Doesn't run on Vita?! Rage crash!

Velocity is currently not approved to run on Vita in the US.

Which is a shame, because it actually plays the best on Vita; and we know this because it runs fine for people over here in Europe.

SCEA (PlayStation USA) are having issues getting a bunch of PSP games approved for Vita, and Velocity is unfortunately one of those.

We’re on the priority list apparently, but we don’t have an ETA. We’ll post back when it’s sorted. You’ll be able to play on PSP and PS3 in the meantime.

Sorry we can’t be of any more use. If you join our Facebook Page or follow us on Twitter, you’ll get up to date info, and be the first to know when the game does run on Vita.

There’s nothing we can do but wait

Thanks for your patience,

James

Leaving Orbital Space Station

After nearly two years of effort, our ambitious teleportation shoot ‘em-up is finally available to play on PS Vita, PS3 and PSP!

We’ve poured our creative philosophy into every aspect of Velocity’s production; from the groundbreaking ideas and addictive gameplay to the elegant learning curve and awesome soundtrack; it is a game that we are extremely proud to have in our portfolio.

Quarp Jet To The Rescue

So what now?

That’s entirely up to you folks – the gamers that we listened to for years complaining about a lack of new ideas in the games industry; a lack of hardcore but portable-friendly titles for your handheld devices; a lack of care and attention to detail. A lack of effort.

Hopefully we’ve been able to give you folks something that you’ll enjoy so much that you’ll tell your friends, and the word will spread, and we’ll be able to do it again!

Thanks to all the journalists for their wonderful reviews, all the kind words of support from friends and peers, and all the Retweets and Facebook likes from our fans.

It all matters

After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing with SCEE QA and ESRB ratings, we finally have some solid release dates:

US (SCEA)

May 1st (PlayStation Plus)
May 15th (General Release)

EU (SCEE)

May 2nd (PlayStation Plus)
May 16th (General Release)

Lucky folks that won a copy of Velocity through one of our competitions will receive their codes on May 1st or May 2nd depending on their respective territories.

We are sorry to announce that due to complications in Sony QA, and issues with our ESRB rating, we missed our PS+ slot, and the next slot available is in May

We will issue a press release once the release date is set in stone.

Apologies everyone, we know how annoying it is to be kept waiting!

We will update asap.

NB: Please note this is our fault – oversights in the code and oversights in the material rated by ESRB, so blame us, not the big boys

We were excited to receive a visit from Platform 32, who interviewed the team about Velocity, check it out:

We’ve spent a long time refining the gameplay in Velocity. All levels were built over a period of three months from December 2011 to February 2012, after over a year of tuning the controls.

As a result, Velocity is easy to pick up and have fun with immediately, and it also supports an incredible level of skill if a player wants to learn to master the game, as you can see below:

A few months back we asked our loyal Twitter Followers, Facebook Likies and PSPminis.com Readers to name the alien race in our new game, Velocity.

Now that the game has been announced on PS Blog, we can reveal our selections!

The Zetachron, a formidable alien race from the far side of the Toron Nebula

As you can see above, the winning suggestion was the first to arrive, courtesy of Mat Redvers, who will receive a free code for Velocity on release! Congrats Mat!

Which leaves three runner-up prizes, with a free copy of the game as well:

Insidians - from Ofaliss @PSPminis.com

Vianubis – from sniper721 @PSPminis.com

MechaMoths – from Simplebob here in the comments

Congratulations folks, please get in touch with us via the contact page to confirm your email address and identity.

Hope you enjoy Velocity as much as we have!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, go and bag yourself the image above, as well as some more cool Velocity Wallpapers courtesy of Push Square.

Once upon a time I wrote this short tip on how to get yourself in the door of a cool company without experience. You can see how crusty our logo used to be

Since then I can honestly say I’ve never been on the receiving end of anything that I would call exemplary along those lines – until about two months ago.

This arrived in Kirsty’s mail box – no email body, just this attachment:

Super Intern

We laughed our heads off, and got Richard in for an informal interview.

Turns out he was a bit handy with his pencils, so we offered him a bit of work experience on Velocity – we were short on time and needed to get some extra cutscenes done. Rich was delighted, and he turned around some ‘pretty good’ pieces. Then I gave him some feedback, and he did them again. And again. And again, each time getting better and better. Awesome we thought, this guy is one of us.

Then our contract artist went AWOL – literally left us hanging with no word of why, with three weeks until submission of Velocity to Sony. Oh ****!

Rich stepped in, and took over. Rich is now responsible for every single piece of cut scene art in the game except one. He’s worked around the clock to help us out, and the art looks great!

Of course we are now going to pay him for his work, and we’ll also find some way to reward him for the awesome contribution he’s made to our game. He literally saved us when we’d run out of time.

That’s what going the extra mile means, and that’s what he showed in his initial contact – he made the effort to do something out of the ordinary, which got us interested, and now he’s credited on his first game.

Put the time in, go the extra mile.

From a press release sent out today:

FuturLab today revealed the much anticipated follow up to their critically acclaimed debut Coconut Dodge.

‘Velocity’, which was named as part of a competition for the PlayStation community, is a scrolling shooter unlike any other which features an innovative teleport mechanic, allowing players to jump around the screen and return to previous areas of a level to solve time sensitive logic puzzles.

That’s all very exciting, but the FuturLab team stumbled on a fascinating character when announcing the winners of the competition, a chap going by the name of Spidermann.

From James Marsden, FuturLab’s Managing Director:

“When we selected the winning entry for the competition, we all thought the winner’s name was a joke, and wondered if the email address would turn out to be fake, so we were delighted to discover that Spidermann is definitely real, and that his alias is not Peter Parker.”

It turns out that Spider N. Mann suffered a severe case of identity theft back in 2004, and after a “lightning bolt carrying an atom of genius” hit him, he decided to quickly change his name:

“Having been a fan of the character for the majority of my life I decided upon taking the surname Mann, using my nickname ‘Spider’ as my first name, and added an “N” as a middle name so that when people asked what it meant I could say “The ‘N’ stands for ‘nothing.’” – Spider N. Mann

Spidermann, who FuturLab now refer to as ‘Spidey’, will get his hands on Velocity for free along with three other lucky PlayStation gamers when the game is released in March!

The official Velocity website is now live, as is the Facebook page where artwork and screenshots can be seen, as well as back story.

http://www.velocitygame.co.uk
http://www.facebook.com/VelocityGame

From a press release sent out today:

FuturLab today revealed the much anticipated follow up to their critically acclaimed debut Coconut Dodge.

‘Velocity’ is a scrolling shooter unlike any other which features an innovative teleport mechanic, allowing players to jump around the screen and return to previous areas of a level to solve time sensitive logic puzzles.

From James Marsden, FuturLab’s Managing Director:
“We’ve achieved some notable innovations within the shoot ‘em-up genre, to the point where Velocity not only lives up to fond memories of shoot ‘em-up classics, but goes several steps further by introducing something completely new and exciting – teleportation! It also features a phenomenal soundtrack from Joris de Man, winner of an Ivor Novello award for his work on the Killzone series for PS3.”

Robin Jubber, Supreme Technical Commander added:
“Speaking as a handsome man, I can confirm this is just the sort of astonishing programming masterpiece I like to play, when I’m winding down after a nine hour coital marathon. With its fluid 60fps gameplay and remarkable hidden features, it very much reminds me of me. As an extra bonus, space is black, so you can always see your face in the Vita’s shiny screen. Modest yet beautiful men like me will find this game as polished as my Superbike. I like to watch my name in the credits while marveling at the sharpness of the font. Buy Velocity now, and earn my manly respect!”

The official Velocity website is now live, as is the Facebook page where artwork and screenshots can be viewed, as well as back story.

http://www.velocitygame.co.uk
http://www.facebook.com/VelocityGame