Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Q Entertainment is nothing if not prolific following up Lumines II, one of SPOnG’s PSP games of 2006, with Every Extend Extra on PSP next month and, just announced by publisher Atari, PSP and DS game Gunpey in March.
Thanks to Mizuguchi-san, it’s certainly a golden gaming era for those who, like us, get their kicks from highly addictive combinations of nice flashing colours, brain-melting, multi-tasking puzzles and hi-energy dance music.
SPOnG will be hooking up with Mizuguchi next week to quiz him on what exactly goes on in that strange old music/puzzle-obsessed brain of his. Fire some questions our way via the forum if there is anything in particular you would like us to ask the game development legend, and we’ll be sure to get answers. Well, for the better questions at least.
Gunpey is based on an original concept from Virtual Boy creator and all-round gaming legend Gunpei Yokoi, and is described in Atari’s press release as a, “fiercely addictive and visually vibrant music-based puzzle game."
It all sounds like classic Q Entertainment fare: shift columns of lines up and down to form a single long line connecting from one side of the screen to the other to explode rising blocks, stopping them reaching the top of the screen via the touch-screen input on the DS or the joypad on the PSP.
Gunpey features loads of different modes, including multiplayer and time attack. There are also features specific to each handheld format, so “PSP players can collect up to 40 vibrant ‘skins’ in the Challenge Mode, then ‘mix’ two Skins at the same time and become a GUNPEY DJ in the Double Skin Mode. Meanwhile, amongst the wealth of features available on the DS version, players can launch special attacks to temporarily disrupt their opponent’s game and use the Sound Sets and Patternizer to create their own unique musical compositions.”
Skin up with Gunpey this March!