Jul 26, 2013

PIXLE II devlog ~01: Whoa hello!

screenshot of PIXLE
Been a while like usual, folks! It's me Laz, as usual, reporting things that happens lately. ;)

Remember PIXLE? It's our game that released last year. It got lots of positive feedback, also some great inputs to fill holes in the game design and execution we thought it'd be good for a sequel.

Now we're making this project a sequel! It's more like an enhancement though. As we want to maximize PIXLE's potential without changing too much design.

We're collaborating with blue_mc, the same guy who ports PIXLE to android (port project will be continued after this if things goes as planned). What's hipon doing anyway? Ah he's doing fine in "Koutack iOS" project (not sure if its title will be changed later though), with me as the artist too.



Oh? Why PIXLE anyway?

Yeah that's one of our smallest scale (also quite casual) project we made so we thought why don't we try to make another one while we have fun and do potential collaboration with someone new XD.

The problems

As the original PIXLE was coded by hipon, making new code design/algorithm from scratch for the tunnel/seed/crystal generator is quite taking much effort, also the hard part is we need to make sure everything is following one game design direction, which is a new experience for us --a first collaboration also a sequel project with other coder, also new experience for blue_mc, to work with us handling a project from scratch (yet still a sequel though).

Me as an artist is currently working simultaneously with multiple game projects --PIXLE II, Koutack IOS, Montage Roux, it's a bit frustating sometimes i have to provide all the assets while directing art, and sometimes managing too, at the same time hahah and...which is why also i never write blogs lately! Urgh.

Project's progressing a bit slowly though, since almost all of us has multiple projects to work on.

What's new?

Team formation changes of course! Clea is fully in charge on game design this time, making sequence variations for the generated level design, calculations, also audio direction as usual. Me, Laz, not much difference than usual, but i'm having more control, such as menu transitions animations (which is usually hipon's task), also the ability to compile the game myself to test how my assets work in the thing. While hipon is keeping his eyes on quality control (?) like a boss.

Blue_mc is handling all the code work, his working speed and ability is quite remarkable, not to mention we were working online (now partly online). Oh note that he has a knack on aesthetical aspect (graphical mostly) so he managed to give me lot of feedback.

Trying 60FPS... we had to pump the performance up for this, as the project was lagging on some parts but now it gets even better.

Some new features of course! Expect more challenge to the game. Maybe we can reveal it on later devlog.

The progress

Almost all core feature of original PIXLE implemented i guess? Now we're in debugging and testing new features. Menu and main game flow is not yet decided tho. Here have a screenshot leaks:



title screen mock up, because it hasn't fully implemented


Some testimonies from us about the project :P (clea and blue_mc gonna pay for this later! lol)

Lazcht
Well, as in graphics, i made more variation of the background, more detailed animations and effects, theme's still the same i guess, it's dreamy, nature, mystical and enchanting, and putting more blueish color theme rather than purpleish. Also as i am lately into abstract/surrealism paintings, i'm putting some abstract-ish design inside, haha, and i hope you can enjoy them as well. And i have listened to clea's draft BGM, we can't post it now but it gotta be awesome, lol!

hipon
The art direction of this game looks pretty good in my opinion, it feels more 'dreamy' than the previous games, and the music is really good too. I think environment design and sound design of this game play a bigger role in the gaming experience than the previous game.

That's all for now, until next spoils! *waves*