N+ DEVS METANET SHOW FIRST ROBOTOLOGY DEMO

In production for what feels like ages (since early 2006, though, to be fair, they only promised it would be finished “sometime before the end of time”), Metanet — the Toronto indie studio behind the widely ported ninja platformer N — have just officially revealed the first actual in-progress look at their second game, Robotology.

Well, kind of. The game’s protracted development has been the result of an extended research into its underlying physics model, which the studio has blogged about at mind-sizzling length in the past. Like N, physics will play a deeply rooted part in the game, but, unlike N, the physics involved here — Metanet have called the game a cross between the unpredictable gravity of Mario Galaxy, fully jointed and self-ambulating giants ala Shadow of the Colossus and the wire swinging of obscure import hook-grappler Umihara Kawase — are necessarily more complex.

What you see above may not be what you want to see, given the three namechecks above, but it is proof that the game — some three years on — is moving in the [morphing turnable] direction they want it to be, and is incrementally closer to seeing the light of day.