Blogs - Pixelbombgames

Pixelbomb Games’ debut offering Beyond Flesh and Blood will be made available on Steam Early Access, far sooner than expected, on 1^st June 2016.

By offering the Manchester-set game up for Early Access, the development team is better able to make the game the best it can possibly be.

It also means that the team are offering all PC gamers the chance to shape the entire game as a whole.

So, we have 7 very playable levels and the other 19 on their way, and the team are offering all PC gamers the chance to shape the entire game as a whole. While it’s brazen, it’s also honest, and our way of providing the game warts and all, while listening to how we make that experience better.

In terms of development this is a strong opportunity to evaluate every step of the way which is both comfortable and transparent.

Gameplay is king. We will be delivering the best experience we can – and making a standalone and standout product is a challenge worth taking.

For those who would rather wait for the full release, the same applies. Early Access gamers will still get the full game and newest release as standard, and Beyond Flesh and Blood will be getting the proper release treatment.

But if you want to be part of Early Access, jump on board as we give you the best community members the chance to be created into a statue in the game, special thanks, the face of Hostile force wanted posters…

Pixelbomb Games, a fast growing Manchester based development studio, is delighted to announce the appointment of John Kavangh as Managing Director.

“I'm truly excited to be joining the team at Pixelbomb Games, a unique studio which lives and breathes its Manchester heritage,“ Said John Kavanagh, Managing Director, Pixelbomb Games. He continued, “Pixelbomb Games has such diverse talent at its disposal, and is already building incredible products such as Beyond Flesh & Blood. I'm very pleased to be leading this studio and am both proud and eager to help shape its future and its games.”

At the leading edge of the videogames industry for over 30 years, Kavanagh delivers unrivalled experience, having previously held leadership roles as Publisher and Vice President at Eidos during its formative years, as President of Ion Storm and Crystal Dynamics, President of Kuju America, and Senior Vice President of Videogames at Paramount Pictures.

Outside of the videogames industry, Kavanagh has created, built and managed highly successful businesses in the Education, Social Media and Software Engineering spaces.

The studio’s current project, Beyond Flesh & Blood is due for release in 2016 on Steam, PS4 and Xbox One.

Pixelbomb Games is pushing ahead with plans to become a major UK digital publisher.

“We are a growing team which aims to be a digital publishing hub as well as a well-known home for development in the UK.

“Pixelbomb Games is bolstered by over 50 years experience across the whole team, so the studio is primed for integrated success as a developer and digital publisher,” said Kavanagh.

Beyond Flesh and Blood is the first title in a series, and just one of several game concepts in development.

He continued: “As a key indicator not only for the growth of the Northern Powerhouse vision, but of the UK games industry as it becomes increasingly competitive in the global marketplace, Pixelbomb Games will measure its success based on the long term business strategy as a digital publisher for games across PC, console, mobile and VR.”

Over at EventCity in Trafford, the warm northern welcome expands to 20,000 gamers at PlayExpo, a yearly event celebrating the best of the industry from across the world, in the North.

With the official ticker counting in at 1,006 people playing the game over 2 days, the team at Pixelbomb Games were swept up off their feet with the sheer volume of people that wanted to play Beyond Flesh and Blood – especially on Oculus!

September and October are always busy times for the developers, and in terms of bringing Beyond Flesh and Blood to the masses, the team at Pixelbomb Games behind the game risk it for a biscuit/get the lowdown on what you gamers actually think, at all the UK expos.

It’s also a massively free way for the team to discover game bugs and get a little bit of crash testing for free. Kudos to the guy that managed to create a mini game out of the mechs climbing trees…

Saying that, it’s also made us aware of just how excited the community is about VR and all that it’s capable of – it was a big draw and for a lotf you, Beyond Flesh and Blood served as the primary experience that you’d ever had on VR, and on Oculus Rift.

Over in the Education Zone at PlayExpo 2015, Aardvark Swift invited our developers to talk about life as an indie dev along with fellow locals Prospect Games and The Game Creators. Phil Muwanga talked about the determination required, having previously worked on his own very successful indie titles on Xbox Live Arcade before becoming Project Lead at Pixelbomb.

PlayExpo is the most local expo and also the biggest one of the games industry in the North of England, with an array of gamers, cosplayers, industry folk and indie developers attending the show.

With Beyond being set in Manchester along with the studio, it’s always imperative for the team to attend. It was great to see the Manchester Evening News spot us in the crowd, too.

The team at Beyond Flesh and Blood over at Pixelbomb Games are always keen to The UK’s biggest expo, EGX, served as the first time that Beyond Flesh and Blood was shown in all its Unreal 4 glory since transitioning from the old engine at the end of 2014.

We're creating a brand new feature series on our studio website, www.pixelbombgames.com..

The team at Pixelbomb Games are always after inspiration, and it exists in many forms. Sometimes we get so caught up in our team work that we forget to take time out and do our own, which helps keep us refreshed as developers.

That's why we're turning to you, for features and interviews to help inspire and collect information from successful and progressive developers alike.

Be a part of #InspiredByDevs - we want you!

We've got some new UE4 screen from Beyond Flesh and Blood to show you.

Mmm, gibs.

Manchester's Alien Underground; an infested level

Welding laser, hacked and weaponised!

Manchester has a varied history with video games, with our own studio becoming a part of furthering that legacy into PC and Next Gen console game creation with our title, Beyond Flesh and Blood.

Curated by David Hayward, who works with EGX and Virgin Media as well as his own projects like Feral Vector (that reveal a love for indie developers and a fascination with the real tech side of games development; our upcoming game Beyond Flesh and Blood was selected with a number of local-to-Manchester and UK-indie titles to be a part of Manchester Day. It's Games themed, with a tagline of 'Game On' and a city mascot called PIXEL, very much like a parade float cross between a classic Game Boy and B-Mo from Adventure Time! There was a preview last night at Great Northern, the ex-railway entertainment venue which is also a featured external environment in the game, of PIXEL, who looks a little like the image above. PIXEL has its own Twitter account and bubbles up with facts every now and then about the city and with some references to gaming.

Of course, Pixelbomb Games Limited; with its home always having been in Manchester (and very briefly in Salford for one time, but that's another story); will be taking the now very old but very stable Unreal 3 demo of Beyond Flesh and Blood to the festivities. For those who want to take cover inside from what is currently blistering summer sunshine, we will be in the two converted Staterooms (Grade listed!) alongside 19 other independent developers from the UK who are being very kindly hosted by Rock Paper Shotgun who are providing large screens for the developers.

It's going to be quite a surreal experience for us: we've made a game set in Manchester, 200 years in the future - featuring a level that is set on Albert Square and (outside - we can't use the interiors as you know) the Town Hall...in Manchester Town Hall.

It does look a lot like this:

And in our game, it looks a lot like this (but prepare for some brand new textures and lighting in Unreal 4...)

We're really excited about the Manchester Day events - we're currently tagging as much as we can with the #MCRDay theme: Game On Manchester!

Thanks so much to David Hayward, Manchester City Council and Rock Paper Shotgun for being happy to host us this weekend.

If you're of the Twitter persuasion and like to partake in the hashtags known as #swag, #giveaway, #freestuff and #freebiefriday, we're giving away a Pixel Art bag - all the rage over in the fair lands of Europe. 

The Pixel Art was mapped by a local indie trader known as The Pixel Bar in Afflecks Palace, in our city of Manchester, UK. 

Check it out - it looks even better lined up with the rest of the creations!

Glorious. All you have to do is follow or RT the game profile and head on over the Twitter-com and Follow & RT to be in with a chance.

T&Cs are here: Beyondfleshandbloodgame.com

Happy Bank Holiday Weekend!

Hello there!
So we've updated our studio website for Pixelbomb Games Limited to the point at which we actually *have* a website now. Nothing too flashy, but it works as a decent-looking placeholder for now.

Pixelbombgames.com

Over on the website you'll find out a little more about us lot in Manchester, and how we'rem positioning ourselves. It's quite an important process for us as we are planning on becoming a bit bigger in the city at least, as part of its 'Northern Powerhouse' vision, and we have poted up our values there too: creating strong indie games that have the look of AAA but a distinctly smaller pile of resources.

Hello,

We've had a fairly busy few months, arranging the office to fit new team members into our shared Manchester office. (We have new 3D generalists, and artist and a new animator!) Lucky us. Not that we have any reason at all to be satisfied like that, as we are officially in lock-down. We've been asked to finish the game, ready for testing, for July. That in itself is going to be testing for the team and we're all putting the extra hours in.

Also, we're finally building a team website. It's been a long time coming really, and while we haven't had the time to build it into its own world, it's a good overview of what we do and what our values our. We'll be updating it with blogs and team content, slowly but surely.

In other news, Pixel Bomb Games Limited appears to have a mini celebrity in its dev-cave: that being Steven DeSykes (that's Dizz) our Art Lead!

We've written about his most recent airing in the spotlight on our website along with a few of the places he's been featured before over the last 8 months, so definitely take a look at that when you can, then link's here: B-fb.net

We captured the double page spread (it's in print too in the Visit England mag for our city, MCR Magazine); and if you can get hold of a paper copy, do! Dizz's Triangle concept looks astounding when inked.

So, we pulled the pennies together and we're heading over the EGX Rezzed. If you're based or happen to be visiting London for the weekend on 12th-14th March, definitely come over and say hello!

It will also be the first ever time you'll see the game in UNREAL 4!
It's exclusive to EGX and we will be showing it off in Tobacco Dock between Thursday 14th and Saturday 16th March. You'll see a remarkable improvement between the previous builds and this one. Can't wait to show you how it all works.

As soon as we have more assets to show you, including reworked character and environment art, we'll post it up here ASAP.

BOOM