A splinter group composed of two veteran and former id Mobile / Method Solutions designers have left their respective studios’ roosts to form their own independent studio, Pixel and Texel. In an age-old and familiar press release, the studio announced its intentions to develop for everything under the sun, including mobile devices. It’s first game will actually be for our beloved platforms, and the first trailer is out now.
The game is called Fara. It’s an action RPG with a cool painterly look. Pixel and Texel are hailing it as something “totally unique to the platform,” which got me thinking about what hasn’t been done on iOS yet in the action-RPG genre. Let’s see. We’ve conjured, hammered, spell-casted, jumped on, thwacked, and exploded thousands and thousands of monsters. We’ve leveled up, we’ve upgraded, we’ve collected loot, and we’ve earned AP and BP. We’ve plodded in huge worlds, we’ve run around in narrow environments, we’ve saved the world, we’ve done fetch quests, we’ve given food to the poor, we’ve stolen, we’ve barred, we’ve solved puzzles, we’ve… well, we’ve done a lot of stuff. A unique twist is a welcome one.
“Early in the development process, we decided to integrate the Box 2D physics engine in our own game engine," the studio said. “This adds a lot of excitement and fun to the game world, as we are able to combine touch screen puzzles and action, such as using your finger to control a battering ram, a ballista with flaming arrows, or tilting the iPhone to roll the player around in a special bubble shield."
“Everything in Fara is dynamic, so moveable objects behave in a realistic manner. Even characters in the game have physics properties, so combat has a real feeling of weight and reaction."
Fara, according to Pixel and Texel, is coming into the late stages of development. The new studio reckons it’ll be out the door at some point later this fall. Summer is almost over, guys. Get ready for the video game storm.
