What is Dyad?

Dyad is a warpspeed abstract racing game being developed for the PlayStation 3.

Rather than having the traditional mechanics of break and accelerate, you must navigate an infinite tube by interacting with enemies for speed. This creates an interesting dynamic where your only obstacles are also your only source of speed. Dyad presents you with a unique toolbox of interactions including hooking on enemies for speed, grazing enemies for energy, turning yourself into a highspeed lance to kill enemies, and more.

Dyad's unique interaction palette creates a puzzle-like gameplay experience where you must constantly make intelligent choices to complete a wide variety of objectives including speed based objectives, various combo goals, and many more. Dyad's high speed, and constant choice based design lead to an interesting design double bind in which you are given an ever increasing amount of options and a decreasing amount of time in which to make a decision; paired with a wide interaction variety, this leads to a very unique and deep gameplay experience.

Dyad is a cognitive experiment presented through gameplay. It will take you to a new world with unique physical rules, and take your mind to a new level of consciousness.

Please see the About Dyad section for more information.

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Dyad Previews from GDC

2012/03/17 - 1:56, by Shawn McGrath

During GDC 2012, I showed Dyad on the expo floor in Sony's booth all week and at GDC Play on Thursday. Perhaps more exciting was the private demos which I gave to selected journalists on my hotel room. I invited many of the most respected game journalists and critics to come to my hotel room and play Dyad alone for an hour. The response was overwhelmingly positive. Here's a list of all known previews from GDC, (if there's more please tell me!)
Categories: GDC events press

Dyad @ GDC

2012/02/29 - 21:59, by Shawn McGrath

Just a quick update for all those attending GDC. Dyad will be playable on the Expo floor in Sony's booth. Come by and check it out!
Categories: THE MACHINE events press

Dyad on Daily Planet

2012/02/18 - 11:01, by Shawn McGrath

I was invited to show Dyad and THE MACHINE on Daily Planet, a Discovery Channel show in Canada. Here's the ~3 minute clip from the show I was on:

Dyad on Daily Planet
Categories: THE MACHINE events press

Dyad and Interactive Music

2011/09/01 - 2:28, by Shawn McGrath

David Kanaga and I have been hard at work for the past 4 months on Dyad's interactive music system.

I wrote a post on the official PlayStation blog explaining how it works and why I think it's cool, check it out: Dyad and Interactive Music

Dyad's *NOT* a "music" game. It uses music uniquely to augment the gameplay. Here's a video showing off the music system in a later level in Dyad... it's confusing, but once you play the game you'll understand it.


Categories: PSN

John Carmack's "snooty" Response

2011/07/20 - 10:58, by Shawn McGrath

Disclaimer: These opinions are my own, and do not reflect the indie game community in any way, but I personally believe that there are many others who have similar opinions. I also think there's been plenty of innovative FPS games; I've spent countless hours playing Quake 3 Area/Quake Live, Counterstrike, Tribes and Team Fortres 2. This isn't a defence of the critiques that John Carmack calls "snooty" but rather a challenge to Mr. Carmack's corporate institutional position.

John Carmack recently talked about how he feels that people who criticize a lack of creativity in games, particularly first person shooters, are "snooty". I believe he has an extremely narrow viewpoint of how game makers operate and doesn't understand indie games. The interview can be read here: http://www.industrygamers.com/news/doom-creator-fires-back-at-devs-with-snooty-attitude/
Categories: offtopic commentary

Introducing Dyad for PSN

2011/06/23 - 22:10, by Shawn McGrath


It's been a long time coming, but we officially annouced Dyad for PSN!
Dyad for PSN
Categories: Make events THE MACHINE

Dyad @ Maker Faire Mini Toronto

2011/05/09 - 19:34, by Shawn McGrath

THE MACHINE setup
We setup Dyad on THE MACHINE at the Evergreen Brickworks for Maker Faire Mini Toronto. About 300 people got to play Dyad, hopefully you were one of them!
Categories: Make events THE MACHINE

PAX East

2011/04/19 - 23:39, by Shawn McGrath

Jason DeGroot, and I treked down to Boston from Toronto for PAX East. I drove with my wife for 14 hours, (5 hour border crossing included), with THE MACHINE in the trunk and backseat of a Chevy Impala. It took two 12 hour days to reassemble THE MACHINE, and only 3 hours to take it apart.
Categories: PAX events press

Welcome

2011/04/17 - 16:42, by Shawn McGrath

Welcome to the Dyad website.
I planned on launching this site properly in November 2010, then I was overwhelmed by work directly relating to finishing the game, so I postponed it. I promised many attendees at PAX that I would launch the site as soon as I got back, then I was overwhelmed by work directly relating to finishing the game, so I postponed it. Now a month removed from PAX, I've finally finished the website.
Categories: misc