It's the culmination of a long journey that explores the limits of what a strategy game can be today. When we started working on the first prototype in the spring of 2020, it became clear to me that the project had great potential. This was the second game from our small indie studio and we wanted to add some elements cut from our first game, Hexagroove: Tactical DJ - a boarding system where we gradually introduce our gameplay mechanics, a rich story, colorful characters and a good experience. Now I'm looking at our candidates for release this summer and I'm looking forward to finding all these events on PlayStation.
When we started developing the framework for Backbeat, we wanted to take some of the principles of Hexagroove and introduce new ones as well. The game combines the spatial challenges of Sokoban-style gameplay with team-based stealth strategy management. Your task is to guide a group of four characters through certain isometric maps in a certain number of turns. How you spend these rounds and what paths you choose affects the amount of shared resources, which grow and decrease as you progress through the levels. Each character's timeline is controlled separately, but is interdependent. Opening doors and distracting enemies must be done at the expense of all four, otherwise it will prevent your team from successfully entering the stage.
Unlike Hexagroove's synth-based EDM soundtrack, Backbeat is based on a vast collection of live musical riffs, improvisations and solos hand-picked by Stockholm's finest funk masters. Changing directions on the map, interacting with doors, or destroying enemies with a powerful saxophone triggers unique soundtracks that play continuously after a level is completed. You will receive a very personal victory song for your unique decision. Every strum, pop, and keel sounded so good I had to find a way to make them shine brighter. After experimenting with the developer kit, I realized that the DualSense PlayStation 5 Wireless Controller was the perfect device to support our session musicians.
I started working with composer Pete Fraser to bring a strong musical element to the most interactive parts of Backbeat: when you crash into something, dodge an oncoming car, control the timing... I feel those brief moments of interaction when you press a button and immediately succeed (or failure), these moments decide everything. They are made to be fun... and musical! I decoded all the chords, chords, riffs, and drum parts sampled by the studio musicians and fed them into the authoring tools of the DualSense controller to create a tactile musical harmony that resonated with the sound effects used at similar points in the game, amplifying it. I then modulate the vibe with filter sets, amps and EQs to draw attention to the frequencies we associate with such effects. After these small tweaks, the DualSense controller will play a perfect chorus in time with the music and effects you're listening to on your hi-fi or headphones.
Good music is only part of the experience I want to offer at Backbeat. The game is set in 1995 as an homage to the great 32-bit arcade and console games I used to play in smoke-filled restaurant rooms and our family home. We did this not only for the low-poly retro style of our characters and environments, but also for the iconography and sound effects. Time manipulation is key to understanding the essence of Backbeat, so we turned to analog technology and incorporated visual tape skeuomorphism into the user interface and feedback. When you switch characters, the game will fast forward or rewind to where the active character arrived. This is due to the distortion of the audiovisual tape, and during game loops, the cassette samples contain the input to speed up and slow down with each interaction. This is another great place to use DualSense to enhance the aural and visual nostalgia we strive for at Backbeat. Hold down the round button and enjoy the soothing vibrations of the DualSense controller emanating directly from these knotty white spinning coils.
Today we bring you the full game coming soon to PlayStation. I hope you enjoy this brief journey through the early stages of Backbeat, and stay tuned as we move closer to our second studio title. Enjoy the event, you are part of it.
The Backbeat demo is available today for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.