From the Press Release
Playing to the strengths of PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita, The Swapper is every bit as compelling on consoles as it was on PC The console release is also a cross-buy on PlayStation—allowing players to purchase once and play on all current PlayStation consoles without spending any extra cash.
The Swapper was originally developed by Finnish indie studio Facepalm Games and released to wide critical acclaim in 2011. An atmospheric indie puzzle game set in the furthest reaches of space, the game lets the player wield an experimental device that can clone the player character and swap control between the character and its “doppelganger.” Dropped into a world as mysterious as the workings of the device itself, The Swapper is about exploration and craft: All of the art was constructed using clay models and everyday materials—lending a truly unique look to the game.
“The Swapper was by far our most challenging port. It’s an interesting case because although the game plays as a 2D platformer, there’s actually a lot going on visually,” says Amanda Allen, Production Manager at Curve Studios. “Keeping the experience exactly the same is crucial when bringing a PC game to console systems. This doesn’t always mean creating an exact copy of the original, but it does mean determining what makes the game great and working with the hardware to preserve those features.”
The hardware muscle of the PlayStation 4 gave Curve an early start. “The PS4 is way more powerful than the PC requirements for the game, asserts Allen. “Thanks to that and the hard work of our very experienced tech team, we were able to hit 60 frames per second (fps) in a matter of days with unchanged textures and advanced visual effects. I’m proud of the fact that compared to the PC version, The Swapper on PS4 is as good if not better—because it’s running on the biggest screen in the house.”
PlayStation 3 & PlayStation Vita
The PS3 and Vita versions took significantly more work. Current gen consoles are still going strong after nearly eight years on sale. However, as PC hardware progressed incrementally, consoles remained in 2006. The result was that the PS3 version was plagued by large drops in frame rate, at least in the first months. While everyone knew that 60 fps on the PlayStation 3 wouldn’t be possible, the team wanted to make sure that the game ran at 30 fps and that the player had a consistent experience across the board.
The obvious solution was to remove some of the lights. However, since most lights are placed to subtly guide the player in a certain direction (or aid with puzzles), avoiding major changes was the only way forward. The solution was to go through key areas of the game and examine how every light was affecting speed, then plot a path that addressed performance while keeping the overall lighting setup seemingly intact.
“Working through the game like this is a great example of how we convert games to older hardware with the minimum impact on the experience,” concludes Allen, Curve Studios. “It’s tempting to just ‘turn off’ features when faced with lower frame rates, but going through the game in more detail and working out where the main performance bottlenecks are means we’ve ended up with a game running smoothly while still looking great.”
Controls: From Mouse + Keyboard to Analogue Sticks + Buttons
When converting games to console systems, Curve pays special attention to controls. Everybody knows this particular game industry truism: A bad control system can absolutely ruin a great game. Often, things that seem obvious don’t work out when you take mouse and keyboard controls and transfer them to a joystick.
Early on, the team noticed that some of the puzzles in The Swapper relied on accuracy that was harder to emulate with a controller. After playing through the game multiple times, it was obvious that the player’s attention was diverted from the puzzle solving to struggling with the analogue stick. “The joy of The Swapper is in working out solutions to puzzles, not fiddling with controls. Our community asked how we were going to make the console versions as ‘accurate as a mouse’—to which our standard reply was, ‘We won’t—because ultimately a mouse is a more precise tool,’” says Richie Turner, Tech Director at Curve Studios. “Our goal was to ensure that players would be immersed in the game world and story, rather than worrying about the controls.”
The studio then tried swapping controls around and experimented with different ways of creating and shooting clones using the controller and the Vita—but Curve ultimately solved this problem through a simple gameplay addition: Rather than focusing on the accuracy of the controller, the developers instead doubled the slow down of time while the player was creating a clone. By doing this, players have much more time to make a selection. They also added acceleration to the stick movement, letting players make precise movement without feeling out of control.
Transition Time
“The Swapper is our last big PlayStation 3 game,” says Rob Clarke, PR and Marketing Manager at Curve Digital. “The fact that PlayStation 4 take up has been massive doesn’t mean that we didn’t do our very best on PS3 and Vita; we invested tons of development time to eek out truly eye-opening visuals and performance from the hardware. I think players will be in awe of the current-gen versions of The Swapper—and elated by what we were able to achieve on PS4.”
Key Features
- Challenge: Fiendish puzzles with solutions that are only ever a few steps away
- Isolation: Classic sci-fi atmosphere inspired by the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris
- Wonder: A world built out of clay
- Mystery: Narrative design from Tom Jubert—the writer behind indie hits Penumbra and FTL: Faster Than Light
The Swapper has won numerous awards and accolades, including PAX 10, IndieCade and Indie Game Challenge.
To learn more, visit the official The Swapper website.