PixelJunk: SideScroller Message Board

#pixeljunk PixelJunk SideScroller is the latest PS3 title from Q-Games. The Kyoto-based game studio continues to churn out high quality digital games for the PS3 under its PixelJunk banner. SideScroller is a vector-infused side-scrolling shooter. More »

When I was a kid we had to spend twenty-five cents just to nudge a side and we liked it!

#sidescroller PixelJunk SideScroller is a 1980's style arcade game made for the 26th-century. It's a side scrolling-shot-em-up that exceeds in everything it attempts to pull off. More »

The PixelJunk series regularly supplies the PlayStation 3 with some of its best, most stylish downloadable games. For its latest endeavor, PixelJunk SideScroller, developer Q-games dialed back its ambition a bit in order to provide a simple arcade shooter. With laser neon visuals and an impressive electronic soundtrack, Sidescroller is a delightful audio/video installation -- but the meager game here won't have you side-scrolling for long...

PixelJunk SideScroller is finally out in the world! This retro-styled side-scrolling shooter plays like a love note to the arcade games I grew up with in my youth, and serves as a quasi-epilogue to the PixelJunk Shooter series. Before you pick it up on the PlayStation Store, get a closer look with this handy new Q&A. Q-Games President and Executive Producer Dylan Cuthbert took to Twitter to answer your most burning questions. Read closely and you might learn a few helpful secrets!

Q: How many levels come with PixelJunk SideScroller? (via @wildbillhickock)
A: There are 13 levels (called “Sectors”) in total. This includes four absolutely amazing boss battles (Note: Expect an “old friend” from the Shooter-verse to make an appearance, but you’ll be seeing loads of new faces as well). One thing that’s so great about SideScroller is that it has four difficulty modes, and the experience will change depending on what difficulty mode you select. New enemies crop up in Hard difficulty mode, and expect certain encounters to get a whole lot more harrowing because of them. Bullets fly at you faster, the overall look of the game changes, and for those of you brave enough to venture onto Brutal difficulty mode, expect to get “revenge” bullets flung at your ship every time you kill an enemy. Needless to say, SideScroller is a game you can enjoy on many different levels by giving it a replay or two (or three, or four)! Also, the only way to unlock the “true” ending is to complete the game on Brutal. Good luck!

Q: Is there still an emphasis on exploring, or is it more “on-rails” than the PixelJunk Shooter series? (via @VofEscaflowne)
A: SideScroller is a complete departure from the Shooter series. Instead of exploring and puzzle solving – staples of the Shooter-verse – you’ll be using upgradeable weapons to spray bullets in every direction possible! Yes, SideScroller is more of an “on rails” experience, because we’ll push the player onward into really tense situations at a brisk pace. It definitely ups the tension. There are also scenes in the game where the scrolling stops and you have to defeat mini-bosses and any other enemies we throw at you. Mark my words: just because the scrolling stops doesn’t mean the game becomes any less intense!

Q: Any unlockables and cool things to work for? (via @AuburnRDM)
A: There are hidden items scattered through the entire game. For any collectors out there, searching for these items and finding them will certainly be a rewarding experience. They also net you a hefty amount of bonus points, which will be a big help to you competitive players out there who absolutely NEED the #1 high score on the Online Leaderboards! Also, don’t forget to keep an eye on your combo count. The skilled players out there will be able to string together combos from the start of every Sector until the end, so play strategically. If you’re good enough, you might even get a Platinum Trophy for your efforts!

Q: Will my eyes begin to bleed because of so much awesome? (via @bergasche)
A: A resounding YES! Okay, okay, your eyes may not actually bleed, explode, or otherwise become unusable, but SideScroller has a whole lot of awesome contained within its digital casing. It’s on the PlayStation Store now, so what are you waiting for? Go and buy it!

Q-Games fans looking to get their hands on the studio's latest, PixelJunk Sidescrollers, will get a chance to shoot a lot of stuff on October 25. In the meanwhile, it seems we must all be content with watching things get shot in this launch trailer.

Been anxiously awaiting Q-Games' next project? Well, wait no longer! PixelJunk: Sidescroller is coming to the PlayStation Network October 25th. (Originally, we said November 1st because that's what the PlayStation Blog reported, but they've updated their story.) This 2D shoot-'em-up won our hearts at E3 2011, so let's see how the final product comes out...

PixelJunk SideScroller is not far from your hands! Yes, it has kind of crept up upon us, but the release date is 1st of November in North America. I really can’t emphasize enough how really, really good, old-school fun SideScroller has turned out to be. I’m sure some of you have played the “bonus” stage in PixelJunk Shooter 2 called “The Road to Dawn”, well that is what gave us the urge to make an entire side scrolling shoot-em-up game! Back in the day I used to love games such as R-Type and Darius, and going even further back there were games such as Scramble and Defender that inspired me as a child. So…we decided to dip our toes in and see what PixelJunk could bring to the side-scroller world.

We used the same engine as for the two Shooter titles, but the game itself is entirely different. To begin with this is a single-stick controlled game rather than the dual-stick control we had in Shooter, which makes it even more addictive and easy to control. And of course, you can only face to the right as you fly your craft! The only similarity really is that a handful of enemies from Shooter have been “re-imagined” for SideScroller, but to add to them we created a whole slew of new enemies and bosses for you to try to destroy also.

The back-story of the game is that SideScroller is the game the pilot of PixelJunk Shooter is playing on his old computer console in his ship on the way home to Earth after the ending of Shooter 2. This explains the cool “retro” look we have designed with the curved CRT (cathode ray tube) screen and the monochrome look of the interface. However, during its orbit of Apoxus Prime perhaps the computer has been infected… a little?

Some people reckon PixelJunk games are a little tough, and well… yes, they are a little because I think games should be a challenge. However, what we’ve done this time is scattered loads of checkpoints so even if you do die, you’ll restart really close, and we also give you the option to downgrade your difficulty setting if you get a Game Over too. We’ve created 4 difficulty levels so everyone is catered for (I hope!).

Oh and did I mention, the bosses are AWESOME! Maybe I should mention that again…

I’ve got to head off and start finishing off PixelJunk 4am, so I’m going to leave you with the really cool trailer for SideScroller we created (see above). Definitely check it out, because you might be able to spot one of the AWESOME bosses in there!

Remember everyone – Nov 1st!

Q-Games' PixelJunk SideScroller will fly from left to right onto the North American PSN next week. The October 25 launch date comes from Q-Games' Twitter feed (which scrolls vertically). SideScroller is the latest downloadable title from the talented developer of PixelJunks Shooter, Eden and Racer.

The studio is also working on PixelJunk 4AM (formerly Lifelike), which we've managed to encapsulate as such: "You have to play it to understand it!"

Hi there, PixelJunkies! I have an important update for you. What’s orange, magenta, and glowing all over? Why, it’s PixelJunk sidescroller, of course! We’ve released a brand-spankin’ new trailer for you. We hope it whets your appetite until you can get your PixelJunk-hungry hands on it.

We don’t have an official release date for PixelJunk sidescroller yet, but rest assured we’re hard at work making it oodles of fun all the while incorporating retro goodness, love, and a little bit of cheese(?) into it. What treasures does this veritable pantheon of old-school gaming hold? We can’t go into the details yet, but expect to get riddled in alien bullets, science fiction in-jokes, and if you’re a tried and true PixelJunkie, you may even notice an Easter egg or two we’ve included just for you!

Need some deep space, missile-flinging fun to tide you over until PixelJunk sidescroller is released? Hop on the PlayStation Network and download the FREE PixelJunk Shooter 2 demo today! Check out our Online Battle Tutorial video to become an Online Battling stud in no time. Did I mention the demo is free? What are you waiting for?

In case you frequently get confused by the series name, PixelJunk games often turn out not to be junk at all. In fact, in a bizarre twist, they're often quite good. They always look good, as you can see for yourself in this trailer for Q-Games' new PSN shooter, PixelJunk Sidescroller.

Or Neon Gradius, as we're calling it. Even the logo shows influence from Konami's series. As Gradius-inspired shooters go, this one is a lot easier to take in than Otomedius.

#pixeljunk Q-Games is working on PixelJunk: Sidescroller, the latest PixelJunk title. The game's gameplay looks bright and old school. More »

#pixeljunk PixelJunk: Sidescroller, the upcoming downloadable color explosion from Q-Games, is not joking around. More »

#pixeljunk Our technology has progressed past the age of TV monitors that curve the corners of our video game graphics. Scan lines are a thing of the past. More »

If you like classic, sidescrolling shooters like Gradius, PixelJunk Sidescroller is made for you. With bright, colorful visuals, simple controls, and a retro design, PixelJunk Sidescroller is the perfect way to remember the games we played years ago. If you don't know much about PixelJunk Sidescroller, read on for all the basic information on Sidescroller, an exclusive PlayStation 3 download coming later this year...

I’m back in Kyoto after a rip-roaring time at E3 where we revealed not one but two games: PixelJunk lifelike, which you can see a bit of in this previous blog post, and PixelJunk sidescroller — a title no one was expecting and took a lot of people by surprise just as we intended!

When we were wrapping up PixelJunk Shooter 2 a number of us here at Q-Games felt an undeniable urge to create a homage to the old school side-scrolling shooters that we grew up with…so we did and here it is! We went totally overboard on the special effects though and even threw in an incredibly realistic simulation of an old CRT monitor for good measure. The effect is so realistic that at E3 people’s heads were turning and we were questioned as to why we were using such an old TV! It looks really retro-awesome! :-)

Give the video a look to see it in action! We’ll be back soon to share more before PixelJunk sidescroller lands on PSN later this summer.

Though I wouldn't characterize any of Q-Games' titles as being especially easy, none possess the penchant for punishment boasted by the recently announced PixelJunk Sidescroller. That's fairly appropriate, considering the hellacious difficulty barriers that are customary for the shoot-em-up genre. Still, it's tough to stop and smell the audiovisual roses that pepper the stylish developer's games when you're also concerned with weaving through wall after wall of small, spherical bullets.

Preparing myself for a somewhat relaxing synesthetic experience, my decision at PixelJunk Sidescroller's difficulty screen was absentminded: "Normal should be fine," I said, with unknowing hubris. It was far from fine.

Your favorite PixelJunk physics are headed to the side-scrolling arena.

Well this seems like an odd omission. A new title from Q Games, PixelJunk SideScroller, is in the works but Sony didn't see fit to mention it during its otherwise pretty damn great press conference. What would "pretty damn great" plus "a new PixelJunk" have rated the presser? We'll never know.

The shooter features two-player local co-op and a look that's not too dissimilar to the aesthetic of PixelJunk Shooter. Makes sense, you know, what with all the shooting.

The PixelJunk series, developed by Q Games, has always been about celebrating simplicity. Simplicity, whether intended or not, reminds me of classic games that many of us grew up playing. These games had to be simple due to the technical limitations of the time, but they were no less fun. With Pixel...