Creating patches (v.1.0.1)

Though every attempt is made to ensure a game is as bug-free on release as possible, it is almost guaranteed some errors will slip through the net. Testing by various parties, myself, QA teams, publishers and eventually users will throw up all manner of little quirks nobody else had noticed. Luckily in these days of … Continue reading Creating patches (v.1.0.1)

In-editor tool design

When using a powerful set of tools like those provided within Unreal Engine 4 it's not a bad idea to keep any bespoke tools you may need to use within the engine as well. The idea being that when you're creating your game and, say, you need to add or adjust a new puzzle, in … Continue reading In-editor tool design

Piczle Cross Adventure post-mortem

After every project is "finished", so far as they ever are, I like to look back on the development process and see what I learned, what mistakes I made and what I did well. Though Piczle Cross Adventure has barely been released I thought I'd do a post-mortem on it already, even though at this … Continue reading Piczle Cross Adventure post-mortem

BluePrints: dynamic button graphics

Future-planning when I make my projects mostly revolves around doing a little work right off the bat to avoid tedious work later on. One example I'll give here is for those little buttons you see in the margins of the game that tell you what buttons do what. You'll have seen them in Piczle games. … Continue reading BluePrints: dynamic button graphics

Piczle Cross Adventure release!

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!

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