Hello Drugs of the precision platform! I am Juhana, the creative director of Bionic Bay – My most ambitious project to date. Bionic Bay is a puzzle precision platform taking place in an old bio-mechanical world, hand-made pixel by pixel to create a high fidelity atmospheric environment.
Bionic Bay started as a fortuitous meeting between me (Mureena) and Psychoflow Studio, on a post Reddit presenting their exchange mechanic. We quickly started to collaborate, merging their technical expertise with my experience in level design and the artistic direction of previous titles such as Badland 1 and 2.
Create a bionic bay: a pixel at a time
The humble exchange mechanic remains a central gameplay mechanic, but Bionic Bay has experienced incredible growth since our start. We knew very early on that the biggest obstacle would be to create environments that offered a challenge without becoming frustrating. In addition, this balanced challenge would be hosted in complex and hand-made pixel-art environments, taking a long time to create.
We have discussed these development challenges with a simple two -part solution. First, I would focus on design and level art, and Psychoflow would work on the technical solution to make sure that our mechanisms look great and good.
Perhaps more importantly, we have agreed that we all jump regularly and that we play regularly at each level, doing it as a player would. We have brought this to the whole way to liberation, which helped us ensure a great balance and that we understand the journey of the players through Bionic Bay.
We all like a precision platform, but we also wanted to make sure that Bionic Bay offers a unique and valid experience, and this comes down to the main game mechanics.
It started with the exchange function that first gathered Mureena and Psychoflow – allowing players to change space with objects at each level. This was quickly joined by more tools, each undergoing regular game tests:
- Chronolag, our time expansion technology that allows players to slow down time for a short period. In addition to allowing players to navigate rapid development zones, it is also a great way to get speed increases to help you get faster times in our ghost data racing mode.
- Power Fist, offering the possibility of launching objects in the environment. In addition to cleaning space in solo history, used in conjunction with Chronolag has led to an imaginative puzzle resolution to speed up your trip
- Manipulation of gravity, allowing players to fold the very forces of reality. This can help erase the paths or find new paths. It is however important to be careful, because this new gravitational direction will also affect loose objects at the level which can lead to … the involuntary cessation of all signs of life.
Of course, players will be initiated into these mechanisms as you progress in the bio-mechanical world of Bionic Bay. Some you can use together, and players will often have to combine these tools (as well as rapid reflection and precise controls) in order to overcome the challenges you meet.
In addition to using them in our narrative solo adventure, players can also find our dedicated online challenge mode with Bionic Bay Online. Bionic Bay Online allows players to compete for the fastest time on a course, in the race against the ghosts of data from other players – something that should speak to those of us who run on PlayStation in the late 90s and in the early 2000s.
To compete in Bionic Bay online, players will have to use all the tools at your disposal and find creative solutions to take first place in the ranking. We will also add special post-launch content for Bionic Bay, including dedicated time challenge levels to allow you to present your skills to the world.
A legendary PlayStation collaboration
We are delighted to announce that Bionic Bay also has a collaboration with one of our biggest fans – the legend of PlayStation Shuhei Yoshida. We will implement a special level just for Shu in the online challenge mode after the launch of Bionic Bay on April 17. If you participate and beat the Shu score, you can even unlock our Shu skin, allowing you to customize the appearance of your scientist for our online rankings.
In addition to Shu's skin, we also bring you a luxury edition of Bionic Bay – with our classic monster skin pack. This includes eight costumes inspired by vintage horror (one of my favorite genres), with an extraterrestrial, a werewolf and more. The Classic Monster Pack allows players to release a scary little charm and really sink your fangs in online rankings.
The bio-mechanical world of Bionic Bay opens on PlayStation 5 this Thursday, April 17 and is available for the list of wishes now!
