Hi there! To finish! After so many years of hard work, we have our release date: Wander will be available to the public on July 19, 2022! And as you may have seen during today’s State of Play, we’re delighted to confirm that Stray will also be available to PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium* members at that time.
It really means everything to our small, but so dedicated team, and we can’t wait to see people explore this world we’ve put so much heart and passion into.
The vision for this game – originally named “HK Project” – began seven years ago by Koola and Viv, the co-founders of BlueTwelve Studio. It’s truly amazing to see that it’s now a full-fledged game and will be experienced and hopefully enjoyed by so many players around the world very soon. We have developed and learned so many things along the way. Of all the unexpected challenges and discoveries we found, creating an interactive chat was definitely the trickiest!
Trying to control a cat – whether in real life or while creating a video game – is definitely no picnic! From the start, we knew that our featured character’s controls and animations had to be absolutely perfect in order to properly convey that exhilarating feeling of skill and movement. So Miko, our cat host, took the challenge to heart and spent a considerable amount of time researching images and video references. The good and somewhat surprising thing we found is this: it really does seem like the entire internet was invented for the sole purpose of hosting tons of cute cat photos and videos! So we ended up having a lot of really good material to work with for references.
Plus, about 80% of the team are cat owners (or belong to a cat depending on how you look at it) and we even have two cats in the studio who work with us most days! They’re called Oscar and Jun, and — while they’re not the most productive employees to be honest — they definitely add a lot of cheer to the studio.
Seeing them interact with objects around the office (even sometimes shutting down our computers at the worst possible time!) gave us a lot of inspiration for the different interactions with cats that are possible throughout the game. And of course, they have all been reviewed and approved by Jun and Oscar themselves!
But all of this effort to bring the cat to life has been done so that people can fully enjoy exploring as a cat in the game. release trailer which is this village built around a huge reservoir. It’s a good example of how the cat’s exceptional abilities allow us to have more freedom in our level design, especially vertically to explore the ups and downs of the world.
When we decided to add the backpack and the little drone called B-12 that follows the cat everywhere, it opened up a whole new layer of ways for us to interact and learn about the environment. In particular, the ability to speak with the characters of the world was really important for conveying some fundamental points about the environment or learning a bit about the backstory of many of its inhabitants.
Our journey as a small team creating our very first game is finally reaching its end goal, and we’re all looking forward to seeing how players will react as they explore this unique world and engage with its colorful inhabitants on July 19. from the whole team including Jun and Oscar: Have fun everyone!
*Availability of Classics, Game Trials, and Game Catalog varies over time and plan. See https://www.playstation.com/Plus for more details and updates on PS Plus deals. PlayStation Plus is an ongoing subscription subject to a recurring subscription fee taken automatically (at then-current PS Store price) at the frequency you choose at time of purchase until cancelled. Conditions apply: play.st/psplus-usageterms
