“Airhead preserves the Metroidvania style’s concentrate on exploration however replaces fight with puzzle fixing, in an journey about duty and the bond that varieties between a Physique and the Head it is going to do something to avoid wasting.”
In a world the place air is the important thing supply of energy, the physique in Airhead should preserve the head-like organism alive whereas making an attempt to reunite it with its unique air supply. Airhead seems to be to supply no small quantity of problem, so we reached out to the Airhead workforce to be taught extra, with developer Octato’s co-founder and sport director Andreas Bødker and senior producer of writer HandyGames’ Reinhard Döpfer having been variety sufficient to reply all our questions!
What’s Airhead?
Airhead is a Metroidvania-style journey with puzzle and platforming parts. It’s in growth from Octato and is printed by HandyGames.
When does Airhead launch?
We don’t but have a selected launch date for Airhead, which is presently nonetheless set to launch in 2022. We’ll preserve you up to date!
What’s it about?
The “Airhead” in query is made up of two beings: Physique and Head. Physique witnessed an assault which ripped Head other than its air supply, which it must survive. Physique takes Head onto his personal shoulders and units out to reunite Head with its air supply.
“It’s an vital a part of the story, and we’ve mentioned this rather a lot, if Physique ought to actually have a backstory,” Bødker explains. “I had an concept that the extra empty a shell you place the participant into, the extra they may put themselves into that character, however it turned out that you simply wanted a little bit of a narrative to narrate to the character you’re taking part in… so we now have a narrative, however it’s half of what is going to be informed through the sport… it’s one of many weirder secrets and techniques of the sport. There was one other factor that I preferred rather a lot,” Bødker continues. “It was the concept that the meta sport of you controlling the Physique was additionally taking place whereas the Physique is getting a Head, and he’s controlling that; I believed that was form of neat — that the story was mirrored by the meta story of you taking part in the character.”
One concept that Airhead explores is the lengths you would possibly go to for an additional being. “I actually felt that I needed to make one thing about what sort of selections you’ll make…how shut you’re to a different being; how far you’ll go to avoid wasting them,” Bødker explains. “It’s a really apparent relationship if you end up taking part in a physique and also you see a head mendacity about — you’re feeling like they’re linked, however it’s nonetheless unusual, and I like the concept about that.”
How does Airhead play?
Head will slowly deflate as you set out in your mission, and also you’ll have to make use of air tanks to maintain it going. We’ll be exploring, fixing puzzles, studying new skills, and rising the bond between Physique and Head.
“Since you are utilizing the Head for a lot of issues to start with whenever you decide up the Head; it’s form of annoying since you want your arms to carry onto the Head, so grabbing different stuff, and climbing ledges and stuff — you may’t try this,” Bødker explains. “However then, as you traverse the world and discover new methods to make use of Head, you begin to see how nice it’s to be along with Head, however you continue to have that mission to avoid wasting Head, as a result of he’ll die in the event you simply depart him, so it’s good to discover that different piece of the Head that places air into it, and that’s the principle mission… however whenever you get to the tip, it’s going to be a bit unhappy that it’s important to put Head down, as a result of it’s been enjoyable to have the Head and do all of the stuff you might do with that.”
As we be taught extra about within the subsequent part of our interview, air is the principle energy supply on the planet of Airhead. “Air is such an vital a part of the world — all the skills you get shall be based mostly on Head and on air,” Bødker explains. “There are additionally completely different air sorts, so we now have as an example helium, so you may float up whenever you get that air sort into Head, however there may also be gear which you can placed on Head and you then get additional skills. There shall be gear that may make you work together higher with the world, like controlling the machines, but additionally issues for traversal” — as an example, you may deflate Head to double leap.
There may also be traversal puzzles to face, “however most of them are very a lot built-in with the story,” Bødker says. “The entire script we made for this sport was truly descriptions of all of the puzzles, which was form of bizarre to some who we despatched the script to; they mentioned, ‘however that is only a record of puzzles,’ however it was essential for us that the gameplay is definitely what’s telling the story. Most of the puzzles would require you to grasp the world round you,” he continues, “and learn the way the creatures — what they need, and the way the machines work, and stuff like that. And generally it is going to even be a puzzle itself to determine the objective of a puzzle… and that may generally make it fairly laborious. Normally when you’ve a great puzzle, it’s arrange so you recognize all of your items and what the objective is, so in that sense it was fairly of venture to make a sport like this, the place generally you’re not fully sure of what’s occurring. However the entire essence of an exploration puzzle sport — I felt it was vital to have these form of additional twists to the puzzles. It’s been excellent to work with HandyGames and their QA workforce to make sure that it doesn’t get irritating.”
Döpfer provides that we will make use of a hints system, saying, “you may fully play with none hints in the event you like, so that you merely deactivate it, however there’s additionally a touch system that may realise after some time, ‘okay, he’s not getting it,’ so the sport will begin that will help you and offer you hints on easy methods to clear up it, as a result of a few of them are actually robust.” Bødker explains that the workforce “need as many individuals to love the sport as attainable… and in the event you clear up a puzzle the second you see it, it is going to lose its level, and it’ll simply grow to be tedious work. However it is going to additionally lose its level in the event you surrender. That threshold is completely different from individual to individual, so we tried to do the programs that may make it enjoyable for everybody.”
So, one key mechanic would be the time stress of operating out of air between air tanks. “The factor about serving to folks… or in the event you do one thing the place you simply really feel like, ‘that is the appropriate factor to do,’ however you don’t take into consideration the complexity of the world round you… when you have a time restrict, in the event you really feel, ‘okay, I want to do that, I have to make this choice straight away,’ I believed that was form of the entire preliminary thought of the theme we now have on this sport,” Bødker says. “So the entire time stress simply helps that theme… and likewise, when you have that pressure, and also you don’t know, ‘oh, can I get it to the air provide in time,’ and also you do it simply earlier than you die, and the display screen begins to fade out, it’s simply going to be that ‘sure, I solved that,’ feeling.” Apparently, whenever you keep nonetheless in Airhead, you don’t lose air. Döpfer elaborates on this, saying, “whenever you stand nonetheless, you don’t lose air. That’s the vital factor. In any other case, it will be actually robust; that’s simply too demanding. So whenever you stand nonetheless to check out the entire state of affairs, then you don’t lose air. However the second you progress, it begins… the checkpoints are usually not so far-off, even in the event you die, you’ll not begin originally of the entire stage, so it’s excellent across the nook.”
Döpfer provides that we’ll have “some type of abstract within the sport of all of the creatures that you simply’ve met throughout your journey, they usually all have some data to share with you, that additionally helps to disclose the entire world and story behind this.” There may also be a library the place we will be taught extra about all the pieces. “The world, it’s an deserted place, however it’s not fully deserted; there are nonetheless creatures dwelling there, and a few of them look actually bizarre, however in a great way, and you’ll work together with them,” Döpfer explains. “Some can decide you up and convey you to a different platform, issues like that. You possibly can improve your Head so you may take extra air with you; you’ll have a particular skill like cost, even a drill head, the place you may actually get by means of the partitions.”
What’s the world like?
The world of Airhead is filled with unusual know-how and odd creatures. “I feel it’s actually vital to provide the characters a setting the place they’ve dilemmas, they usually want a battle, and that battle ought to come from the world round them,” Bødker begins. “We created this world the place compressed air is the principle energy supply, as an alternative of what we now have, oil, in our world. And that air comes from organisms which have been harvested, and this space has been stripped clear of those, and the ecosystem of this space has been destroyed, and left by the individuals who have harvested the organisms. So all of the creatures and machines that you simply meet within the sport are going to die as a result of this space not has air. And each creature you meet may also have some form of dependency on air,” he continues. “In order that’s the world that we’ve constructed for them to satisfy different characters and work together with the previous machines and buildings that the folks have left behind.”
Any information on the Airhead achievements?
We don’t but have the Airhead achievements, however Bødker gave us an thought of Octato’s design course of. “The sport is the medium to inform this story,” Bødker says, talking of the connection between Head and Physique, “and the achievements are a part of the good instruments that it’s important to inform an excellent story, so clearly the achievements additionally had to assist that story. So we tried to design them very a lot to type of be a part of that and combine them within the story,” Bødker continues, “however they need to additionally offer you a sense of progress whenever you get them — they usually may even give a bit little bit of perception into the world and what’s vital, and the way vital what you’re doing is. Once you get an achievement, you recognize, ‘oh, this have to be vital,’ and the outline of that achievement can perhaps provide help to perceive the world even higher, so we use them as a storytelling system.” Bødker intriguingly provides that the workforce “even managed to provide you with a few achievements that may stretch the entire expertise…”
As for Bødker’s splendid achievement record: “for me, an excellent achievement record additionally has that relevance to the themes; I additionally assume additional challenges, maintaining monitor of your progress, is one thing that I take advantage of once I play video games myself, particularly for worlds the place you don’t actually know, ‘okay, have I skilled all of it.’ It’s a reasonably good software to make use of whenever you’re taking part in a sport to know, ‘okay, now I’ve acquired the entire achievements, now I can go to mattress!”
So, out of all this, what’s Bødker hoping gamers will take away from the sport? “I hope that each one the ideas and feelings that me and the remainder of the workforce have put into this expertise, will shine by means of,” he says. “Throughout the entire growth of this sport, it’s additionally been fairly emotional to me, to type of get to do that sport that I’ve needed to do for thus lengthy, and at last get the possibility to do it, and it’s simply been nice for me, but additionally robust, and I hope all that may shine by means of. I imagine it is going to.” To Döpfer, “it’s vital that it comes cross-platform; it means you may play it on Xbox, or on PlayStation, or on Nintendo, or on PC — that’s an vital factor for us. I’m actually trying ahead to how folks will react to this fashion of the sport, this extra diminished artwork fashion that we used for it.”
So, what do you consider Airhead? Tell us within the feedback!
