For a change I thought I'd write about a hypothetical, and one of the things I usually do to avoid extra work. Or rather, not just to avoid extra work but to keep it easy to change things on a whim. Let's create a texture for Piczle Cross clue numbers with the minimum amount of … Continue reading Materials: Clue numbers
Tag: gamedev
Supporting indie devs
Being an independent developer is as rewarding as it is challenging! Being able to be creative on your own terms is something to be envied, for sure, but with that comes a lot of responsibility and struggle that, as a contracted developer, you usually don't have to worry about. Or rather, somebody's job is to … Continue reading Supporting indie devs
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
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
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
Working in Unreal Engine
For any developer there is a wealth of options out there for out-of-the-box solutions. In the triple-I spheres the choice seems to be Unity or Unreal and both certainly have their detractors and supporters. Personally, I chose Unreal because it gels with me and I like BluePrint visual scripting. It may not be the right … Continue reading Working in Unreal Engine
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: Score-chan actor
A little technical blog post this week, as I talk through the creation of the Score-chan Actor BluePrint in Unreal Engine 4. Paper2D functionality in UE4 is not officially supported anymore and has a couple of quirks. However the Sprite and Flipbook Actor Blueprint classes are very useful and contain everything you need to quickly … Continue reading Blueprints: Score-chan actor
Introducing Piczle Cross Adventure
It is a little know but perhaps somewhat interesting fact that before Score Studios was founded I was working on a picture crossword (nonogram, "picross") type game on my own. I simply love these kinds of puzzles, so more than anything it was a labour of love. Once Score Studios became a legal entity and … Continue reading Introducing Piczle Cross Adventure
