Just a quick update today. This week saw the Japanese launch of Piczle Cross Adventure for the Nintendo Switch eShop, with the EU and US releases to follow, as well as the PC Steam version, next week on April 16th. The day players can buy and play the game - and invariably start finding bugs … Continue reading Piczle Cross Adventure release!
Author: Score Studios LLC
Tokyo-based independent video game development
BluePrints: Steamworks
I shan't delve into the details of Steamworks itself too much. Anybody with a desire to develop and a spare (recoupable) $100 can get access to Steamworks and its API and documentation. In this post specifically I'll write a little about integrating it into UE4 (sort of) and adding Steam achievements to Piczle Cross Adventure. … Continue reading BluePrints: Steamworks
BluePrints: Mouse input overlay
Piczle Cross Adventure was initially mainly designed specifically for the Nintendo Switch. I baked in a few extras to make porting to other consoles potentially a lot easier, and because of the size of the largest puzzles I also made a decision to not use touch input. A big headache in Piczle Colors was developing … Continue reading BluePrints: Mouse input overlay
Now the real work starts!
One trap I always walk into, despite knowing better, is focusing on the gold master of the game and seeing it as some kind of finish line. However, once you've submitted your game to be checked by the platform holders, the last check before you can put it up for sale, there is still a … Continue reading Now the real work starts!
Blueprints: Quick reflex input
One of the many reasons I decided to include a fishing mini-game, aside from it being required by law in any RPG-like adventure game, was to challenge myself on a few new scripting issues. Both the casting off and the reeling in require the player to press A when a pointer moves over a specific … Continue reading Blueprints: Quick reflex input
Blueprints: Get a clue
The nonogram puzzles in Piczle Cross Adventure are merely a string of 1s and 0s. Everything else required is calculated while playing the game. Actually, let me take a step back and correct this lie. The puzzles all live in one big datatable, with the puzzle part itself forming a string of 1s and 0s. … Continue reading Blueprints: Get a clue
Going gold
If you're an observer of the game development industry, follow game developers or have seen my recent tweet, you may have heard the term "gone gold". Now you may infer what that means, but why do we use this term? It's not akin to me still using a floppy disc icon to show when Piczle … Continue reading Going gold
Piczle Cross, Puzzle & Watch
As a fan of Easter eggs in games, and being in the privileged position of developing games myself , I once made the inadvisable decision to hide an entire mini-game in one of my games and not tell anyone about it (aside from my publisher, who of course has to sign off on all contents … Continue reading Piczle Cross, Puzzle & Watch
Ramping up
When it comes to designing the Piczle series of games I have in mind some very specific ways I want players to experience the ramping up of difficulty and challenge. For Piczle Lines it was a little more difficult with its many different puzzle packs the player could choose from right from the get go, … Continue reading Ramping up
UE4 support
Unless you enter into a private arrangement with Epic Games, as a EULA user you won't have access to "proper" tech support. As not every indie developer has the kind of money to sign custom deals like that, most of us rely on other sources for insight and help. Here are just a few of … Continue reading UE4 support
