To learn about Okabu, the importance of nature and individuality in games, as well as what’s next for Okabu – from possible Move support to a portable future, PlayStation LifeStyle interviewed Simon Oliver, the founder of HandCircus.
Sony are “a pillar of support” to independent developers looking to take on ambitious projects, according to Okabu developer Simon Oliver.
Credit goes to Sony for continuing to support indie devs.
This is what Microsoft purported to do at the beginning of the 360's lifecycle but ended up hemorrhaging indie devs unintentionally with its overly-stringent requirements. The goodwill to support them was there to begin with (see XNA etc) but MS seem to have lost focus on that.
Indie devs do represent the future and cannot be neglected. Sony clearly recognise this and I think its high time MS do so too (if they don't already). The voices of discontent amongst indie developers regarding the 360 are getting louder by the minute.
I hope that this translate to more indie games in PSN and hopefully the vita
I want to see how the community reacts to playstation suite, will it continue this goodwill?
Septic, indie devs can't compete on XBLA because that's the cream of the crop and competition is stiff, not so much on PSN. I wish these devs would just come out and say this, lol. PSN is where it's at if you don't want much competition and want your game noticed. Let's cut the bs and kiddie stuff. I'm grown.
I get it that small sites like 'beefjack.com' have to steal developer-statements from proper sources like a gamasutra dev-post-mortem.
But the least the article-writer could do is have his own opinion on the game, rather than mentioning metacritic.
i.e. make a impression-article on the game, or review if he likes it enough to finnish it.
That way they might start to get some original content after a while, and make it more worthwile to go there.
How about that - constructive criticism on N4G? :)
well sony did create a pub fund for indie developers to get started on creating games for their platforms. they even handed out free vita dev kits to various indie devs so here is hoping we will start seeing more indie games for the vita.
this is one area that sony has learned to embrace whereas before i did not think it mattered much during the kutaragi regime.
Okabu centers around the conflict between two tribes – the Yorubo and the Doza. Many generations ago, a ideological rift tore the population into two factions – those that felt a deep affinity with nature and wanted to maintain a simple life in harmony with the environment, and those that felt that their life could be improved by harnessing machinery to exploit the land...
Chris writes "If you hadn’t noticed, Okabu has a brand new patch up on PSN (Both US and EU versions have be updated). Simon Oliver, founder over at HandCircus, told Ben in a recent email that 'we made some tweaks to the gameplay to reduce frustrations some players were experiencing.'"
This game has such a unique art style.
Talk about quirky art design!
I love seeing new, independent developers making brand new content. It's refeshing to get out of sequel land from established publishers and see stuff that never been thought of before. Great interview!
Hand Circus sounds like the title of porn. I approve of any name with thinly veiled double entendre. Looks like an interesting game.