Konami makes a splash with new Puddle for XBLA, PSN screens and release date

Konami this morning soaked us with a new set of screenshots for their XBLA and PSN puzzler, Puddle.  Created by French developer NEKO Entertainment, Puddle began as an award winning student project before it was picked up by Konami and developed into a full game.

Besides the new screens, Konami has announced a January 25th release date for all platforms in Europe, which we assume translates into a North American XBLA release on the same day and a January 24th (edit: January 31st confirmed by Konami) North American PSN release.

Read on for the announcement to go along with the screenshots.

Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. today unveiled new screenshots and North American launch dates for Puddle, coming to Xbox LIVE Arcade for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft on January 25th and PlayStation Network for the PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system on January 31st. The new screenshots feature peeks at the variety of courses available for play. Players must dodge heat beams and rays of electric current, handle a blob of radioactive fluid with care, guide a virtual puddle of rocket fuel through a hand drawn blueprint, follow a sip of water as it makes its way through a human body, and much more!

What began as a student project that won a Student Showcase prize at Independent Gaming Festival at the Game Developer’s Conference 2010, is now a full-fledged downloadable game like nothing players have experienced before. In Puddle, gamers guide puddles of fluid through a variety of novel, themed environments (the human body, a garden, a foundry, and more). But to do so, they must tilt the environment, balancing each fluid’s unique properties with the environmental factors of gravity, friction, and each course’s obstacles. With players never being able to see the entire level from the start, Puddle will offer plenty of unexpected twists, keeping players alert and ready for the next challenge waiting for them around the corner. Puddle initially began as a project from six students from the French videogame school ENJMIN, and was ultimately picked up and developed by Neko Entertainment.