Very popular with owners of a virtual reality headset, Moss will be entitled to a sequel in the coming months. Quill will be back in Moss: Book IIand this week we have some information about the creation of the game thanks to a long post on the blog playstation.
Mike Felicedirector of engineering at Polyarchgoes back in detail to the design of the universe of Moss: Book II and what’s new that players will be able to discover when the game is released.
Let’s continue our adventure with Quill in Moss: Book II, the long-awaited sequel to Moss, which will soon give us a whole new dose of everything that made us fall in love with the original game: new challenges, new game mechanics, gigantic environments, epic clashes with enemies, and new opportunities to bond with our favorite little mouse. Everyone has their favorite passages in the game, but the magic of Moss is above all moments of credibility and a feeling of immersion that forge each of our experiences and our connection with this world.
As we prepare for the release of Moss: Book II, which arrives this spring, we wanted to give you a little insight into the considerations and work involved in creating that physical presence and encouraging those special bonds that are forged in the Moss world.
We soon discovered that Moss’ environments blew fans away. They often said that not only were they wonderfully designed, down to the smallest detail, but also that the feeling of size was on the level of Honey, I shrunk the kids, and that this unusual feeling of size only made heighten their curiosity. Familiar plants, animals and objects become whimsical when viewed from a lower vantage point.
In Moss: Book II, we can’t wait to bring that feeling of grandeur back to you with the addition of much larger areas to explore. Not only are the areas larger, emphasizing how small your mouse is, but it’s also allowed us to create gigantic multi-dimensional puzzles and platforming challenges that you’ll have to go through with Quill in the context of a single, much larger space. To traverse these areas more impressive than ever, we’ve implemented smooth and familiar camera transitions with no load times. Now you will be able to reach new vantage points of the area, inspect new barely visible details, uncover secrets, and solve puzzles without fear of jarring movements or discomfort.
Moss is rich with environments to explore and puzzles to solve. We knew you wanted more, so we focused on that in Moss: Book II. In fact, one of the feedback from players was that they wanted to be able to revisit areas of the game to explore more and look for collectibles they missed – so that’s what we did.
You will soon discover that all areas of Moss: Book II are connected to each other, which not only improves the spatial understanding of the universe, but also allows us to add tension with surprising scenarios when returning to a known place, which can cause real emotional lifts. Now, when you return to an area, you might see it from a whole new perspective with the camera, find it full of visual differences as you progress through the story, or be able to solve past mysteries with recently discovered tools. Whatever your motivations when you re-start your exploration, you will now discover how the world evolves with adventure.
Quill’s personality, expressive movements, and interactions with her make her the true star of the game, so we made sure to have even more moments that would deepen our bond with our tiny girlfriend. That means more cutscenes, interactions, reactions, and character-based story to color the world and further strengthen our relationship with her.
With all of these details built into the game, the team didn’t want transitions to ruin your sense of immersion. Nothing pulls you out of the moment quite like choppy animations or transitions that remind you that you’re only playing a game. Therefore, the team used a command script to create and integrate animations at the heart of the scenes. By chaining pre-existing gameplay logic with animations, the system produces smooth transitions between cutscenes, vignettes, and playable sequences, giving Quill more lifelike autonomy. Wait, is she real? It’s up to you to decide.
On the other hand, what we do know is that you are real! And we want to make sure you feel real in Moss, too. To do this, we trick our minds into thinking we’re really in Moss through the environments and how Quill responds to our presence. The controllers vibrate when we have enemies, the blocks glow when we approach them, and Quill watches us and reacts according to our gestures and what we touch. But to really get that immersive feel, we focused on the intricacies that might take us out of the experience by designing a system that gives our virtual bodies a physical presence that impacts the virtual world around us. Just like in real life, grass and ferns move when you run your hands through them, candle flames flicker when you walk past them, and water turns cloudy when you touch it.
In Moss: Book II, we wanted enemies to have the same physical presence as Quill and the player. Now plants and foliage move and can be cut by enemy attacks. Projectiles thrown by enemies also stir up nearby vegetation on detonation and generate a Doppler effect as they zoom past the hero in combat. We can’t tell you everything, but there are a lot of new items and reactions in this sequel, and we think they will surprise and delight you as you discover them interactively, which will improve the overall credibility. of the universe.
With this preview of Moss: Book II, we hope you enjoy the careful consideration and work that goes into bringing you the connections and sense of physical presence that we believe is what makes the world of Moss so special. With each passing day, we get closer to reuniting with Quill and discovering these new features. We look forward to hearing what you think.
Moss: Book I still doesn’t have a specific release date, but it is expected in the spring of 2022 on the Playstation-VR of sony. You can find the first part at €16.99 at Micromania.