Little Deviants Introduces The Joy Of NGP's Rear Touch Pad

While many of the first games announced for Sony's new NGP device are handheld versions of beloved PlayStation franchises -- such as Uncharted, Killzone, and Resistance -- the publisher was pushing at least one original IP: a strange game called Little Deviants that showcases the system's unique touch capabilities.

When I first heard the rumors of Sony's PSP successor having a touch pad located on the back of the system, the idea struck me as strange and not necessarily intuitive. Sony has wisely positioned Little Deviants as evidence to help skeptics such as myself.

In this cartoonish game, players must move cute, round, orange creatures (known as deviants) by altering the landscape that they are resting on. This is done naturally enough by pushing on the rear touch pad in the area equivalent to the part of the screen you want to alter. Press in the center of the touch pad, and a hill will pop up in the center of the screen. Scroll your finger down on the rear touch pad, and the hill will follow, pushing away any deviants in its path and causing them to roll around the environment. Quickly tap on any spot on the rear pad, and that area of the game world will shake, causing nearby deviants to jump.

The bit that I played of Little Deviants was essentially a tech demo -- a small, enclosed area that let me play around with the unique controls rather than forcing any objectives on me. By rolling the deviants along a certain path, they could collect stars. If I pushed them onto a special blue strip of ground, they were shot forward at high speed. With a simple tap on the screen, I could center my view on any of the five or six deviants in the level, and by swiping on the screen, I could freely move around the map.

Multi-touch was one element that Sony's Shu Yoshida pushed via Little Deviants. I was able to use two fingers at the same time on the rear pad to create bigger hills. The multi-touch functionality also extends to both touch pads at the same time. If I "pinched" the game world -- by touching the screen with my thumb and the rear touch pad with my index finger -- I could squeeze the world together, creating a slingshot effect on any deviants in the area.

While the technology and control method behind Little Deviants is definitely cool, I'm still not entirely sure what the full game will consist of. Yoshida told me that there will be puzzles to solve using the deviants, mini-games, and more. Hopefully however it comes together, Sony focuses on crafting a compelling way to prove that the addition of a rear touch pad to this handheld can create many new and worthwhile opportunities for game design on the device.