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Capybara Games, developer of PSN darling Critter Crunch, is working on Heartbeat for WiiWare. The title is the company's entry for the 2010 Independent Games Festival and is described as being about the "experience of growing sounds." Heartbeat's game description explains it has players starting with an "ambient whisper" and growing the "music" there, which we remember being the idea behind Electroplankton -- an idea that may or may not have manifested depending on how one feels.

IGN describes the game as involving the use of the Wiimote to control a "heart-shaped cursor," which triggers sounds, activates objects and keeps the beat going. There's no word on a release date. We contacted Capybara for a video of Heartbeat, so we could wrap our eyes around the game's concept, but were told the game isn't "together" or "stylish" enough to show at the moment. The dev hopes to share something in a couple months.

"They support the living sh*t out of it, and they support it really well," Capybara's Nathan Vella told Gamasutra when talking about Sony's free PhyreEngine. "Any of the parts that are inside Phyre that we didn't know how to fix or we had an issue with, they would fix it for us in a day. Overall, I think Sony's doing a lot of right stuff for small independent developers."

Vella's praise echoes similar sentiments from other PSN developers, like Shatter's Mario Wynands. In addition to free development tools, Vella noted other benefits by partnering with Sony. Critter Crunch was promoted heavily on the PlayStation Network via the PlayStation.Blog, Pulse and banners on the PlayStation Store. Most importantly, though, Sony "treated us like we weren't a small nobody developer from Toronto."

In spite of Sony's best intentions, though, Vella notes that sales aren't quite where they should be on the PSN. "It's still a fraction of what XBLA is doing, and we know that," he admitted. "But that's okay for us because they let us do what we wanted to do." Apparently what they want to do now is work on a zombie game.

Indie developers are having a little fun at the expense of trademark troll Tim Langdell. As TouchArcade reports, several devs have created mock games to get under the skin of the abusive IP bugaboo, who pops up like a rabid prairie dog when a company uses the word "edge" in a video game. In response to Langdell's attack on Killer Edge Racing, several indie devs have jokingly renamed their games. Fez is now Fedge and Critter Crunch has vomited out Critter Credge.

In their posts on the name changes, the developers use the word "edge" as many times as is edgeingly possible to edge in there with edginess. Inspired by Langdell, we are currently discussing with our attorneys if we can trademark the words "war," "warfare," ... oh wait, "Mario," yes! That's where the infringement bucks really are.

	0 Platinum 1 Gold 2 Silver 11 Bronze	Difficulty: Difficult Online Trophies? Yes Time to Completion: 20 hours DLC Trophies? No
	View Trophy List	Read More About the Game

The Ontario Media Development Corporation has accidentally exposed Zombie Tactics, a new game by Critter Crunch developer Capybara Games. We contacted the developer, who told us that Zombie Tactics is merely the "working title" at the moment. Capy President Nathan Vella tells Joystiq that it's likely way too early to talk about the game, but mentions, "In short, it's a tactics-heavy strategy-meets-survival game that revolves around an ever-growing -- and/or shrinking -- group of characters as they try to escape the city. Right now we haven't even committed to actually making the game – just iterating on a functional prototype to see if the idea has legs. If it does, awesome!"

As for platforms, Vella continued, "We're developing the prototype on consoles, but it's so early on, it's impossible to tell if it will even make it to a platform. As a studio, we're huge fans of PSN, XBLA, iPhone, DS... so really we feel like our concepts could end up one of many places. Ideally though, we'd like to see it as a downloadable game, but it's important to reiterate that, as it stands right now, the game is ridiculously early in the prototyping phase, so Capy isn't sure where, when or even if this will have a platform."

Asked whether the company will still develop for PSN following Critter Crunch's launch, Vella told us Capy still has more in the pipe for PSN. The company would also like to bring Critter Crunch to other platforms, mentioning PC and noting that fans have asked for a PSP Minis version. Anything that stops Biggs from crying is good in our book.

Update: Capy sent over some "very early art" of the game.

[Via Gamerbytes]

Critter Crunch sales haven't been all sunshine and rainbow vomit for developer Capybara Games. The Examiner took note of a post on NeoGAF in which a representative for the developer said the team was "very sad" because the game is "not selling so hot." He went on to say that next week's demo will hopefully spur more folks to gobble down the adorably disturbing puzzler.

The $7 price for entry easily makes Critter Crunch one of the best values on the PSN, so what went wrong? The entire situation reminds us of a panel we attended at the Game Developers Conference this year, where several developers of downloadable titles noted that sales for digitally distributed titles drop off dramatically during the holiday season. Braid's Jonathan Blow noted that "March or June or August" are the release windows that downloadable game developers should hope for.

Honestly, if Capybara wants to push some sales, it'll send us a picture of its little guy crying (no, sobbing) and we'll use it in a post to break people's hearts and guilt them into buying the game.

Update: It'll break your heart.

[Via Destructoid]

There are many, many titles on the PSN that have amazing art atop a relatively simple gameplay concept. Capybara's Critter Crunch is no exception. However, we'd advocate it may deserve a purchase for its premise alone: Adorable fuzzball eats cutesy creatures and then vomits them up in a rainbow into another even-more-darling puff's mouth. How can you not support the mind that came up with that? Check out the full PSN update after the break.

We speak a lot about the adorable properties of Capybara's roly-poly puzzle title, Critter Crunch, but we think they truly come out in the title's latest trailer, seen above. It's easy for developers to create fuzzy creatures that make our hearts go a-flutter -- it's considerably more difficult to make those creatures remain precisely that cute while they vomit into each other's mouths. In fact, it almost makes them cuter. We know it defies logic, but you're going to have to trust us on this one.

The adorable art style of Capybara Games' PSN puzzle title Critter Crunch can't be contained within the boundaries of its own franchise. A recent post on the developers' blog shows off a number of doodles from the game's character artist, Nick "Qiqo" Stephan. These illustrations peer through temporal doorways into other worlds, where Biggs, the game's protagonist, was dressed in the skin of characters from other PlayStation titles. (Okay, it's less creepy than we just made it sound.)

Check out all 15 of these concepts after the jump -- we guarantee that you've never such a lovable Kratos. (Sackboy, eat your heart out.)

Okay seriously, how can you not be completely in love with Critter Crunch? Just look at it -- look at it! The upcoming PlayStation Network game features some of the most adorable sprites around, all drawn and animated by one clearly god-like man.

These new screens highlight some new features, like the Anvil and "Poison" Mushroom; co-op mode and powerups; cutscenes; the world map; and most importantly, barfing. As former Joystiq writer Jem Alexander would say, "it's a-MAY-zing!"

You've got an iPhone, right? If so you may have stumbled across this game already on the App Store. Critter Crunch is a puzzle game by Canadian developer Capybara Games which is being ported to the PlayStation Network for release this summer. This is a lot more than a simple port, however, as the game will be completely reworked to take advantage of the PS3's high definition output and online features.

Critter Crunch is a puzzle game in which you play as the adorable Biggs -- as seen winking in the logo above -- who is constantly being attacked by critters from above. His method of keeping the ever-encroaching hoard at bay is simple: feed them to each other. Small critters feed medium critters which feed large critters and, once full, they pop and take with them any similar colored critters that sit adjacent to them. It's kind of gruesome in an adorable sort of way.

This basic mechanic has survived the transition onto the PS3, but it's brought friends. The PSN version will have many more levels, critters, modes and features. As those who have seen the trailer will no doubt be happy to hear, the PSN version will feature nature documentary style animated cutscenes, all completed (as the in-game animations are) by a single animator.