The Indie Scene | Zen Studios

As you may have guessed by their appearance in this feature, Zen is entirely independent, which allows them to be as unique and creative as they like. As well as being one of the few developers in Central Europe to have full licences to develop for Playstation 2, Playstation Portable, Xbox and, last but certainly not least, Nintendo DS, Zen also create technologies for use in game creation. One such piece of technology is the PX Engine, an engine for the DS that is somewhat of an industry leader. The benefits of it above other engines? It is capable of high-end real-time rendering with superior texture mapping, lighting and sound, sophisticated physics and a host of other features, and it can, handily, be actively used throughout all areas of DS game development, from start to finish. With the PX Engine, Zen’s aim is to get the most of the Nintendo DS and push the handheld to previously unthought-of limits.

Rather than focusing all their attention on one territory, Zen use design resources from America as well as Europe, in order to give their titles world-class support. Ideas and graphics might come from both sides of the Pacific, but all main development takes place in the Central European headquarters. The previously mentioned 18 team members are not all highly experienced, though - while there are some, including the founders of the studio, they mix with a wealth of younger talents who make up for their relative lack of experience with pure enthusiasm and willing to learn. By blending these two groups, it is presumably hoped that qualities will rub off in either direction, to enrich the studio and its developments.

As an independent developer who state that they harbour competitive rates for development, can Zen really be the company of choice for publishers to work with? Hopefully, with aims of creating unique titles for universal audiences that will transform gamers’ ideals and expectations of the gaming world, the answer points towards ‘yes’.

The artists formerly known as Rubik Interactive’s first foray into the world of Nintendo DS is Flipper Critters, a pinball game set in the world of animals (as you may or may not have guessed by the combination of words in the title). Don’t let the pinball moniker pigeonhole the game in your mind though, as Zen want to create a title that transcends all typicality currently in the pinball genre. While some of the basics are there, the plan is to throw out some typical conventions of the genre and replace it with something totally different.

Convention number one out of the window: no longer are you a faceless character controlling a metal ball. Instead, the game features the surprisingly tiger-like Gawain ‘Tiger’ Chesterton and his sidekick Bubba ‘Monkey’ McManus - a big animal sticker for you if you manage to guess his species. These aren’t the only ‘people’ you’ll be coming into contact with either, with others including an agoraphobic sorceress who coops herself up in her castle, bulls that insist upon trying to wear lace lingerie (interesting...) and a balloon salesman who has a tendency to get depressed - which might have something to do with the porcupine-like form he takes. Why does a pinball game need characters in it, though, much less more than one?

This brings us around to another convention-breaker nicely. Rather than just sticking to a pinball table, the game encourages players to undertake missions set by the various creatures that inhabit the land. These missions take the form of arcade-style mini-games that make use of all the features of the DS (though not all at the same time), including the traditional button controls, the touch screen and the microphone. Access to the games is through different parts of the pinball tables, and different tables can be seamlessly reached within tables, too. These missions must be accomplished to continue on throughout the game, but rather than being totally rigid and restrictive, the games can be completed in any order that the player deems, meaning that the play experience can vary between each go and the overall order and feeling of the game will always be different for each gamer. It is this quality that hopes to move the game towards being universal, so that each player can pick it up and get a different feeling from it to the next - while it not might be as free as the likes of, say, Electroplankton in variation between each play, it’s certainly on the way to creating a unique title that will have gamers discussing what’s going on in their game.