Hello PlayStation neighborhood—I’m Chris Stair, the artistic director of Squid Shock Studios, and I’m excited to have a possibility to share some insights into our first recreation, Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus, a hand-drawn action-platformer popping out on PlayStation 5 on July 17.
Among the large inspirations for Bō are the 2D action-exploration video games I grew up enjoying. I like the marvel and thriller that comes with exploration, the joys of discovering new talents, and the sense of satisfaction when you determine how one can use these expertise you’d discovered to uncover a secret path.
A few of my favourite video games within the style even have actually memorable traversal: bombing your self up a wall, launching your self off enemies, or simply backwards dashing by means of a citadel corridor. In Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus, we wished to create a motion and fight system with its personal distinctive, rewarding rhythm—one thing that may make you are feeling such as you’ve entered a “stream” state when all the things comes collectively—and wished to speak a bit extra about that with you immediately.
Get the stream going
Bō isn’t able to doing a double soar by default, so one method you’ll have to study early on is what we name the Bump. When Bō strikes an object or an enemy with the Equinox Workers whereas airborne, you’ll glow teal, supplying you with the flexibility to do a mid-air soar. In the event you strike one thing once more after that second soar, you’ll glow once more and may do a 3rd soar, and so forth.
You’ll continuously mix this with Bō’s Pogo transfer to get much more airtime. In the event you press down and strike an object when you’re on the descent, you’ll not solely instantly bounce up and get some peak, however you’ll reset your soar capability too, enabling you to carry out one other mid-air leap proper afterward.
And so long as there are objects or monsters within the atmosphere to hit, you possibly can maintain Bumping and Pogoing principally indefinitely, staying airborne for so long as you possibly can sustain the rhythm. It turns into a bit recreation of its personal.
Ultimately, you’ll uncover different traversal talents that allow you to sprint or smash downward forcefully by means of the air. We hope that as you play and get aware of your talents, you’ll begin to see alternatives all through the sport for all of this stuff to work collectively—enemy spawns throughout a boss battle, seemingly incidental environmental objects, curious platform placement—and get into a extremely rewarding groove.
Hassle brewing
These talents aren’t only for motion; they energy your fight expertise, too. One crucial part of the motion is the mystic Tea Kettle you get early on from Asahi, a rabbit tentaihana (a sprite-like being) who performs a central position in your total journey.
While you strike enemies along with your Equinox Workers, together with while you Bump or Pogo, you’ll siphon their power into the kettle and brew up some tea. You’ll be able to then use that tea in quite a lot of methods, similar to restoring your well being (if you could find a second of peace) or summoning one of many Daruma Dolls you’ve collected, which unleash among the recreation’s strongest assaults.
The Daruma Dolls particularly love scorching tea. The warmer your tea is while you summon a Daruma, the extra devastating their assault might be. And the way in which you warmth up your tea kettle is, you most likely guessed it, by staying airborne in fight so long as you possibly can. So, we actually tried to create a system the place airborne agility and fight prowess are intertwined.
We designed Bō’s areas and encounters round this concept. Seemingly uncrossable chasms with an archipelago of enemies who function your path. Boss battles the place you’re bouncing larger and better off little foes, constructing momentum to blast the boss’s head with a potent Daruma Doll strike. All with the purpose of constructing it pretty easy to study, however difficult and rewarding to grasp.
The boiling level
Whereas we drew numerous inspiration from 2D action-exploration video games, the world and gameplay additionally draw so much from Japanese folklore and traditions. The character of Bō is partly impressed by tales of Princess Kaguya and Momotaro. Lots of the yokai and monsters that Bō battles signify our personal artistic twists on traditional folktales, like your confrontation with the large Hashihime who guards the bridge in Bō’s world. Bō powers up the Daruma Dolls by discovering ink to attract further eyes, which in our actual world is linked to reaching targets and luck. Bō also can accumulate and equip a variety of Omamori, amulets that grant you bonuses to customise your gameplay.
There’s much more so that you can discover and lots of extra methods to seek out your stream for your self, ready in Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus. We hope you’ll test it out when the sport arrives on PlayStation 5 on July 17.
