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
Category: Game design
Product, not project
I have realised I perform a simple mind-trick with every project I move from prototype to production. Once I'm satisfied with initial tests and some basic prototyping, there comes a point where you need to focus on turning what you have into a full-fledged game. Now of course you don't need me to tell you … Continue reading Product, not project
Meta
One of the best parts of having total control over your own project is that you can so easily slip in references and Easter eggs. Piczle Cross Adventure is brimming with references that most people will probably not see, understand or care about, but they tickle me pink. Here's just a few of them. For … Continue reading Meta
Completing Piczle Cross Adventure puzzles
When designing Piczle Cross Adventure I try to keep in mind several types of players and cater to as many of them as possible. Let's face it, everybody enjoys games differently and for different reasons. There is no "right" way to play games and though I try to "direct" the player somewhat in the end … Continue reading Completing Piczle Cross Adventure puzzles
Mini-games
Piczle Cross Adventure is mostly about following the story and playing picture crossword logic-puzzles. However, there is a little more fun and adventuring to be had outside of all that. There are some mini-games and mini-puzzles! When deciding on what kind of mini-activities to include and where I tried to stick to a few simple … Continue reading Mini-games
Dialogs
One element of the old-style RPGs we all know and love, and that persist in video games to this day, are the dialog boxes where the text appears letter by letter. Why these exist exactly is not clear. If you think about it they don't make that much sense. But they are part of video … Continue reading Dialogs
World design
When making puzzles for Piczle Lines DX the first step was to think of a category and then to think up 20 items that would fit such a category. This was by far the hardest part of designing Piczle Lines! Try it for yourself. Pick any category and think of 20 items in that category … Continue reading World design
Blueprints: In-game messaging
Aside from character dialogues Piczle Cross Adventure also features some basic in-game messaging. In Piczle Colors some information was broadcast to the player through a fake Twitter-style social media post pop-up. When the player reached a milestone, unlocked a level, earned a trophy or anything like that, one of the game's characters would "tweet" at … Continue reading Blueprints: In-game messaging
Interactive tutorial
If I know something about tutorials it is, frankly, that I dislike them. Quite a bit. As a player having to follow a tutorial, as well as as a developer actually creating a tutorial, both of these are onerous and annoying. However, when dealing with logic-puzzles that often have very specific rules there sadly isn't … Continue reading Interactive tutorial
Piczle Colors post-mortem
Something slightly different for this week's devblog, but that has a bearing on the development of Piczle Cross Adventure nonetheless: I thought I'd look back on the development of Piczle Colors and write down some of the lessons learned and observations made. Piczle Colors is currently available from the Nintendo Switch eShop world-wide and as … Continue reading Piczle Colors post-mortem
