Last week PixelJunk Eden was released on the PS3 Playstation Store. It’s the third game in the PixelJunk series by Q Games. As the title makes it abundantly clear I think the visual art and graphic design in this game are exceptional. I highly recommend at least playing the free demo.
The picture above is a wallpaper made from many of the plants that the player can jump on. Gameplay wise it’s a platformer. The player touches pollen that is floating around to open up new seeds. Once opened the seeds turn into the plants you see above which then allows the player to climb higher. The player’s sole goal is to collect “spectra” which are special pick-ups you can find in each stage. The game gets progressively more difficult as you play further with the introduction of enemies and different types of surfaces that affect the player’s movement. But enough about the gameplay – it’s a straightforward and fun platformer; recommended.
The art and music, which matches the visual aesthetic quite well, was developed by a Japanese artist who goes by the nickname Baiyon. Q Games has began to make it a habit of working with up and coming artists. They also worked with a group of really creative musicians for the PixelJunk Monsters soundtrack. It’s not unusual for game companies to work with outsourced artists for concept art and music. That said, in the case of Eden I think it is a bit special in that the same person developed both the artistic and musical styles.
I have to applaud Q Games and SCEA as well for taking a chance on creating something that is quite different than the average commercial game. It feels like a well polished “indie” game… which is basically what it is. The PixelJunk series must be selling since they continue to be made which is a great sign for the future of smaller budget and higher risk games.
It’s rare that a game catches my eye these days by trying something new (in this case, art style rather than gameplay). I believe this lack of innovation is not just economic pressures from the market and publishers either. Developers who have been in the industry for a while and have played many games can begin to become close minded. I’m not a hypocrite nor am I trying to preach – I’m saying this because I suffer from it as well. It’s so natural sometimes when thinking about a game design problem to reach into your previous experience of hundreds of completed games to borrow a solution that has been tried and tested. That’s one of the reasons I’ve personally been trying to learn more about artistic fields outside of game development – something I recommend for all developers to broaden their perspectives.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with building better ideas from ideas that already exist. As successful companies such as Blizzard have proven implementation is almost always significantly more important than the idea itself. PixelJunk Eden is well implemented technically and artistically which is what makes it work. I hope that we will continue to see more creative risks like this taken as the game market changes and digital distribution continues its inevitable rise.
