While waiting to speak with Q-Games Dylan Cuthbert and PixelJunk Eden artist Baiyon, we burned through a new level from the PixelJunk Eden Encore expansion, enjoying the new "mirror mode" gameplay.
The new addition to the third PixelJunk brand game feels like a natural fit, both comfortable and innovative, not unlike the trio of downloadable games we've seen Q-Games deliver on the PlayStation Network. The newest Encore, which adds five new gardens and two new gameplay modes—the other being a "zero G" modifier—was in response to Eden's "general popularity."
We asked Cuthbert about the success of Eden and what we should expect from the next entries, tentatively titled PixelJunk 4 and PixelJunk Dungeons.
Cuthbert said that the PixelJunk series was originally "meant to be quite esoteric."
"We weren't expecting much in the way of sales," Cuthbert noted. "But sales have definitely surpassed our expectations." Perhaps so much so that Eden visual artist and musician Baiyon is now "more in-demand." Expect to hear more about Baiyon's other game endeavors in the near future, but don't expect them to be PixelJunk related.
After PixelJunk Eden Encore ships, we may finally hear more about the fourth game in the series that strives for a balance of old-school gameplay with modern day, "true HD" visuals running at 60 frames per second.
That fourth game won't be the previously hinted PixelJunk Dungeons that Cuthbert name-dropped at GDC last year.
It will, however, tap the PlayStation 3 hardware more so than any other previous game, with PixelJunk 4 taking advantage of the Cell's multi-SPU architecture. Expect to see Q-Games start teasing the game closer to release, a strategy different from the pre-release campaign of Eden.
"This time, we want to have more of a gap," Cuthbert said of the game's reveal. He wants PixelJunk fans to hold off from setting their expectations about what 4 will be.
As for Dungeons, we might know even less about the game than we thought we did. That's because the Q-Games founder says the game might not be called PixelJunk Dungeons at all. And it's not necessarily a dungeon crawler, re-imagined in the PixelJunk style.
"We want to make sure we can make a game that's different from what people expect," he said.