KickBeat Message Board

It’s GDC week! This is one of the best weeks of the year, and we’re happy to have some PS4 news for you! CastleStorm — Definitive Edition and KickBeat — Special Edition are both coming this Spring to PS4! We can’t wait to bring these super genre mashups to next-gen (Or is it current-gen, now?).

If you haven’t played CastleStorm before, then you’re in for a treat! CastleStorm — Definitive Edition is a hilarious mix of medieval warfare, 2D physics-based destruction, tower defense, and some melee brawler action thrown in. It also features a story-driven, solo campaign, a custom castle editor, online multiplayer, co-op modes, and more.

CastleStorm — Definitive Edition features the entire original campaign and expansions, plus a bunch of new content including new battles, modes, spells, and features, all running and 60 FPS, 1080p.

KickBeat — Special Edition is a crazy, kung-fu themed rhythm fighter. We are adding a bunch of new features, additional soundtracks, and other enhancements are being added to the original campaign. The game offers players several innovative ways to interact with music, and combines beat-matching mechanics with an acrobatic style of martial arts, turning every song into a raucous battle. The game features a music analyzer that allows players to create new tracks from their own music libraries.

I’ll be back with more details on features and pricing once we’ve confirmed our release dates. I’ll be running around GDC, but I’ll try to answer your questions as soon as possible!

KickBeat has been in development for more than three years, and today we’re full of energy as we release the game into the wild and onto your PS Vita and PS3. Here’s one last look at KickBeat, and what you can expect before you decide to spend your hard-earned cash on it (don’t forget, it’s Cross-Buy)!

Why KickBeat? Here are a few reasons we made this game, and why we know you’ll enjoy it:

• KickBeat lets you interact with music! We’ve given you the power of an endless game by allowing you to create your own KickBeat tracks using the “Beat Your Music” mode, which allows you to generate levels with your own music.
• KickBeat is the first rhythm game with fully 3D interactive characters. Once you have the basic mechanics down, we remove the button cues and the characters themselves become the cues! Beat matching with 3D characters is no simple process — our guys ended up animating all of these movements by hand in order to make them precise enough for beat matching! Further, these are all running at a solid 60 FPS!
• The KickBeat soundtrack is comprised of 18 hard-hitting tracks from a diverse lineup of artists, from well-known bands such as Pendulum and Marilyn Manson, to indie pioneers Celldweller and Blue Stahli — even to hidden talents like electronic music producer Voicians and Taiwanese rapper Shen Yi. (The story of how we got Shen Yi in the game is pretty funny, we are happy to tell it upon request!)
• Zen Studios created a story-driven, single-player campaign to tie it all together. All of the cutscenes are hand animated and done in the flavor of old school kung fu movies. The balance of story and combat is tricky, but we feel the finished game presents quite a novel blend of story and rhythm combat, none of which has been done to date.

So, there you have it! We truly hope you enjoy KickBeat, and we look forward to hearing what you all think.

In case you haven’t heard, KickBeat is coming out for PS Vita and PS3 on September 3 and supports Cross-Buy. If you are headed to PAX in a few weeks, make sure to stop by the PlayStation booth and play the game before it releases! HUGE thanks to Sony for having us in their booth at PAX!

One of the coolest things about KickBeat is that the game really never ends. Yes, we give you 18 licensed tracks in the single player campaign, but we thought that many of you would love to experiment with your own music and make your own KickBeat levels. If you really want to beat your enemies to the latest Bieber track, well, you can do that in the privacy of your own screen.

The process of creating your own KickBeat tracks is quite simple and we do 99% of the work for you. We made a nice little video outlining the process of using your own music to make KickBeat tracks:

We have been experimenting with many different kinds of music, ranging from classical to rap, dubstep and even metal. It’s really fun to see what kind of fight you end up with. Using the track generator to customize KickBeat is awesome and easy! What music do you plan on using?

Summer is winding down, but that doesn’t mean the fun has to. To keep your summer fun going, we’ve selected four games launching over the next four weeks to be part of PS Vita Summer Select, our new PlayStation Store event. PS Plus members will receive a 20% discount on each game during its launch week, and — best of all — all four games are Cross-Buy for PS Vita and PS3.

Over the next four weeks, we’re shining the spotlight on some great independent developers by bringing you a new indie title each week. Check out some of the most unique gaming experiences coming to PS Vita, including Derek Yu’s beloved Spelunky, and two-button fighter Divekick. The first game drops tomorrow, so prepare to spend some serious time with your PS Vita!

No need to worry if you don’t have a PS Vita because all four PS Vita Summer Select titles are Cross-Buy for PS Vita and PS3! PS Plus members can take advantage of the launch week discounts on both the PS Vita and PS3 versions of each game.

Here’s the full line-up of games:

PS Vita Summer Select

Release Date

Game Title

Regular Price

PS Plus Price

Launch Week

8/20

Divekick

$9.99

$7.99

8/20 through 8/26

8/27

Spelunky

$14.99

$11.99

8/27 through 9/2

9/3

KickBeat

$9.99

$7.99

9/3 through 9/9

9/10

Dragon Fantasy: Book II

$14.99

$11.99

9/10 through 9/16

Visit the PlayStation.Blog each week for more information on the PS Vita Summer Select titles. Which games are you going to grab to make the most of the rest of your summer?

It’s been a long, long time coming, but we’re so excited to announce that KickBeat will be available for download on September 3rd for both PS3 and PS Vita. We heard so many of you asking for KickBeat on PS3, so we put our heads down, guzzled gallons of energy drinks, and just made it happen! Best of all, once you buy KickBeat on one platform, you get it free on the other! Two screens for the price of one.

If you’re hearing about KickBeat for the first time, I welcome you to check out a few of our previous blog posts and trailers. And now, in the spirit of awesomely cheesy kung fu movies, we bring you this:

Stay tuned to PlayStation.Blog — in our next KickBeat blog post, I’ll be showing you how to rock out to your very own tracks!

Hey there, Playstation fans. Lots of excitement in the air these days as this year’s E3 is shaping up to be one of the most exciting yet. Not only did we get our first real look at the PlayStation 4 – I’m pre-ordering it already, myself – but Vita got its share of E3 love, too. KickBeat, for one, is playable in the Sony booth!

If this is your first time hearing about KickBeat, introductions are in order. KickBeat is a rhythm action where you fight baddies in time with the music. It’s different from other rhythm games in that you play the action itself instead of playing an interface (bars, arrows, button icons, etc.) that’s slapped on top of the action. Enemies come at you from all directions, and you fight them off by pressing the buttons representing those directions at the right time. So let’s say an enemy is attacking you from the left. Hit the Square or left button (or tap the left side of the screen) when he gets close enough, which will match up with a beat from the song, and you’ll serve him some kung fu smackdown. Simple enough, right? There are some more advanced controls later on, but you get the general idea.

Beyond the 18 songs that come with the game, which range from indie tracks from guys such as Celldweller and Blue Stahli, to songs from big-time artists like Pendulum, P.O.D., and Papa Roach (and a few bands whose names don’t start with the letter “P”), we’ve got a bunch of other stuff to keep you busy. There’s a whole story mode featuring some amazing hand-drawn art, an import tool that lets you put your own music in the game, features to enhance the leaderboard competition with your friends, a wide range of difficulty settings, and a Survival mode that will test the abilities of even the most hardened music game veteran.

For those of who who’ve been following the game’s progress for a while, thanks for sticking with us! We’ve been spending the last few months polishing up the game, adding optional touchscreen controls and menus, going over all the songs with a fine-toothed comb, and making sure you can import songs from your music library into the game as quickly and easily as possible. Basically, we want it to be perfect the first time you play it! And that time is rapidly approaching…

If you’re lucky enough to be going to E3 this year, check out the game and come visit the official KickBeat forum to let us know what you think! If not, we’ll have lots more KickBeat info and media over the next few weeks.

Zen Studios is fresh off an exciting and successful E3. Although our presence was modest, we still made a big impact. KickBeat for PS Vita won Destructoid’s Best of Rhythm E3 award, and Zen Pinball 2 was nominated for Best of E3 2012 by IGN and Best Portable Game by Destructoid. We are extremely honored to be included alongside the industry’s best!

KickBeat sure received a positive response at E3. We think it’s because there is nothing else like it, and a lot of people caught on to that. There were also some people who simply told us we were crazy when they watched us play, but once they got their hands on the game they had BIG smiles on their faces. We have some new video that was released right before and then during E3, we wanted to make sure you guys got a chance to view as well.

The first video is the intro story chapter to KickBeat, setting up our Kung Fu style cheesy story. All of these story scenes are hand animated, and yes, we hired professional voice actors. As a matter of fact, at least one of the actors we’ve used came by the Sony booth to say “hi,” as they are all from Los Angeles.

The next video is actual gameplay, set to “I Can’t Wait” by Celldweller. The game is being played at a high difficulty, so you can really see how the game looks when played at its fullest potential.

The next few weeks will be very busy for pinball. The new Marvel Pinball: Avengers Chronicles pack will release next week, and we will have some detailed info to share on Monday (along with a NEW trailer). Zen Pinball 2 should be out in mid-late July for PS3 and PS Vita. We also want to give a big thanks to our friends at PlayStation for showcasing Zen Pinball 2 on PS Vita in their E3 booth.

This was our very first time having our own setup at E3, and it was a total blur – in a good way! Nine hours of nonstop meetings everyday with seemingly every member of the gaming press, Five Hour Energies, and zombie hands (thanks to our Concourse Hall neighbors, Telltale Games and the amazing The Walking Dead Game which I hear was #1 in May on PSN. And that’s just a taste of what our week was like!

Speaking of the PlayStation booth, by the end of the show everyone was wearing the first piece of Zen Studios swag – some really comfy slippers. We do not wear shoes in the Zen Studios office. We wear slippers! They are much more comfortable and relaxing, and these are actually the same style worn in the office. It’s pretty funny, but a lot of people have been Tweeting us pictures of their feet, and a lot of our followers have been asking for these so I think we might actually start making them available on our website. Let us know if you want them as well.

Thanks to all of you for your support over the years!