As the debut title from Lumenox Games, Aaru’s Awakening, gets set to release as part of April’s free PS Plus games on PS3 and PS4, the game’s marketing director, Johann Ingi Gudjonsson, took to the PlayStation Blog to introduce the game and talk about some of the changes the team has implemented since the game released on Steam in late February.
Aaru’s Awakening features a gorgeous hand drawn art-style and is an ‘indie’ “fast-paced platformer that relies on the protagonists abilities to teleport and charge. To finish levels players must solve puzzles that require these abilities, often with split second decision in the rapid and deadly environment.”
Launching on Steam to mixed reviews, Grudjonsson assured the team has taken all the criticisms to heart, going back and tweaking the controls, and, most significantly, the difficulty. “While we always wanted to make a difficult game, it’s important to make sure that the game isn’t to blame when a player fails to progress, and to make them feel satisfied when they do. For this reason we had to carefully review each of the game’s puzzles with the help of game testers that had no experience with them. A lot of puzzles got minor tweaks, while the boss levels perhaps took the biggest transformation. We now feel that the game is a lot more fluid and easier to pick up – making it easy to learn, but difficult to master.”
Originally developed as a school project, the founders of Lumenox Games decided to give Aaru’s Awakening a full push following the gaming winning an award from the IGI Gamecreator competition. “No compromise… No regrets. This game is our passion,” Grudjonsson stated.
Aaru’s Awakening hits PlayStation platforms tomorrow for $14.99, or for free with PS Plus. To get a better idea of what we’re in store for, and just to see some more of the beautiful art, check out the game’s PC launch trailer below.