Beasts of Balance, formerly known as Fabulous Beasts, is a game of strategy and balance in which you build a tower of animals on your tabletop, then help them evolve in a connected digital world on iOS and Android tablets and smartphones.
In development at London-based developer Sensible Object, and featuring a soundtrack by Disasterpeace, who produced music for Fez and the movie It Follows, Beasts of Balance was successfully funded on Kickstarter in February 2016, raising £168,360 from 2,224 backers.
Following a re-branding from original name Fabulous Beasts in June, Beasts of Balance is scheduled to release towards the end of 2016.
Quick links
How it works
Features
Images and videos for download
About Beasts of Balance
Press quotes and awards
About Sensible Object
Contact
How it works
Choose a piece to play, scan it on the playbase, then stack it onto the tower. Be careful! When the tower collapses, it’s game over. As you stack each piece you’ll see them affect a world on the connected iOS or Android tablet or smartphone. Watch each beast magically pop into it, and see them evolve into wonderful new beasts as you play special Cross pieces.
Build your tower with skill and strategy: the aim is to getting the highest score. Beasts of Balance is easy to learn, but there’s deep strategy involved. You’ll need to apply careful planning, both to build a strong tower and to score the most points.
Beasts of Balance uses innovative technology we’ve developed ourselves, including RFID to recognise the pieces, load sensors to sense whether the tower is standing, and Bluetooth to connect to the player’s tablet. To find out more, email Alex Wiltshire at hello@sensibleobject.com.
Features
- Social Play The game inspires a fun, co-operative experience where the screen is a supporting element to the action on your table
- Deep Challenge The highest scores can only be achieved with careful strategy as you evolve and nurture your animals. You’ll need to balance the needs of building a strong tower with playing the most valuable pieces
- Physical Beasts Enjoy holding and playing with a set of beautifully designed and produced stackable artefacts
- Digital Beasts Delight in watching amazing beasts evolve and your tactical choices play out on the connected screen
- Infinite Variety Rich but simple rules and a combination of real-world tower building and on-screen strategising means Beasts of Balance plays differently every time
- Innovative Our in-house designed technology uses a unique combination of sensors to recognise the pieces you play, and connects over Bluetooth to your device
- Soundtrack Music by Fez and It Follows composer Disasterpeace
- Plays anywhere Supports iOS and Android tablets and smartphones
Images and videos
Browse and download high resolution images and videos here
Browse and download high resolution images and videos here
About Beasts of Balance
Sensible Object’s first game, Beasts of Balance, was born in the mind of founder Alex Fleetwood while he was camping and making fires in the wilderness of northern California. Surrounded by the beauty of nature, taking pleasure in the careful stacking of kindling and firewood, he imagined the potential of a game where physical balance translated into digital play.
With the help of some R&D funding from the REACT Play Sandbox Scheme, he pulled together a crack team of designers, artists and engineers to make a prototype. In four months they came up with the first version of the game, which they took to events including Game Developer’s Conference, EGX Rezzed, and the Shenzhen Maker Faire. Since then, Beasts of Balance has won the IndieCade Technology Award and been shown at various other events, including Spiel, PAX East, and GameCity.
We’ve put together some posts about the development of the game so far that give insights into our process:
- Building Beasts of Balance’s technology
- The twisting road to Beasts of Balance’s game design
- The story of Beasts of Balance’s three art styles
- A trip to China’s toy manufacturers to explain how we’re shipping the game
Press quotes and awards
Winner: IndieCade Technology Award, 2015
Among The Guardian’s “25 most anticipated video games of 2016”
“Completely reinvents the game of balance”
Todd Martens, LA Times
“A captivating creation”
Edge magazine
“For amusing kids or as a party game, it might end up as one of the best there is”
Jake Tucker, Pocket Gamer
“A fascinating object stacking game”
Keith Stuart and Jordan Erica Webber, The Guardian
“A brilliant physical-digital game”
Peter Bailey, Techmog
Contact
For more information, requests or anything else, email Alex Wiltshire at hello@sensibleobject.com.
About Sensible Object
Beasts of Balance is created by Sensible Object, a new game studio based in central London. The studio consists of Hide&Seek founder Alex Fleetwood, game designer George Buckenham, product designer Tim Burrell-Saward, artist Lyall McCarthy, and engineer Chris Shaw.
At Sensible Object we are obsessed with exploring a new territory for games in which the latest technology enables us to blend the physical and the digital into new fun and social experiences.
We design our own hardware and create beautiful objects; each of our team members comes from a different field of expertise that reflects the breadth of our playground, whether graphic design, electronics, sculpture, or game design.
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