gems and performing stunts like figure 8s for extra points. In the online and couch multiplayer, players can connect to the same pegs as their friends and the player with the shortest rope slices the connection of the other, sending him flying.

Oh, and spinning generates a shield which protects ... you know, it's probably better if you just watch the trailer after the jump. It doesn't communicate the fun as well as playing, but believe us when we say you'll want to give it a -- wait for it -- spin when it launches on XBLA in September and PSN in January.