ARVORE is most well known in VR circles for its retro series Pixel Ripped. The team has revealed a very different style of game for its next project, PAWBALL. Combining soccer – or football, depending on where you live – with cats, PAWBALL is set to offer a very energetic experience.
Still in early development, details like platform support and a release window are a long way off. What the team has shared is some gameplay footage and how this idea came about. Ana Ribeiro – the original creator of Pixel Ripped – shared a short video clip of her playing PAWBALL on Meta Quest 2. As you can see, it combines elements from games like Gorilla Tag and Space Ball, where you use your arms to physically move around the pitch. You then punch the ball – a pufferfish by the look of it – to try and score goals.
PAWBALL origins
However, this wasn’t quite how PAWBALL originally began. In fact, the team started with dinosaurs. ARVORE had wanted to build something competitive, so: “after some brainstorming by our teams, the idea of a soccer match with dinosaurs initially came up,” said community manager Freddy Pavão on Discord. “We wanted to make players play soccer with those micro arms and huge heads so we could abuse the physics of the whole thing. But eventually, after some good amount of back-and-forth conversations, the evolution happened and the giant lizards became cute little kittens”
“With the change to our feline friends, the main idea for the game (and all the prototypes that came after) got a whole new range of possibilities,” Pavão continues. “The game is still about soccer, but now using verticality, as the cats can jump super high, climb, hit the ball in aerial attacks, and so on. It is by far our game with the most possibilities for gameplay diversity, as players can do basically whatever they want to hit the ball and score a goal.”
ARVORE plans on releasing PAWBALL as a free-to-play (F2P) game eventually. Before then, the studio will release test builds of the game for users to try. So you’ll need to join their Discord server if you want to take part. Early access is currently slated to begin in June.
Like the look of PAWBALL? Think cats and soccer go well together? Let us know in the comments.