HandCircus, the makers of Rolando for iPhone, were at Sony’s PlayStation Lounge at Game Developer’s Conference showing off Okabu, a PlayStation 3 puzzle game where you control a happy little cloud. While he (it?) is grinning, Tonari Village is in peril from the Doza. These industrious buggers are polluting the land and now it’s up to two clouds to restore the land.
Alone, the clouds can absorb water and spread it by raining to clean areas. Rain can also drown out some of the Doza’s machines. Pick up a villager to add another skill. Captain Monkfish was the first friend I made and he hopped on the cloud wearing a red headband. He’s a local fisherman who uses a plunger, which is a useful tool in Okabu. The plunger, after you make Captain Monkfish fire it, sticks to an object so you can drag it around. You can drag meat to distract enemies and bombs to blow up walls. So much for being 100% eco friendly, right? In one part of the stage, I shot the plunger at a raised wooden bridge and moved the cloud away from it to pull it down. The clouds can’t fly freely through levels, they kind of hover over land.
Even in single player, you always have two clouds. Pressing triangle switches between them. The other cloud can carry a different character like Picolo who is a pied piper of sorts. He can make villagers follow him and similar to Pikmin you can give them tasks like opening doors or planting vegetables. Okabu has four different piggybacking allies, but only two were available in the build at GDC.
HandCircus plan to release Okabu as a PlayStation Network download this summer.
