Hi everyone! I’m Phil Crifo, Game Director on Tchia. We just released a really cool gameplay trailer during the Game Awards and we’re excited to dive deeper into our Soul Jumping mechanic.
Soul Jumping allows Tchia to take control of animals and objects from around the world, opening up fun and emerging exploration and combat opportunities. In this blog, I’m going to explain a bit about how this mechanic evolved during development and how it works in the end game.
The basics of soul leap
Soul Jumping in Tchia is simple, you press a button and Tchia goes into a kind of trance – in this mode, time is slowed down considerably, allowing you to aim with precision. Items and animals that you can Soul Jump to are highlighted in green. Aim, press the Soul Jump button, Tchia is warped towards the target… You are in it!
Notice how the Tchia tiare flower transfers to the ears of the animals as you control them.
Tchia discovers her Soul Jumping abilities early in the game, but that doesn’t mean she has full control of her powers from the start. At first you will only be able to take control of things for a short period of time, but as you progress through the game you will discover special challenges which when completed will grant you an additional slot on your Soul Meter, allowing you to use your abilities more widely and start experimenting with complex combos.
Uses and capacities
Once you control an animal or item, you’ll notice that Tchia’s soul meter slowly drains depending on what you’re doing. This allows us to balance locomotion and abilities. For example, just rolling like a coconut will drain your meter very slowly, while going long distances with a bird will be a bit more taxing.
Animals have very different abilities. Some actions are unique, for example dogs are able to unearth buried treasures and crabs can destroy locks and chains with their crazy pliers. Other animals provide locomotion advantages such as flying or being able to swim very fast and deeply, very useful for exploration.
Animals are fun to control, but items can also be very useful. When Soul Jumping to any object, you can control it and move around using a fun physics-based movement system. From there you can perform a Soul Throw; this technique allows Tchia to aim and shoot the object at a target while moving away from it at the same time. This is very powerful when used with explosive or flammable objects for example.
In the wings
Soul Jumping is a core Tchia mechanic, and we’ve been fine-tuning it since the early days of the project concept, here’s a look at how it evolved throughout development.
At first, Tchia had a simple telekinesis ability. It was fun moving things around, but it wasn’t very dynamic and didn’t feel very cool.
We later fine-tuned the mechanics to give the player direct control while Tchia was stuck in place in a trance state. It was instantly more fun, but we realized it didn’t allow for dynamic combos or locomotion benefits, as you always return to Tchia’s original location when you didn’t own. It also left Tchia’s body vulnerable and didn’t allow for quick and evasive uses of the ability.
From there, the next natural step was to have Tchia warp into her target in a quick, quick motion, and jump out of it when dispossessed. This allows for some really cool and dynamic combos, encourages the use of the ability in evasive and offensive maneuvers, and is just super fun overall!
Soul Jump on our social feeds
Let us know what you think of our new gameplay trailer, and drop us a line if you’re excited about the game (we need some encouragement as we reach the final stages of production). Stay tuned for more in-depth dives into our sandbox mechanics in the near future, and follow us on Twitter for regular updates.
Hope this preview of our Soul Jumping mechanic has sparked some interest and made you want to explore the world of Tchia as a crab, bird, shark, or one of the 30+ playable animals and tons of fun. objects present in the game.
Tchia arrives in spring 2022 on Playstation 4 and Playstation 5. See you soon! 🦜🦀❤️
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