Schrödinger’s Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark Coming to Steam September 23 Trailer Games Team Blog Press A dark, dichromatic, dead-&-alive feline superhero tasked with disentangling the anthropomorphic chaos of the Particle Zoo, in a fast-&-furious action-adventure platformer-puzzler-punch-up of subatomic proportions. It’s not as complicated as it sounds. (Well, maybe.) That’s right: Schrödinger’s Cat! Action Hero of the Quantum Polyverse. Yes, seriously. We’ve been waiting so long for someone to make that happen, we finally decided to do it ourselves. Raiders of the Lost Quark is a wacky action-adventure-platformer-puzzler that blazes irreverently through the wild weirdness of the Standard Model, combining lateral-thinking multi-solution logic with Fists-of-Feynman kickass combat action. Pfft, who’d want to play that? Ha ha! Who WOULDN’T, I think you mean! Coming to STEAM September 23 Italic Pig has teamed up with the illustrious Team 17 to release Lost Quark on Steam for PC, Mac & Linux… followed closely by whatever self-respecting developer environments will allow people like us into their communities. Animal-Friendly Atomic Action Adventure Ah, the Particle Zoo! It’s an interdimensional subatomic holiday destination where patrons young and old can observe anthropomorphised elementary particles of the Standard Model roaming free in their natural environments. It’s a good day out for the whole family. Except for today, that is. Today? Not a good day at all. A catastrophic event has caused all enclosures to open and all the primitive particles to escape! What used to be a cheery theme-park style environment is now utter hellish chaos! The Zoo is put on lockdown, and the emergency services are called in to sort out a major problem. Those emergency services: Schrödinger’s Cat, of course. SC needs to get the Particle Zoo back in order quick sharp, but thankfully he’s not alone; by collecting and commanding an army of cuddly quarks, he can combine and create useful bits of temporary matter (bridges, ladders, shields, grenades, etc) to combat and subdue the quarkivorous leptons, kleptomaniacal gluons and cantankerous bosons now running amok. And then, of course, there’s that unexplained catastrophic event I mentioned earlier. That gets explained with epic vengeance. Packed with Awesomeness ·ö· 7 frustrating environments! ·ö· 9 overly chatty and annoying characters! ·ö· 11 Particle-Based Baddies! ·ö· 14 Quark Combos! ·ö· Nonsensical task-based gameplay! ·ö· A satisfying climax that only clever people will be able to enjoy properly! Coming soon: Box mode! For those who like straight up gameplay rather than hogwash like story and character development, Box Mode is a time attack based on Erwin Schrödinger’s infamous experiment. You’re a cat; you’re in a box. Use your quirky pals to blow the lid off your tiny prison before the time runs out to guarantee your life (although it should be said that if you can’t make it out in time, there’s still a 50/50 chance you’ll survive. Just saying: quantum physics is a funny thing). Let’s go back to those Quarks for a second Any quantum physicist worth his salt knows that quarks make protons & neutrons, which form the core of atoms, which can be mashed together into any chemical element, which can be made into anything from helium balloons to Golden Gate Bridges to leaf blowers to hazelnut spread. So for the sake of argument, you can make pretty much anything if you’ve got enough Quarks. (Ah ah ah, zip it you quantum physicists: I was talking to everybody else. Save your arguments to the end.) There are six main types of Quarks. The first four – Up, Down, Top and Bottom – are extremely common. They’re like tribbles. You can’t spit without hitting one in the eye. Each quark has its own unique properties. Without going into too much detail here: Ups help with the heavy lifting, Downs can dig to the root of the problem, Tops can keep the heavy rain off, and Bottoms provide a firm foundation. Here’s the other thing about Quarks: like buses and bad luck, they always come in threes. It takes three Quarks to make a bit of temporary matter, and it’s your job to figure out what temporary matter will help you out of a jam. Three Ups will lift you off the ground by the tail, where three Downs will drill a hole through a particularly annoying barricade. Okay, what about two Ups and a Down, you say? A flying drill! Otherwise known as a Missile. Quarks are your gold, your troops, your collectibles and your ammunition. Grab as many as you can, then mash them together into combos creatively and indiscriminately for a multitude of solutions to any puzzle. Plus, they’re cute. Hang on, didn’t you say there were six quarks? That I did. The fifth quark is the Charm Quark. He’s very rare and very handy to have around when you get into a pickle. Then there’s the Strange Quark. We… don’t like to talk about her very much. Let’s move on. Not just another platformer The worst thing about platformers is their lack of replayability, am I right? You play it, you solve it, and you move on. At its core, Schrödinger’s Cat has platformer elements – running, jumping, grabbing the walls and getting on top of things for no real reason – but we’re aiming to go a bit more sandbox… See, first there’s the Promenade. That’s the bit of the Zoo where the patrons would usually wander around, safe from harm, but now it’s full of vicious creatures (for more on these creatures you’ll be up against, visit the blog). The Promenade is a series of randomly assembled puzzle environments which focus not only on dexterous reflexes but also thorough and meticulous exploration. The more you explore, the more Quarks you find. The more Quarks you find, the more you’re able to explore. Then there’s the Enclosures. These are also randomly assembled, but from more of a directional sack of diabolical woes. What’s more, the three enclosures each have a different problem-solving focus; it’s all about overcoming obstacles, finding difficult solutions to simple problems, or just trying to get out alive. So, every time you play the game, the layout, puzzles and challenges are slightly different. Ergo: a replayable platformer! It IS real! If you’d like to read about the moment I came up with the replayable platformer idea, it’s here. I’d like to say that it happened the same way Doc Brown came up with the flux capacitor, but I didn’t hit my head on the sink or anything. Did we happen to mention it’s Available on STEAM right NOW! Er, sorry, but… who exactly is this Schrödinger’s Cat anyway? What? Seriously? The cat in the box? The cornerstone of quantum physics? Never heard of it?! You’re kidding me! Look, hey, I’m sure we’ll cover it on the blog at some point, but in the meantime there’s always Wikipedia. Pay special attention to the key phrase “contradiction with common sense”, which is sort of a mission statement of ours. Latest From Our Blog Schrödinger’s Cat is alive! It’s out! It’s real! It’s live! Schrödinger’s Cat just went live on Steam! I probably should have had a blog announcement or something ready, but oh well! Too busy. You understand. Here’s all the announcement you’re gonna get out of... 24 hours Just 24 hours away from launching this massive boson of a game. How do I feel? Strangely calm. It’s hard to know what to say at this stage. The build is in, it’s up, it can’t be changed (well, of... Twitter Feed Nice! Just came back from lunch and somebody left this award here! Thanks @StickTwiddlers! #indiedev @LostQuark t.co/H8X4jiJ8pf about 1 hour ago reply retweet favorite A rare picture of @ivsoftware and @MouldyToof. I don't see any shanks anywhere, do you? (@Team17Ltd) t.co/r867svkpMj about 3 hours ago reply retweet favorite Italic Pig is a kickass games company based loosely in the UK & Ireland, comprised of collective cloud of creative, talented and hilarious people. We live, work and eat by the phrase: "Nobody ever got anywhere by thinking medium." Follow us @italicpig Contact us info@italicpig.com © Italic Pig 2013-2014.