Tag: Knack

Mark Cerny played a helping hand in designing some of the most respected and beloved platformers of the mid-90s, like Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon. Due to the limitations of those consoles, however, they couldn’t provide a co-op experience. That’s all going to change with Cerny’s PS4 launch game – Knack.

Sony announced today that Knack, like so many other character driven platformers today, will have a co-op mode. Just like in those games, Knack will feature drop in and drop out co-op so your friends and family can join in the action without interrupting it. That’s where the similarities end though.

The co-op characters in Knack – known as Robo Knack – plays a lot like the regular Knack. He is a little different though in that he can donate parts to and heal Knack with a press of the triangle button. In a sense, Robo Knack will be the character that the more experienced gamer will play as to help the less experienced player.

Here’s a trailer showing the co-op mode in action:

Aside from the co-op mode, Sony also revealed a social element to Knack’s collect-a-thon gameplay. At certain points in the game, the players will find secret chests containing items which can be combined to create gadgets. Upon finding one of these chests, the player can either take the item that was found in the chest, or the item that a friend found in the same chest. Here’s the full explanation:

Finding these secret rooms and collecting gadget parts and Relics is fun, but it’s even more fun when you have friends playing the game as well. Whenever you find a secret chest, you’ll be able to either take the item you found in the chest, or choose any item a friend found in that same room the last time they played. This can really come in handy when you’re trying to complete those gadgets or unlock that last Knack variant. Your gadget collection even carries over to new playthroughs, so you can work on getting all eight handy gadgets.

Finally, Sony shared more details regarding that Knack mobile game that we reported on yesterday. In short, it’s a simple match-three puzzle game for iOS that allows players to win items that can be transferred over to the console game. While the game is currently only available for iOS, Sony confirmed in the blog post that an Android version is coming soon.

[Image: PlayStation Blog]

It’s no secret that I love Mark Cerny – the PS4 system architect and game design director on Knack. He has a voice that could soothe giants, and his knowledge of games and how they’re made is vast. Every interview with the guy is a delight, and Sony has delivered yet again with a new video of Cerny answering questions from fans.

As you would expect, a majority of the questions are in regards to the PS4 hardware or Knack. He reiterates that the PS4 was designed to be powerful, but easy to develop for. He also shared that the developers who offered the most criticisms about the PS3 were the most helpful when building the PS4.

As for Knack, he says that the game was designed to be like the platformers that defined the PSone and PS2, like Crash Bandicoot or Ratchet & Clank. Coincidentally, Cerny worked on both games so he has the experience necessary to recreate that experience on the PS4.

Despite most of the questions being hardware focused, he did answer some general questions. He revealed that his favorite genre is the JRPG, but he’s also checking out some indie games on the PSN. He also shared that he’s about three hours into The Last Of Us. I’m sure many of us hope he’ll share his thoughts on the ending once he finishes it.

Mark Cerny’s brainchild – Knack – will launch alongside the PS4 on November 15.

[Image: sonyplaystation/YouTube]

Mark Cerny, the lead system architect on the PS4, is one of the most delightful people in the industry. That’s almost entirely due to the passion he displays for the PlayStation platform and gaming as a whole whenever he talks.

In this latest interview with Game Informer, Cerny retreads his work on the PS4 from the original concept to where they are today. It’s not all old info, however, as he reveals the reason behind Sony going with an 8-core CPU. In short, most developers said they worked best with quad or octa-core CPUs.

He also discusses his role on Knack as a creative director. He drew upon his years of working with Naughty Dog and Insomniac to make what he calls a Crash Bandicoot for the 21st century. He doesn’t see Knack becoming a mascot for the PS4, however, as he feels that we’re past the point where consoles had to sell themselves on the strength of any one mascot.

On a final note, he touches upon the current indie scene and how it differs from the indie games in the 80s. He finds that indie games today are a labor of love whereas independent developers in the 80s were given three months to push out a game. He also says that he would love to work with a smaller team on a small PS4 project once Knack is wrapped up.

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[h/t: Gamasutra]

Mark Cerny is the most delightful hardware/software engineer that you’ll ever meet. His talk about his experiences as the PS4’s lead system architect sounds like it would be boring, but it’s actually a fascinating look into the mind of a gamer that just wants to make things more fun.

Well, Sony put out a new Conversations with Creators video with Cerny about PS4 launch title Knack. It’s a new platformer being made by Sony Japan Studios, and it already looks to be one of the strongest launch titles of the bunch. That could be due to Cerny having a lot of experience in developing strong platformers as he helped out Insomniac Games and Naughty Dog on games like Ratchet and Clank, and Crash Bandicoot. He even served as a producer on Sonic The Hedgehog 2.

In the video, Cerny says that he would love for people playing Knack to have the same feeling they had when playing Crash Bandicoot for the first time on the original PlayStation. To that end, the game will evoke a challenge similar to older platformers on the harder difficulty settings, but it can also be enjoyed by those new to games on the easier difficulties.

All in all, it’s sounding like Knack is the kind of game that I love to see accompany a console launch. It has a strong personality and a familiar, yet distinctive, gameplay that’s seemingly only possible on new hardware. Kameo: Elements of Power gave me that kind of feeling at the Xbox 360’s launch, and I can only hope that Knack does the same for the PS4.

[Image: PlayStation/YouTube]