London-based indie studio Beatnik Games (described as "six guys working in a shoebox") have announced their new XNA project, Plain Sight -- a 3D multiplayer game featuring robotic sword fighting and explosions.

In Plain Sight, the aim of the game is to score points and increase your size by slashing opposing robots to death and stealing the points they themselves have accumulated. Sounds simple enough, but in order to bank any of the points you have won, you must commit suicide by blowing yourself up.  If you take out anyone else in the resulting explosion, you get to bank more points.

The screenshots are pretty simplistic and highly stylized as you'd expect from an indie title, but the design of the characters is very cool indeed. Makes me think of Metal Arms, and anything that does that gets my attention quickly. If you're interested in trying out the game, you can sign up for the beta, which is of course free to do. If you try it out, make sure to let Destructoid know what you think. 

Plain Sight will be coming to both the PC and Xbox 360 in Q1 of 2009. The RRP is going to be £10. Sword + Robot = Interest greatly heightened.