seen from Netherlands
seen from Philippines
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Uganda
seen from South Africa
seen from India
seen from Japan
seen from India
seen from China
seen from Austria
seen from Philippines
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from Ireland
seen from Canada
seen from China
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
Do you know Paper Beast? (Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation VR, PlayStation 5, PlayStation VR2, 2020)
Yes, I have played it
Yes, I have watched someone else play it
I have only heard of it
No, I don't know this game
Paper Beast is pupy!
For @klayfruit
Indie Game Spotlight: Paper Beast
This week’s Indie Game Spotlight is for those who are ready to escape into a different world. Paper Beast is a dreamlike odyssey through a wild, simulated ecosystem in virtual reality. Discover adventure mode in which you will connect with exotic creatures and solve intricate puzzles, or choose sandbox mode and let your imagination guide you through interactions with a stunningly immersive and stylized world.
We chatted with creative director and game designer Eric Chahi about where the idea came from, creatures we can expect to meet, and more.
Where did the idea to combine data and paper into a game come from?
Our first idea was to create a game aesthetically focused on wildlife—the way animals move, their diversity of motion, and how they adapt their walking stride to the terrain. So we prototyped algorithms to have artificial life walking and recovering their equilibrium without any animator input—only through parameters. The goal was to have creatures respond and react fluently to any physical perturbation. That’s the core feature.
The way to visually represent our wildlife was still unclear early on. We opted for stylized, origami-like creatures made of paper, preferring to avoid realistic representation because of the uncanny valley—the closer you get to real, the more it becomes unbelievable.
I had another aesthetic floating in the back of my mind—wild data falling into the web-like Niagara Falls. Why not merge these two concepts—artificial wildlife and data? Because it is made from trees, paper is the perfect link between life and data. It is very symbolic and fun in terms of gameplay and universe. All ideas crystallized very quickly once this concept of paper connecting data and life was born.
Is there anything in particular that inspired the world?
Many things. The world is quite a hybrid, on the edge of artificial and real. Often, it is a transposition of natural stuff to data, and vice versa.
Inspiration for the wide-open landscape and its peaceful feeling came from the Sahara Desert. The hypnotic motion of storms has influenced some key moments of the game, while some creatures evoke the life and shapes of sea coral. Punk rock music, too! Our soundtrack lends intensity to some of the creatures.
What are some of the creatures we can expect to meet?
You will meet, for example, a kind of herbivore that loves to eat paper. Social insects can build sand piles by rolling a sandball. A sort of turtle drops sand to create a dam, which stops the water flow. There are also predators, and a creature named PaperStrip with fur made of paper that leaves trailers in the sand. Each of them has originality specific to Paper Beast, including their visual design and behavior—how they act in this world. Beyond their design, their impact on gameplay was always in mind.
The player will discover these creatures in the course of the adventure and can continue to experiment more deeply within the dedicated sandbox mode. All creatures interact with and influence each other, especially because many can shape the terrain. This creates many opportunities for players because the landscape is simulated—sand and water flow, there is erosion. It's like clay, formed by the player and the creatures' actions.
What do you hope we take away from the game?
I hope every player will feel the sensation of having lived in this world and shared a real journey with these beasts. At the same time, we think players will experience the world as surreal, exotic, joyful, and mysterious. I hope you feel this universe directly in your gut, without the words to describe it.
With sandbox mode, I hope people will enjoy seeing the terrain evolve in real-time through animal action, and that players will feel encouraged to try many interesting combinations and find crazy, emergent behavior.
Ready to jump right in? Paper Beast is available now for PlayStation VR via PlayStation Store.
In about 10 minutes I'll be playing Paper Beast, a game where you explore a strange and beautiful world of paper mache (probably misspelled that) creatures! I watched a playthrough of the demo on Alpha Beta Gamer's YouTube channel a couple months back and was immediately hooked, but this will be my first time experiencing the real thing! Come watch!
Exploring A Bizzare And Beautiful Paper World (blind)
Roly Porter & TsuShiMaMiRe - Paper Beast | G4F Records | 2020 | White
There’s a new Paper Beast patch that allows Voraxo to eat predators.
Also, voraxo has been referred to as the “voraxoplant” solidifying that it is in fact a plant, and making my observation that he is the plant serpent equivalent that much more accurate.
Yesterday we got the last State of Play for this year, in it featured the games you see the pictures attached to this post. It was a good last episode of State of Play for this year, it also featured a short message from the father of PlayStation, Ken Kutaragi, the announcement of Resident Evil 3 Remake was an amazing reveal, they masked the reveal as a trailer for Project Resistance’s “campaign”. Ghost of Tsushima had a minute long teaser and had a ‘To be Continued’ ending which to watch the full trailer we’ll need to watch The Game Awards to see the whole trailer.
PAPER BEAST (2019) Live an epic adventure. Discover a fully interactive, simulated living world. Interact with the environment in an immersive, playful universe.
