Sony launches indie social gaming barrage on Playstation Home
Indie developers Odd Gentleman, Peanut Gallery and Lazy8 are among the recruits
The social gaming bandwagon hasn’t left town, and it appears Sony is the latest company to hop on. The company today announced a number of social casual games will be added to Home, the PlayStation 3's flagship virtual-world-with-very-little-to-do. This is actually great news, as the games are promised to “provide unique experiences for users, allowing them to share, interact and communicate with new and existing friends” on the PlayStation 3. In normal person language, this means Home just became a lot more fun.
Uttering the phrase “social gaming” in a group of gamers usually attracts as much positive attention as running through a beehive naked, but in this case you may want to keep your skepticism at bay. The new social games are being published on Sony's newCodenamesub-label, and their creators are some of the most inventive indie game developers in recent memory.
Above: NOT The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom - though it's an easy mistake to make and we really wouldn't mind if it was.
The most interesting title is arguably Dueling Gentleman, a new strategy dueling game made by the developers behind The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom. Also exciting is Cogs in 3D, an adaptation of Lazy8’s popular PC/iPhone/iPad puzzle game. Two other games, Minor Battle from Peanut Gallery and Super Awesome Mountain RPG from Codename itself, were unveiled in the press release.
Above: The steampunk-y, clockwork-y puzzle game Cogs pretty much rocked. We're thrilled to play it on a full-sized system instead of an iPhone.
Sony’s release fails to pin down why, exactly, these games are being labeled as “social games.” It may because of their multi-player capabilities, as every game in the press release can be played with or against friends. But who cares what the games are labeled? The PlayStation 3 has already spawned some incredible indie titles, such as LittleBigPlanet and Flower, and these new offerings will give PlayStation 3 gamers even more goodness to enjoy.
Exact release dates are not yet available, but Sony’s states that all of the games will hit within the “next several months.”
Jul 19, 2010
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