Planet of the Eyes is making its way to PlayStation 4, so we got in touch with Cococucumber to talk about the game’s development for Sony’s console.
PS4Blog: Welcome to PS4Blog.net. Let’s get started! Would you please introduce yourself to our readers and tell them a bit about your work?
Hello, I’m Vanessa Chia, co-founder, and Art Director of Cococucumber, an independent game studio in Toronto, Canada. We’ve been busy working on getting Planet of the Eyes out on consoles and also on Riverbond, a charming voxel local co-op action-adventure game.
PS4: What can you tell us about Planet of the Eyes for PlayStation 4?
Bringing Planet of the Eyes to PS4 has been a bit of a journey for us – as it’s our first foray into making a game for consoles and as a small indie team, the challenge is really in time and committing to a vision of what we want to achieve.
With Planet of the Eyes, we wanted to capture the sense of discovery from the early 50s / 60s space age in a heartfelt story about a little robot going on a journey in a dangerous world. We think it’s truly meant to be played with a controller on a TV, so we’re excited to see it finally coming out on PS4 in a smooth 60fps.
PS4B: How long did it take to develop the game? What changes had to be made along the way?
Production on Planet of the Eyes took around 18 months with a core team of two and the help of many other talented people for the narrative, soundtrack, and testing. After the initial release on PC, we were able to bring on more people to work on the console version and made some improvements such as additional polish and general bug fixes to the game.
In a way, we really benefited from doing a PC release first, and we think that this helped us in getting the game closer to what we had envisioned for the console release. Overall, we’ve been incredibly grateful for the patience of our fans who have waited a while for the game to come out on consoles.
PSB4: Could you please share with our readers some information on the PS4 trophies for Planet of the Eyes?
Since Planet of the Eyes is out on PC, there are some guides out there for how to get the trophies, but in general, we’ve not designed them to be too difficult to find. Some hints to start off: exploration is key and death can be rewarding. And dance – there’s a trophy for making your robot dance!
PS4B: Now that the game has been completed, how goes work on Riverbond?
Development on Riverbond is going well, and we’re really excited about how it’s coming along. Players have really responded to it, especially since it looks and feels extremely tactile, like LEGO that explodes into tiny cubes when you destroy objects or beat up cute enemies.
Riverbond also has a strong arcade feel to it while allowing players the freedom to swap weapons and upgrade as you go.
The connecting thread between Planet of the Eyes and Riverbond is the sense of adventure or journey, but this time you can play on a couch, with friends. Though our first reveal trailer for Riverbond shows more of a single player experience, the game is also really fun in local co-op.
There’s something charming about watching groups of friends or kids playing together and bonding over the experience. We recently showcased the game at E3 and a delightful indie festival called BitSummit in Japan, and was happy to see that players and kids really love it.
PS4B: And now it is time for us to go. Would you like to add anything else?
Thanks for your time. We have a bunch of exciting announcements coming up for Riverbond leading up to its release in 2018 – follow us for updates on Facebook and Twitter – and tell your friends!
