Curve, the studio behind some wonderfully inventive indie titles such as The Swapper, Thomas Was Alone and Lone Survivor, has announced that they will be publishing Nova 111, a rather interesting looking rougelike puzzler that boasts a unique hybrid of real-time and turn-based gameplay.
Nova 111, which, by the way, is pronounced as Nova One-Eleven, is the creation of one Eddie Lee, who heads his own studio, the groovy sounding Funktronic Labs. Lee has built up an impressive resume despite being a young developer, having, among other things, worked on the Pixeljunk series prior to founding Funktronic.
In a blog post on Curve’s site, they explain how Lee responded to their call for indie developers to hit them up for development and publishing opportunities, presenting them with an early build of Nova 111. The idea impressed them so much that they offered to take on publishing duties for the game:
We’d seen so many awesome games that week, covering just about every genre and art style, but Nova-111 really stood out to us. Right from that early version it was engaging, polished and very unique both in gameplay and design.
At any rate, Nova 111’s premise revolves around a crew of 111 scientists trapped on a ship which itself is trapped in a space vortex of some sort (hence the title, get it? Get it?) The player, commanding said ship, must navigate roughly 60 levels and engage in a combination of real time and turn based combat, while applying a steady flow of upgrades to the ship.
Details on how exactly the game plays are currently scant, but from what we can gather, the game operates largely in a turn-based manner, but both the player and enemies make their moves simultaneously. When the player makes a move, enemy combatants make their moves at the same time. This has the effect of presenting a dynamic, fluid experience, while retaining the tactical opportunities afforded by a turn-based system.
Curve intend to bring the game to the PC, Mac and Linux via Steam and PlayStation via the PS Store sometime next year, with the latter being a cross-buy title, so anyone who purchases it for the PlayStation 4 will automatically have it for the Vita, and vice versa. More information on Nova 111 is sure to follow in the coming months.