Blogs - PXLFLX

My newest game, Treasure Bird in Dreamland is now live on Kickstarter! Kickstarter.com
and PXLFLX has the honor of being the first indie to work with the awesome Orb Soundwerx!
Very exciting! Go check it out, and consider contributing! The first few early "bird" specials have been snagged up already! Every $1 helps make this "dream" a reality! ;)

Treasure Bird in Dreamland is a 2d platformer set in a fantasy world. The hero of the story is Raum, a magical crow who has been tasked to steal treasure. As Raum you will travel to lands inspired by mythology, Valhalla, Olympus, Shangra La, and others, to steal treasure from the castles of kings. The game is heavy on exploration, and harkens back to the classic 2d platformers of yesteryear. Hidden across it’s vast vertical panoramas are rubies that need to be collected to advance to the next stage as well as all manner of gems, coins, and treasure chests. Your quest will not be easy as all manner of strange demons, slime creatures, and traps will block your path. Can you make your way to the massive final boss and achieve your redemption? Why does a crow want treasure? You will have to hone your platforming skills if you want to find out!

Game features

• Limited flight play mechanic- double jump multiple times to reach distant platforms, but beware the heavy ether of Dreamland!
• Score system- collect treasure and destroy enemies for points! Beat your friends’ high score!
• 7+ stages- dream like locals based on mythology like Valhalla and Mount Olympus!
• Story told through traditional 2d cutscenes that you can skip with the press of a button!
• Unique art style combining pixel art with gradient backgrounds and simulated lighting!

In the beginning…

Sometime in early 2012, I decided to go into business for myself doing freelance illustration and design. Around that same time the hard drive on my production computer just died. I decided instead of paying the exorbitant cost of repair that I would just get a new computer. With this new computer came new software and the realization of the potential that I did not see before in animation and video editing. I had a dream to start a video production business where my goal was to try to make video content for the purpose of making a living. I quickly realized that this goal was not going to be easily obtained. I spent the better part of the year of 2012 learning animation, visual effects, and 3d software. Sometime in late 2012, my brother and I watched the documentary Indie Gamer. I was immediately intrigued, and watched the movie with no intent of ever following this pursuit. When the movie was done, my brother turned to me and said, “Well, that looks like it would %$&*ing suck.” I agreed at the time and thought that this was something that I would never be able to do. As the days wore on I kept thinking about it, and I could not let it go, until I eventually came to the conclusion that this was what I was meant to do. All of my years of gaming from Atari, NES, to now, plus the skills that I had acquired over the years in animation, art and design, it just made sense. I realized the potential of what I could do.

I knew what I wanted to do, but I did not know how to go about doing it. I wanted to make 2d games in the vein of the games that I grew up with. I always felt like 2d gaming was abandoned way too early. My brother and I both did internet searches for game making software; the first thing that jumped out at us was Unity 3d. After several months of experimentation, I got comfortable with the design portion of the software, and I realized that I could create the art assets and overall design of a game. Where I really fell short was in the programming aspect. My brother even bought books on programming, but I was impatient, and I wanted to make a game now! So I continued to look online for other game making software that would allow me to create a game without having to have much in the way of programming knowledge.

After looking at several game making software options, and gauging the publishing ability of the software, plus the hardware and software that I had at the time, I settled on the free version of Stencyl for Mac. After following the crash course, making the first game prototype, I got a good feel for the potential of the software. I started work on my first game, and went about the process of learning how to create pixel art. After years of print and design, moving to a medium that was so small was a completely new thing to me. I struggled a bit at first with it, but quickly reached an understanding of how to make basic pixel art. The more comfortable I got with the pixel art the more I knew I could create a game with all of my own art assets, it would just take some time.

I started to design a prototype for a run and jump platformer in the vein of Mario and Meatboy. I was in need of a main character, so I asked my brother, “What should our main character be?” He nonchalantly turned to me and said, “I don’t know, a pig?” and walked out of the room. This idea immediately resonated with me, and I began imagining a world where a pig was the star. The setting would be a farm with things like hay bales for obstacles. After some early pixel prototypes, we started to realize the potential for this idea, and it expanded into a much fuller world where apples took the place of coins, and chickens took the place of goombas.

Not long after I started making a more final version of the pig character, I saw a Stencyl jam announcement in early 2013. I felt inspired to join in this jam so that my new venture could get more attention. So the first thing I did was post on their forums, announced that I might give this a go, and I posted a link to my first prototype video on my Youtube. Almost overnight my video jumped up in views like I had never seen before, and to this day it is the most “viral” video that I have.

I realized that there was true potential here and decided to go forward with the jam. I had two months to make a complete game with no real theme specification so I was able to stick to my original idea. I spent most of my free time after work, working on the game at night, and I even took a week off to finish it the week before the deadline. In that week I felt the most alive that I had felt in years, and I even surprised myself with what I had accomplished. It wasn’t quite what I had imagined, and I hadn’t learned everything that I needed to, but it was a good start. At the very least, people would see that I could make some pretty descent pixel art and animation, even if all of the mechanics were not there. I wasn’t expecting much in the way of positive feedback to the game when I released it. To my surprise the game got overwhelmingly good feedback just on the first day. There were a few people who gave the game low scores, but there were more people who were giving it average to high scores and positive feedback, and the game was getting way more plays in a single day then any of my Youtube videos. Newgrounds even used my artwork for the thumbnail for the Stencyl jam, very flattering and surprising. I thought if people liked this game that much, and it was just a game that I spent a short amount of time on, what could I accomplish with more time and energy put into it?

I’ve been working on game developing and making prototypes ever since. The support of the online indie community has been so overwhelmingly positive. What an awesome community! I started to realize more and more that this was what I wanted to do. All of those years of playing Nintendo were not a waste after all (sorry Mom and Dad, you were wrong)! The more time and energy that I spent on it, the more it grew, the more attention it got, and it became the center of my life.

What’s a good way to wrap this up? I have said a lot, and it is still an ongoing process that is happening even right now. Sorry if I am rambling, but I still have a lot of work to do, and I am loving every minute of it!