Meet Lucky. Tomorrow he arrives for the first time on PlayStation 4 — as the intrepid hero of New Super Lucky’s Tale. We can’t wait to hear what players think of him and his game!
Lucky is a fox on a thrilling quest to save the Book of Ages, a magical artifact that opens doors to amazing worlds. Also looking for the book are Jinx and the Kitty Litter, a villainous gang of felines who want it for their own nefarious purposes. As you race to collect the book’s scattered pages before they do, you’ll learn some sweet moves to get around.
Let’s take a closer look at those moves. At Playful Studios, we grew up on some of the best platformer games of all time, and our favorites always featured a playable character who felt grounded with precise, tight controls, and a distinct set of moves that flowed well together. That’s exactly the experience we wanted for Lucky.
I have a few examples to better illustrate what I mean.
Here’s Lucky diving into his slide move, which he can do on hard surfaces. While sliding, players can steer him as he glides forward.
Lucky’s tail swipe, while primarily used as an offensive move against enemies, has a secondary benefit of extending his hang time while jumping.
And Lucky’s signature move, the burrow, allows him to tunnel freely under softer surfaces like grass or sand. Initiating this move while airborne will direct Lucky’s path toward the nearest enemy or jump pad.
Once you’re familiar with Lucky’s moveset, you can start to chain together combos. Soon enough, you’ll be taking on the terrain and its obstacles with an almost rhythm-like flow.
On top of that, we spent a significant amount of time iterating Lucky’s controls, perfecting the movement and platforming mechanics, and ensuring the camera control handled smoothly. The end result? Moving Lucky through his world is as satisfying as it is delightful.
Aside from movement, we put a lot of effort into the story, in creating memorable, funny characters, building colorful, vibrant environments, including multiple branching objectives in each level, and balancing out the action with a huge variety of fun things to do, such as puzzles, side-scrolling levels, boss fights, and a whole lot of mini-games.
New Super Lucky’s Tale is a game where you find something new around every corner. New moves to master, new characters to meet, whole new worlds to explore. As we were designing this game, we tried really hard to never have anything feel repetitive, and the end result is a game that’s packed full of delightful surprises and endless variety that make this such a beloved genre.
If you love platformers, don’t miss it!
