PixelJunk 4AM Message Board

For six years I've been streaming music to my PlayStation 3 using the same old trio of launch visualizers, which is a sadness. This week Q-Games makes me happy again, with a new PS3 app simply called Visualizer. Read more...

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The US PlayStation.Blog team is taking a break for Independence Day, that uniquely American holiday fueled by smoked meats, cold adult beverages and deafening explosions. But we didn’t want to leave you empty handed, so we’re publishing this week’s PlayStation Blogcast a full 24 hours early. Listen and enjoy!

In today’s show, we put the spotlight on the new Tomb Raider, a survival-based re-imagining of the classic series that’s heading to PS3 in March 2013. Karl Stewart, Global Brand Manager for Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics, sheds new light on the creative process driving the game’s ambitious goals, from re-introducing the iconic character of Lara Croft to integrating RPG-style character progression and redefining the series’ trademark action, platforming, and puzzles. This is a great discussion about the video game creative process, and worth a listen even if Tomb Raider isn’t on your radar.

Of course, we also share first details on next week’s PSN lineup, answer several user questions, and serve up another head-scratching Mystery Theme. Click the Play button already!

Stuff We Talked About Tomb Raider (2013) Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light Tekken 3 The Walking Dead: Episode Two – Starved for Help

Oh, and here’s a special Independence Day bonus! PlayStation Blogcast’s celebrated DJ Dormilón recently broadcast a scintillating set in PixelJunk 4am, and you can listen to the toe-tapping results below.

The Cast Sid Shuman – PlayStation Sr. Social Media Specialist Jeff Rubenstein – PlayStation Sr. Social Media Manager Nick Suttner – PlayStation Sr. Product Evaluator

[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game
details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating
descriptions.]

• Thanks to Cory Schmitz for our beautiful logo and Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music. Special thanks to Astro Gaming headsets for providing audio gear.

By 4AM, I mean PixelJunk 4AM. And, by glow sticks, I mean PlayStation Move controllers.

Grab your glow sticks, DJ Jeff Feat. PlayStation Move is about to pump beats through your Internet.

Do you have a PlayStation Move motion controller? Do you like music? Are waffles delicious? If you answered “Yes” to any of the above questions, I have some delicious news for you!

PixelJunk 4am will be released later today on PSN for $9.99! The FREE PixelJunk 4am Viewer app will also be available to download today, and will enable you to stream the full library of 4am visualizers and songs from performers around the world.

If you’re not already familiar with PixelJunk 4am, it’s a Virtual Audio Canvas that uses PlayStation Move, giving you the power to craft music in a unique new audio-visual experience. Your creations are broadcast live on PSN around the world to viewers who can stream (and cheer you on!) in real time.

You can look forward to seven songs and six visualizers with 38 variations, 10 events and over 190 different sounds to play with. PixelJunk 4am supports both in-game Twitter and Facebook connectivity, enabling you to promote your performances with personal messages and start to build your own persona and audience. You can also use 4am as a stand-alone visualizer (no Move required) and play your favorite music from your PS3.

For anyone still yet to see 4am in action, we’ve been playing with it lately in the office here and did some raw filming. Here’s a peek at what can be done with just one song & visualizer!

4am also supports two two Move controllers, meaning you can mix simultaneously with a friend live, or dual-wield by yourself like a pro. :) We took it up onto the roof in the rain last night. Phat bass filtering down into the streets below… :D

Watching players in the early access live beta, we’ve already been blown away by people’s creativity. Some of you have been uploading performances to YouTube in suits and masks or adding your own digital GUI overlays. And that was just with the one song the Beta offered! o.O I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with using the full release library!

So please, show us how it’s done. We’ve provided the platform, it’s up to you guys to stand on it. Surprise us and show us what you can come up with! We’ll be streaming wherever you are in the world.

PixelJunk 4am arrives on PlayStation Network this week, allowing any Move owner to turn his or her living room into an audiovisual, experimental performance space and look just ... almost ... okay, nowhere near as cool as Baiyon doing it. There are still some things that require a professional.

Hey everyone, it’s been awhile since I wrote a Blog entry but today I have a really good reason to. In order to celebrate TEN years of Q-Games we decided to set up the ultimate BLOWOUT PixelJunk sale!!

The PixelJunk series has been a huge success for us, so to celebrate Q’s 10th anniversary (and also PixelJunk’s fifth), for a limited time we are slashing the prices of Racers, Monsters, Eden, and Shooter to just ONE DOLLAR. Yes, you heard correctly! On top of this, we are also slashing the prices for PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe (PSP), PixelJunk Shooter 2 and PixelJunk SideScroller by HALF! You have no choice but to snap them all up the very moment the sale goes live tomorrow afternoon with the PlayStation Store update! Spread the word and let’s go PixelJunk crazy for a week! Actually, make that TWO weeks because after the sale, PixelJunk 4am will be launched (May 15th) and it is simply an incredibly unique experience.

For those of you anxious to get your hands on PixelJunk 4am, we will be hosting a PlayStation PixelJunk 4am Event open to the community on Thursday, May 10 from 6:00 to 9:00pm at Harlot in San Francisco. The first 75 attendees will receive a free copy of PixelJunk 4am when it is live on the PlayStation Store on Tuesday, May 15. Spread the word, Baiyon and I would love to meet you (psst…you must be 21+ to attend).

In the 10 years since I started Q-Games we’ve made a huge amount of games and technology for the PlayStation family and I’d like to highlight a few key moments in our history. Did you know that we made the PlayStation 3 “ribbon” and “sparkly dust” background on the XMB, as well as parts of the XMB graphical frontend? If you let the “About PS3″ credits roll you will actually see the Q-Games logo! Before that, on PSP, we developed some of the really cool technology demos that were shown at E3 all the way back in 2004. We also developed the PS3′s music visualizers, beginning with the “valley” default and culminating in the awesome “earth” visualizer – which was actually developed initially as a possible boot sequence for the PS3!! Ken Kutaragi envisioned a boot sequence similar to the sequence in Kubrick’s “2001 – A Space Odyssey” where you see a simultaneous moon and sunrise, but changed his mind and it became the even cooler “orchestral tuning” sequence that it is now. However, we continued working on it in secret, adding more resolution and detail until they gave in and let us sneak-release it into a firmware update a few years back.

Five years ago, with the launch of PSN, one of the guys at SCEI (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. in Tokyo) casually suggested I consider making PSN games. I initially dismissed the idea, imagining SD 480i quality games, but once I plugged my brand-new PS3 into a 1080p TV via a HDMI cable and saw the amazing resolution and color reproduction it clicked that perhaps it represented a chance to rejuvenate 2D gaming. So I got to work preparing concepts for games that took some old ideas, added some new ones, and most importantly updated them to use the incredible extra detail and crisp colors of 1080p. Thus PixelJunk was born!

The first game was PixelJunk Racers, a game designed pretty much to only be playable in 1080p and a game that was impossible in SD because of the hundreds of tiny cars racing around the screen – quite often portrayed as a “black sheep” in the PixelJunk stable, Racers is really quite a unique game and is a great party experience, allowing you to play with up to SEVEN players simultaneously – young kids absolutely love it too and we have plenty of diehard fans which is why we updated it to become PixelJunk Racers 2nd Lap. Anyway, Racers launched us into self-publishing here in Japan which was also a lot of fun (suddenly we were not just a developer but a publisher too!), and started our arrangement with Santa Monica Studios to release the PixelJunk series in the West.

We developed the PixelJunk games in parallel and a few months after Racers we launched the smash hit PixelJunk Monsters which has been extremely popular over the years (oh, and the “Deluxe” PSP version will even run on your PS Vita as of May 15th!). Also, during the development of Racers I had the good fortune to bump into a Kyoto-based DJ and artist called “Baiyon” at a party held by a mutual friend and he seemed like an interesting guy so I decided to make our third game a little bit more “artsy” and brought him in to collaborate with us on it, giving birth to PixelJunk Eden! Just look at those CMYK colours – HDMI pushed to the extreme!

For our fourth title we had a naming contest which helped us decide on the name for “PixelJunk 1-4″ to be “PixelJunk Shooter” (yes, “PixelJunk Elements” was also popular but sorry folks it didn’t capture the “sci-fi” spirit enough for me – besides the acronym would be PJE and we already had a PJE in the series…). The concept for Shooter was decided right at the start of the PixelJunk project but the fluid technology took a little time to develop and flesh out, and by the time we had got to the point where we were thinking about music I had persuaded my old friend Alex “The Orb” Paterson to work with us on the soundtrack. He had just started an interesting collaboration with Dom Beken in the form of High Frequency Bandwidth (HFB for short) whose style of music is a kind of retro “b movie dub techno” was a perfect fit for the world we were creating in Shooter. This led us to collaborate on the sequel “Shooter 2″ and our very latest release last year “PixelJunk SideScroller” (which is totally awesome by the way).

Which leads us to the upcoming release of PixelJunk 4am which, although it isn’t a “game” per se, is deeply engaging and a fun experience for everyone. Every time you play you are broadcasting live to the world! It’s really really addictive and you’ll find your PlayStation Move is being used in ways you never imagined!

Well that was a long post, but hey I hadn’t posted in a while – now PixelJunkies, go forth and spread the word, the PixelJunk BLOWOUT sale is ON!

PixelJunk 4am is live in early access beta in the United Arab Emirates, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, and Ireland with a trimmed-down version available exclusively for PS Plus members. The beta offers one song and one visualizer as a test for the full seven songs, six visualizers with 38 variations, 10 events and more than 190 sounds that hit with the game on May 15.

4am requires Move to play, but anyone with eyeballs or eardrums can enjoy it. Early access includes the Live Beta Viewer, which allows Plus members to stream other players' performances, including from Japan's DJ Baiyon, who will stream his playtime during the beta.

Q-Games' three-dimensional music performance visualizer ... experience PixelJunk 4am, which we can neither describe nor play without some handwaving, will be released on May 15, the company announced today. The free Pixeljunk 4am Viewer, which allows you to watch others' 4am performances live, will also be out that day.

Before the official release, a beta will be distributed to some PlayStation Plus members on May 1. During this time, Q will host special live performances including one by DJ and 4am producer Baiyon.

Even if you're not a Move owner or musician, there's a feature that may appeal to you. In the PlayStation Blog post announcing the release date, lead designer Rowan Parker announced that "PixelJunk 4am can be used as a stand-alone music visualizer to play your favorite music from your PS3." Five visualizers will be available right away, and you can unlock more by playing the game.

#pixeljunk4am Max Payne 3 is coming out on May 15. Diablo III is coming out on May 15. A Game of Thrones game is coming out on May 15. More »

We’ve been developing PixelJunk 4am for quite some time now. It’s hard to know if you’re done with no other measuring sticks lying around to use as a gauge, however I think we’re almost there! I’ll just leave this here. :)

PixelJunk 4am and the free PixelJunk 4am – Viewer will be released and available for download on the PlayStation Store from May 15th.

Lots of you have been asking for more details regarding the kind of ‘actual’ musical freedom you can look forward to using with your PlayStation Move. So here we go.

We’ve created various different events you can choose from to play live. Different events will present you with different mixes of songs, visualizers and a new mood to go with each one. You then take this event live on PSN and make it your own, crafting and performing it however you want.

Here’s some numbers for everyone. Each song has 4 track instruments you can use: a Drum, Bass, Rhythm and Synth. Each track then has 4 different looping samples and four one-shot sounds in space around you that you can use. All of the loops and samples are different for each song as well, meaning events can have up to (4 loops + 4 one-shots) x 4 tracks x 5 songs = 160 different sound samples to pull from and mix however you like. :)

Then, there are the Effects that you can apply on top of those. Each of the four tracks has unique Effects living on different axes in space around you (like a giant 3D Kaoss pad for those of you into DJing and synths). Using these effects (reverb, low/high pass filter, flanger, ringmod, chorus and more), you can modulate the original sound samples into something completely different. All Effects run independently on each track instrument using the power of the PS3’s SPU hardware, so you could have up to 16 Effects simultaneously modulating all your music!

For people who really want to hack the songs, you can even dub your Move motions into a loop and play that recorded path of motion back through the music. That means any cool sounds or rhythms you make could become the new bass line in a song.

PixelJunk 4am supports up to two PS Move controllers for performing together in an event. So you COULD have your friend over and mix beats side-by-side with them. OR you could rock it dual-wielding a PS Move in each hand… :D Our Live Viewer browser makes it easy as well to spectate the same events as your friends when you’re both online.

Finally, we’ve been getting asked for over a year now if 4am can be used just as a music visualizer on your PS3. The simple answer is, “yes!” PixelJunk 4am can be used as a stand-alone music visualizer to play your favorite music from your PS3. You won’t even need a Move if you just want to fire up and run a playlist to the visuals. All five original 4am visualizers will be available right from the start. To get some of the rarer visualizers, though, you’ll need to unlock them through regular play first. I’ve been running my work-time playlist through the PS3 here at the office lately just to watch the visualizers. Nothing better for ruining productivity. o.O

Very soon we’ll be holding an early access Live Beta for PlayStation Plus members. A limited number of codes will be given to PS Plus members who own a Move, allowing them to get a first taste of performing in 4am. There will also be a 4am Free Viewer beta download available to ALL PlayStation Plus members. During the course of the Live Beta, we’ll host some special live performances from around the world, including DJ Baiyon performing live from Japan. Any PlayStation Plus members with the 4am Free Viewer are of course welcome to spectate. The PixelJunk 4am Live Beta will start from May 1st and run for two weeks, so keep an eye out for further details very soon on how you can get in.

We can’t wait to see what everyone makes once 4am goes live, or what kind of performers will make a name for themselves. Surprise us! :D

#pixeljunk It's hard to look cool when you're playing most music video games. You may think you look cool with your dinky plastic guitar or humorously scale-sized drum set, but in reality you look like… well, a person playing a plastic instrument. At the Penny Arcade Expo, a winning team assembles on-stage to play through a Rock Band song for a huge, screaming audience. It's an enjoyable bit of theater, but if you've ever seen a picture of yourself playing Rock Band at a party (and I bet that you have), you know just how profoundly dorky it looks. More »

From the moment we got our first glimpse of PixelJunk 4am, we knew it was like nothing we’d ever seen before. Q-Games always strives to deliver distinctive games with one-of-a-kind experiences. With PixelJunk 4am, they chose to bring this concept to a whole new level. Watch the video to see a live performance and learn more about how the game works.

But what exactly is PixelJunk 4am? A game? An instrument? To answer this question, we turned to Rowan Parker, who explained it from the floor of a launch party held during the 2012 Game Developers Conference where DJ Baiyon “played” for the lucky attendees.

PixelJunk 4am is easy to understand once you have the PlayStation Move motion controller in your hands and the visualizer appears. It varies with each “presentation,” but you can change it at any time by pressing the Select button. What’s important is for the music to “live” in the air, so to speak.

With PS Move, you grab hold of the sound from four different instruments (represented by the four control buttons) and unleash them onto the screen, creating a different sound depending on your movement. You can create layers of audio and then manipulate them as you wish. You can also invent new sounds using the controller and distort the effects by moving the PS Move closer to or farther away from the visualizer.

In the final version of the game, you’ll be able to share your presentations on the PlayStation Network, even with users who do not have the game — all you’ll need is the free viewer application, which enables you to tune into presentations as they are happening or listen to recordings from your favorite artists.

PixelJunk 4am for the PS3 will be available this spring exclusively on the PlayStation Network.

Q-Games' music thing, PixelJunk 4am, will be available this spring on the PlayStation Network. It's been a rough road trying to describe the "game" to the masses, so the developer will be holding a public preview next week in San Francisco. PixelJunk 4am Art & Music Director DJ Baiyon, who was also responsible for the music in PixelJunk Eden, will be there to perform, and there'll be free play for everyone.

The PlayStation Blog has also detailed how the spectator mode will work for the game. A free app will be available on the PSN for everyone, and allow them to "stream any live performances currently happening worldwide." Players will be able to follow their favorite performers and provide feedback through those fancy social networking sites, like the Twitters and Facebooks.

Hopefully, the GDC performance will finally give us the audio-visual opportunity to properly encapsulate the feeling of 4am.

Heya guys, ^^/

Next week during GDC, PixelJunk is collaborating with Super7 to host a FREE GDC Kickoff party in San Francisco. You can expect:

• A public preview of PixelJunk 4am available to play for anyone not going to GDC!
• Super7’s INSERT COIN COLLECTION T-shirt range launch.
• Prizes for the ‘best jam sessions’ on 4am.
• Free drinks, music, giveaways & fun!

PixelJunk 4am Art & Music Director DJ Baiyon will be on hand to deliver a performance at 6pm to kick things off, followed by free play for everyone. Attendance is free, so if you’re unable to make GDC but still want to checkout PixelJunk 4am, come down and say “Hi” to us.

Where: Super7 Store, 1427 Haight St (@ Masonic)
When: Tuesday March 6th @ 6pm
RSVP on Facebook

Even if you can’t make the party, here are some great details and images of PixelJunk 4am:

Do you have a PlayStation Move? You may be pleased to know that someone is experimenting with it to unleash its full potential. Being indie means you can experiment. You can take risks. Push hardware to new limits (do things no-one else has had the courage to try yet). :D With PixelJunk 4am, we’re entering unknown territory. Want to take a ride with us?

So orthodox music games tell the player what to do. It has them dancing to its musical demands *insert evil laughter*. We’ve created the exact opposite of that. Our players tell the music what to do. This is why we call 4am more of an instrument than a game. In fact, you’re not even really a player anymore. You’re a performer!

And that PlayStation Move you’ve got? Well you’ve never been able to use it like this before. There’s no pointers, no shooting, no ‘waggling’ mini-games. This is an instrument built from the ground-up to fully utilize the PlayStation Move hardware. Using all 3 spacial axes (X, Y & Z plus one more axis for twist), the accelerometer & the gyro, we’ve built a Virtual Canvas in space for you. Your PlayStation Move is then tracked through space using a vibrant palette of changing sphere colours. Imagine an intricate Audio Canvas floating in space that you can use to paint and craft music on.

The PlayStation Network has also never been used like this before. We are essentially empowering PSN with its very own radio broadcasting station. And the artists that will fill the waves will be you! Anytime you play, you will be streaming live on PSN for anyone to tune in and listen to.

“But how do I tune in”? “What if I don’t have a PlayStation Move?” We’ve got you covered! A FREE Viewer will be available to EVERYONE, downloadable through PSN. You can use it to stream any live performances currently happening worldwide. Follow your favorite performers, leave it running as live background music at parties or just enjoy the visuals powered by the PS3 SPU’s brute force. Nothing in 4am is a one-way street though. As a viewer, we want you to feed back into performances and let them know if you like what you’re hearing. You could even change a performer’s mind about what they’ll play next if they suddenly have a crowd to please.

Social networking worlds will also be feeding back into 4am unlike anything before. We’re giving people the tools to promote their performances using Facebook & Twitter from inside 4am. And again, as nothing is a one-way street, any activity around your tweets or posts in the social world have effects back inside 4am increasing your popularity within the game world too.

Every single owner of a PlayStation Move should be sitting up and paying attention. PixelJunk 4am is like nothing you’ll have played before. We’re blurring the lines of what can be called a “game” or an “instrument” using this hardware. PixelJunk 4am will be out in Spring this year. Exploring new territory is fun, so we hope you’ll join us there too. And for everyone else? Download the free Viewer, and turn up the phat bass. :)

#pixeljunk I'll try any video game, because any video game might have the year's best idea in it. More »

Few series in the downloadable realm command the respect of Q-Games' PixelJunk. As a franchise exclusive to PlayStation 3, PJ tends to do things differently. Indeed, PixelJunk's delivery is more often than not inconsistent, not in quality, but rather in what the gamer can expect to find when they bo...