3BlackDot is unveiling its MisBits, which is a multiplayer combat game set in a sandbox cartoon world. The PC title is entering closed beta testing now and should launch on Steam in 2020.
In the game, toys have taken over a house. Players will build their own combat gear in a multiplayer action-adventure world. It’s a sandbox environment where there are no rules. It’s sort of like happens when Toy Story-style characters are set loose in a world where they can go berserk.
It’s the first game from a new game studio in Los Angeles, founded by industry veterans from Ubisoft, Monte Cristo, Cliffhanger Products, Sproing, and Purple Lamp Studios. MisBits aims to be the next generation of sandbox games, where anything can happen.
The founders include former Machinima executives Angelo Pullen and Luke Stepleton, along with top-ranked YouTube gaming influencers Adam Montoya (SeaNanners), Tom Cassell (TheSyndicateProject) and, Evan Fong (VanossGaming).
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“Our mission is built on engaging communities, partnering and collaborating with all of our ambassadors and harnessing that creativity to develop entertainment properties that fuels communities around the world,” Abderrazzaq said. “Games are an intrinsic part of our lives and gaming therefore a natural extension of the entertainment platforms we offer and we are known for building connected communities.”
Toyin’ around
The setting for the world is a child’s home, where all of the child’s toys are there for you to command, customize and control, across a wide range of game modes including Deathmatch, KickBrawl, Toy Box, and Explore.
Above: You can mix and match heads and bodies in MisBits.
In Deathmatch, players earn points for knocking the heads off their foes’ bodies or destroying the heads that don’t have a body. With Kick Brawl, players duke it out in an arena as they try to score goals against the opposing team. And in Toy Hunter, players compete to keep control of a special “body” — the Red Piñata Chicken — for as long as they can.
3BlackDot’s game will have a zany gang of characters, thousands of collectible and customizable head and body combos, challenging game modes, and a game toolbox that will let players express themselves. It sounds like Skylanders: Swap Force, without the physical toys.
Once they take over the house, competitions like combat and racing decide who stays and who doesn’t. War-hardened toy heads of all shapes and sizes blaze into action by searching for bodies to battle with. Each body has unique abilities that can turn the tide of a fight.
Players can shapeshift their opponents into a frog with the Voodoo Shaman body or set explosive mines behind you with the Mechanical Spider. When the body doesn’t suit your current situation, you can quickly disconnect your head and roll around to find a body you like better.
Above: MisBits is a sandbox cartoon world.
Marwan Abderrazzaq, vice president of game development at 3BlackDot, said in email the team has worked hard on the sandbox, action, and building experiences.
In sandbox mode, he said, “Players will have access to a robust and intuitive toolset that will allow them to create any type of game experience they want. They can create a race game, a platform game, a puzzle game, an arena game, the possibilities are endless. In addition, if a player is playing something that someone else created they will have the ability to save the map and edit it making it their own.”
He added, “From day one we developed MisBits to be about creating and sharing and we feel great about where the game is and where players will take it.”
Above: MisBits has its version of combat soccer.
For inspiration he said the team recalled the “universal sense of our childhood where we would swap out different heads on different toys or even mix heads from various toy playsets, and we saw an opportunity to bring that element to this genre.”
That nostalgia factor combines with a “create your own genre” vibe for the game.
The team has 70 employees, and the studio is owned by Webedia. 3BlackDot is working on the game with developers Pow Wow Entertainment and Purple Lamp Studios.
