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

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

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

Try before you buy

If there is one bit of advice I could give budding game developers it's "don't give up your day job!" If there are 2 pieces of advice I could give I'd also say "Make a demo version of your game!" The Nintendo Switch market is, to put it lightly, difficult. For developers it is, anyway, … Continue reading Try before you buy