Hello again!

Wow, it's been a really long time since we blogged. Sorry about that, if anyone's missed hearing from us.

Lots of stuff has been going on, we've been very busy, games have been made, we've started to grow a bit & work with more people, trying new and interesting things.. Miles and his wife Janis even had a baby! (Samuel Ian Tilmann). Still, for some reason there wasn't motivation to blog about anything here. One part is we've spent too much time on computers and when we're not making games, we're living life, going outside, interacting with humans, etc. I think another part of it was that we were working on games for others ever since Dino Run was released. We do our best with every game project we work on, including games for hire. We want to love & enjoy them too, but it looks like it took until now to get inspired & feel there was something truly exciting to report... which is, we've begun working on Gamma Bros 2! :) :D

I'm very happy about this. (this is Rich speaking, by the way). So is Miles, and so are Buzz and Zap. They've been restless & look forward to some new adventures. Our favorite chip-tune-master Mark DeNardo is cranking out some really great new music for GB2 as well. the original team (Mark, Miles and I) are on it, plus Wayne Marsh to handle the programming and Graham Lackey to help with additional pixel art, including some of the new environments they will travel to.. Ideas aplenty. we've already scaled it way down from our original plans for it.. We must take care not lose the heart and simplicity of the Gamma Bros universe, and also to plan for a game we can actually produce and finish within a year. so, YAY!!

We've also begun working on a few other new Pixeljam games since Dino Run was released, including what may be a fun little Pixel Game Maker, a game about a Llama, a new pinball style game, a new Pixeljam website that will be partly a collection of minimal games in itself. And more games, actually.. The Bee game and Moon game are still waiting to be returned to, but we won't be able to do that for quite a while. Dino Run 2 will probably go into development before either of those, and that's a couple years out I think. But they haven't left our hearts. not mine anyway.. Before it's all over, I really want to make that moon game..

Anyway, in this time we've been growing a bit as a company. We've begun working with great new programmers, and another pixel artist, and collaborating here & there with others on misc projects. Working on games-for-hire has allowed us to (most importantly) stay afloat! I mean, we give our games away for free for the most part, and you think people donate? ha! it would really, really help, but the vast majority of people just don't support in that way.. Some licensing income for our games on some portals helps bring some income in for us, but not nearly enough to keep going. Not yet, anyway. We'll try to do things differently with GB2, have more of a plan going into it.. but we'll likely have to stop in the middle of development and do some more games-for-hire when we're low on money again.

Doing the client work is also helpful because we've gotten a lot of experience, developed great new tools and discovered better more versatile ways of making games. We've been able to "break in" the new people we're working with on these client games (they are all truly angels to us), and moving on to our own games again now will benefit from that. We've also seen more clearly that by not working on the the most treasured & exciting ideas we have, we are not completely fulfilled & satisfied. I even like the games we've made for clients quite a bit, but even just beginning to work on GB2 is a whole different feeling than doing games for anyone else.

This is not to say that we didn't really give ourselves to the jobs we've been doing for others, we do, but in the end, the other companies own the games, the artwork, the names.. and we can't revisit those worlds unless the clients want to, so, even as the games were mostly our ideas, heart & soul, it's like having a baby for another couple.. you can't allow yourself to get too close since they will be taken from your arms at birth. (Kind of an extreme example I suppose)

I know I've already written a lot, but there's much more I'd like to write about now. Just get me going and I start to see all the newsworthy stuff I could report. But, as always, time is limited and I should get back to working on the games themselves. I'll write another blog very soon, with links to the games we've done.. and pictures and things.

Thanks for reading. And of course, feel free to Become a Pixeljam Supporter so we don't have to stop working on Gamma Bros 2 halfway through or sooner.. breaking the momentum will not help.. If you want to send ideas on what might be a good incentive to help people to want to donate, we're all ears. (or eyes, in this case).

Peace,
Rich

PS. We started a twitter account recently (http://twitter.com/pixeljamgames) and use that to post game release news and other stuff now and then. follow us there if you like.

Dino Run is Officially Released!

Hooray!! Our latest game Dino Run is ready to go. Both single player and MULTIPLAYER modes. And it's FREE for all to enjoy! To get started running, go to pixeljam.com/dinorun and play to your hearts content!

In the next couple of days we'll be resolving any issues that arise from high volume play on the multiplayer side, but otherwise the game is good to go. please feel free to share it with your friends, brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, strangers, colleagues, major and minor publications and web sites, everyone!

Dino Run Multiplayer Edition will only appear on pixeljam.com on xgenstudios.com, who's great MMocha multiplayer server allowed us to make this a multiplayer game. (They've also got some other great games on their site that are worth playing, such as Stick Arena!)

The single player version of the game is plentiful, offering quite an array of things to do and achieve, levels of difficulty, special themed "speed runs" to unlock, super eggs to find, abilities to be increased, passwords to be entered and trophies to be earned. In the game, all the bones you collect become your currency to buy things such as Speed runs, features, icons, desktops, mp3's and other secret good stuff. There's even a "night mode" you can unlock, which I think is particularly cool.

There is also an in-depth high score system that you can submit your top scores to and of course gain the notoriety and praise that you so rightfully deserve.

And to top it all off, as you can see in the image above, there's a set of unique hats, helmets & masks that can be worn by your heroic velociraptor, in both single and multiplayer modes! Many more than are seen here. These hats are so much fun! Definitely one of my favorite features of this game. I truly enjoyed creating them and enjoy running with them even more.

How can you have this exciting set of dino hats you ask? Well, anyone who DONATES money to Pixeljam will receive a special Patronage Gift Pack with 40+ hats (there are a few you can only unlock in the game), the ability to change your dino colors + some other goodies too. You choose the amount that you'd like to contribute & in turn,you get digital treats & we can possibly stay afloat and make another game! Yes, we want to make more games, such as Gamma Bros 2, which is one of the next we want to work on, but income is required. This is a way for you to help make that actually happen.

Thanks a lot to all of our fantastic beta testers who helped make this game so much better than we could have imagined. Thanks to the amazing people who have helped support us in various generous ways. Thanks to Mark DeNardo for providing more excellent music and sfx for our games, and thanks to Miles Tilmann for working way too much to make this game actually come to life. We're gonna take a little break and possibly in a month or so will begin working on our next game. :)

That's all for now. Enjoy Dino Run! We'll see you out there in the multiplayer races. May you escape extinction and live to run another day.

-Rich

Dino Run (beta)

Hi!

News: We've got a new game in the works called "Dino Run". A Giant asteroid has crash landed & extinction may just be inevitable. You are a Velociraptor & you should probably start running for your life! Run, jump, catch a ride with a Pterodactyl, eat power-up plants & other things, save all the dino eggs you can!

This game will feature both single player AND Online Multiplayer versions!

We've been working on it since September, are about to begin beta testing. We hope to finish and release it in the beginning of February. We've got plenty more to add to it in the meantime. Thanks to all of our beta testers in advance. And as in our previous games, music and sfx by Mark DeNardo.

Here are some screens of ACTUAL game play: (Click images for larger views)




















That's the big news. We're excited. We hope to have a new game for you in Early February, & then we'll get to work on Gamma Bros 2. :)

Happy Holidays!

Ratmaze 2 !!

Hi everyone, Ratmaze 2 is here!

Go to http://pixeljam.com/ratmaze2

If you enjoyed the original Ratmaze at all, we think you'll really enjoy this one! For one thing, it's a lot more fun! There's a colorful new maze to explore, some new moves (you can run diagonally), there are a lot more tasty cheeses to eat, apples for speed boosts, secrets, plus some of the biggest cheeses you've ever seen in the bonus areas! There are other new activities involving bouncing balls, holes, and an attractive new female Rat as well. Oh, and you can submit your high scores and compete with your friends and complete strangers!

Here are a few screenshots:

Go play! it's free. Have fun, & Thanks for helping our beloved Rats eat all possible cheeses.

Oh yeah! thanks a lot to Crazy Monkey Games for sponsoring Ratmaze 2, and to all of our beta testers, without whom the game would be buggy and not as much fun!

Ratmaze 2

Programming/visual fx/sound fx production: Miles Tilmannn

Art & Animation: Rich Grillotti

Music, sound fx: Mark Denardo

Speacial thanks to John at Crazy Monkey games for sponsoring Ratmaze 2

Beta testers:

Mike Lee, Bobby K, Matt Jeanes, .tiff, Andy Watson, John West, Nathan Siruta, Kasey Akira, Jason Reinsvold, Karen Cate, Luposian, Emily Lewis, Steve Finkel, John Magnotta, Jenny Pearsall

Squeek!

Gamedev.net/Pixeljam Interview

Hi again! Here's a quick update.. Miles and Rich of Pixeljam Games were recently interviewed by Gamedev.net, and it went live this week. Since Gamma Bros received a nomination as a contender for the 2007 IGF Best Web Browser game category, and we will be attending the GDC and IGF this March, gamedev.net wanted to chat with us. It went rather well, and may be informative for some. Here's a link to it:

http://www.gamedev.net/columns/interviews/pixeljam.asp

Well, we hope it's entertaining! That's all for now. Stay tuned for more exciting developments...

-Rich

New Pixeljam Website!

Hello fellow pixel enthusiasts. We've got some good news. This month we finally managed to complete and launch a new web site for Pixeljam.com!

There are a bunch of sections, including Games, Downloads, Shop, Art, Info, Press, and more! We've also set it up so that we can swap out the main "theme" of the site with new themes. In this launch version, we've got our little moonjumper which you can make jump around for fun, plus you can unlock a download if you figure out the mystery...

We'll eventually add some new themes to the site with other characters, environments and challenges, which will hopefully add a fun dimension to the site itself. There is a little bit we reveal about some upcoming games that we've been working on, but of course not too much. In Downloads you can find some good music, in the shop you can buy some Gamma Bros shirts for the time being, and we'll be adding to all of the sections as we go.

You may notice that we've gone ahead and embraced google adsense ads on our site and with our games. We were reluctant for very long time, trying to maintain extreme dignity and all, but we couldn't really afford to have the no-ads philosophy any longer. We could very well be out of business before we get started here if we don't do some things to make money. The good thing about google adsense is that it's all unobtrusive enough, the ads are actually relative to what we're doing, & might actually be a way for us to make a little. The more ways we have to earn small money here and there could eventually lead to us being able to do this all full time. We're still only able to work on our games here and there part time, but we're still accepting donations if anyone wants to try to hurry us up! Also, the shop is selling Gamma Bros shirts until they sell out.

In other news.. Mr. Rat from Ratmaze is a celebrity! Ratmaze was featured recently in Games For Windows magazine. It's for a feature "101 Free Games", in the "10 minute time wasters" sub-section, which is Also featured on http://www.1up.com.

Well, that's all I've got time to write about today. The IGF awards festival and Game Developers Conference is just around the corner & we're getting really excited about it. We'll definitely have a blog for you in March, for sure. But probably sooner tha that as well.

Don't forget to visit and enjoy our new site!
_Rich

 

Gamma Bros = 2007 IGF Finalist!!

Hi! It's time again for another deeply sporadic blog from Pixeljam Games! Why do we wait so long between blogs these days? Well, we need to be spending most of our time actually making and conceiving of games, not just talking about them or wasting anyones time with non-information. Plus, we don't have any new releases ready to go yet, and don't want to spoil too much of our exisiting works in progress, so, there you go. On the other hand, there really is a lot to write about!

The main thing I'd like to write about today is the exciting news about Gamma Bros! First and foremost, Gamma Bros has been selected as a finalist in the 2007 IGF (Independent Games Festival) Web Browser Game category in San Francisco in March. This is really, really great news and quite an honor, considering only 3 games are selected in that category, out of all the tens of thousands of web browser games in the world released in 2006. :)

So, all honors aside, the greatest part is that we get 2 free passes to attend the IGF and the option to upgrade our passes inexpensively to attend the Independent Games Summit conference lectures and classes. Miles and I will be going and are really looking forward to it. We've already got our plane tickets & have a bunch of people we're looking forward to meeting while we're out there. Individuals & companies we'd like to do some game developing with, and make some online multiplayer games with in the future. It's too bad they didn't give us 3 passes so our 8-bit music genius Mark DeNardo could go with us, but at least he's been to some cool events we haven't been to, like playing the Blip Festival in NY recently.

Now, we needed to be able to afford to get ourselves out there, which wasn't looking very good to begin with, and then an amazing stroke of miracle happened! We received word that Gamma Bros won the first big game contest held by the very cool new gaming site Kongregate.com! Gamma Bros had already won $250 in their weekly contest a couple months ago, and then we won an unexpected $1500 more on their Game Contest 0!! Holy crap! That meant we could now comfortable afford to fly out to San Francisco for a week and feed ourselves too! We have some very good friends out there we can stay with, so it's all really falling into place. We'll probably also make a few things to give away as well, and with any luck we'll have a few new micro games completed that we can give out on a promo CD to all interested individuals. Awesome. Thanks Kongregate and IGF judges.

We won a couple other contests too w/ Gamma Bros, but nothing as big as the Kongregate one. If you are a Flash game developer, you should definitely enter your games into the Kongregate contests. They offer great cash prizes, even for Runner-up games.

Okay, I don't want this blog to go on too long, so that's all I'll write for now. I've been wanting to put a blog up with a collection of press links, Gamma Bros reviews, and interviews we've done, but it's a lot to pull together. I'll do my best as soon as I can, but of course making games is priority #1, and there's a massive amount of work to be done there. We've got some really cool ones in the works. If you want to see games from us sooner than later, you can help us out by buying a Gamma Bros t-shirt or donating or something. the less actual paying job work we have to seek out and take on to survive & pay our bills, the more time we can devote and the sooner & more effectively we can make things happen with our games which, of course, will ultimately benefit all of humankind. :)

-Rich

help wanted

Hello again.

It's been a while. Ever since we finished Gamma Bros, we've been very, very busy. Miles and I had been working hard on our next game (currently top secret) and trying to do as much actual paying client work as we can so we can pay our bills! In fact, the client work has been all consuming for a long time now, and we haven't had much opportunity to work on games at all. It's unfortunate, but there is a way you can help! If even a small percentage of the people who have enjoyed Gamma Bros helped us out with a donation of $5 or more, we could actually make a full time job out of making our games. Once we got outselves going we would find other ways to make out money (like making and selling pixel art t-shirts and merchandise) and wouldn't need any donation support.

Well, anyway, we've got one partially finished & hope to get back to it this fall and release it by the end of the year perhaps. All I'll say is that it's got pixel robots & the plan is to have a mutiplayer option if we can work that out. Then we've got many other games we're working out on paper & in our heads for now, and Gamma Bros 2 is hopefully going to happen sometime.

Well, back to work. I'll write more about the new game soon.
-Rich

Gamma Bros Update

Hi! Wow, it's been a while since I've posted, but we've been very busy travelling, working and other stuff for the last month or so. I'll write a more thorough blog soon, but I wanted to give a quick update on all the exciting Gamma Bros activity going on recently.

First, Miles has created an online version of Gamma Bros that people can play in a web browser. It's smaller & seems to be a little slower (or a lot, depending on how old your computer is), but overall it's working out great! You can check it out here:

http://pixeljam.com/gammabros/online

Miles has been busily submitting the game to game related websites, and once he got the online version ready to go, he submitted it to newgrounds.com. Since then people have been playing the game like crazy! There's all sorts of activity, lots of reviews, and our server stats are really going nuts. Oh, and the coolest thing about the newgrounds submission is that the newgrounds founder & Alien Hominid creator Tom Fulp has added the Gamma Bros to his favorites list! Awesome. Thanks Tom, we're glad you're enjoying it.

You can access our Newgrounds Gamma Bros profile at this address:

http://newgrounds.com/portal/view/321068

The Gamma Bros also now have a Myspace profile. If you're on myspace, I'm sure they'd like to hear from you and/or be your friend!

Go to: http://www.myspace.com/gammabros

In other news, we've actually been receiving a handful of donations from some of the great, generous people that are enjoying Gamma Bros! Thank you so much folks! It really does make a big difference in our ability to make more games, and make them sooner. We may eventually have enough to pay for a small run of Gamma Bros & other Pixeljam t-shirts to sell. :) We plan to make some stickers and buttons too. We'd like to send people who donate $5 or more to us some stickers or something like that, so give us some time to make stuff once we have the moeny. We'll also make sure to send to people who have already donated as well. We like to reward good deeds.

So, people & companies have been contacting us about sponsorships and other possibilities. We'll see what happens & of course we're going to stand our ground on what we are willing to compromise on with how our game is presented, what we're willing to include in the game (logos, etc). And of course, we will not be relinquishing any creative control or ownership. We have a lonnnng list of games we very much want to make in the years to come. It would be awful if we never got to a few of them. Gamma Bros 2 and 3 are really going to be awesome. Gamma Bros is really just the beginning. well, I guess Ratmaze was just the beginning, but you know what I mean. we're just getting started!

okay, time to get busy on non game related things. :( If anyone is interested in reserving a t-shirt, send us an email! We'll be selling them as soon as we can design and get them screen printed. There won't be very many to start with. Once we have photos of what they look like and prices (probably around $15) we'll show them to everyone who is interested in a shirt.

Oh, and do a web search for Gamma Bros if you're interested. Lots of fun things are coming up, like reviews from Japan & stuff. Leave us some reviews too, if you like. The more attention the better. Thanks!

-Rich

Gamma Bros 1.0 is ready!!

Greetings good people of Earth!

Gamma Bros 1.0 is finished and ready for all to play & enjoy, for free!

Just go to: http://pixeljam.com/gammabros

It's about a 20mb download. The game is under 1mb, the rest is the music and sound fx.. You will need Flash Player 8 (also free) to play this one. tell your friends, your family, your co-workers, tell strangers on the street, Tell your pet chimpanzees, tell everyone! We're really excited about this game and spent about seven or eight months making it.

The Gamma Bros team is:
Richard Grillotti - Characters, Pixel Art & Animations
Miles Tilmann - Programming, Visual FX & sound FX processing
Mark DeNardo - Music and Sound FX

Thanks also to our excellent beta testers for their feedback and suggestions.

We created Gamma Bros as a free, full-length game for all to enjoy. We'd love to hear what you think! Please send us an email at games@pixeljam.com

We have a couple of completely awesome gamma Bros sequels in mind, but we'll be focusing on some other interesting characters and storylines next. If you feel this game is worth a few bucks and would like to see more from Pixeljam Games, we are accepting donations (via paypal.com) so we can potentially get the support to take the time off of regualr jobs that we need to make more games in the future. We love this stuff and have a ridiculous amount of good ideas we very much want to work on. We will be creating some nice merchandise as well, which would also be something people could help us out with. t-shirts and other things coming soon.

So, there you have it. Thank goodness, it's finally finished! Now we can breathe again, relax and start thinking about what's next. Have fun!

Check back here soon too, since I will be adding some additional info, sample video clps of some intense action from the game, news about other games of ours, links, updates, stuff, fun things & who knows what.

-rich

Gamma Bros Beta v.0.9.1

Hello again world! It's been a little while, but I have great news to report. We've released Gamma Bros Beta v0.9.1to our beta testers, and they are hard at work playing and giving us their thoughts, letting us know if they spot any bugs. So far so good! There have been some good suggestions so far and we'll probably add a few to the game.

So, it looks like we're on track to release Gamma Bros v1.0 in very early May, for all the retro-loving world to enjoy! woohoo! we've worked ourselves silly for almost a year to bring this game to you (and us too.. we enjoy playing it a whole lot).

We're working hard on finishing the game, adding the ending animations and other things at present, so I'll keep todays blog short. please email any questions to pixeljamgames@gmail.com. Miles and I are enjoying the way gmail keeps track of and organizes emails. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a web-based email address.

In future blogs I'm going to be adding about the following:
- A link to the finished Gamma Bros game! (FREE, for all to play and enjoy).
- some background on the storyline of the Gamma Bros.
- images, screenshots, and some movie files that will show some of the space-shooting action from the game. Maybe some candid photos of the Bros.
- links to Gamma Bros stuff. t-shirts, mousepads, and whatever else might be fun to make and offer.
- other news and info.
- surprises!

We've got many ideas for future games we'd like to work on, but most of that we'll be keeping quiet until we're getting closer to releasing any of them. Oh how I want to tell you and show images... It's all very exciting.

For now, if you're interested in becoming a beta tester, you can email us at pixeljamgames@gmail.com. There's still time and we'll consider it. Take a look at older blogs to see some screens from Gamma Bros, to get an idea if it's a game you might enjoy.

that's all for today. Have a great week!
-Rich

Gamma Bros is almost finished

(originally published: April 12, 2006)

Buon Giorno. We are busy, busy busy working on finishing Gamma Bros this week, so I'm not going to write about anything today. Actions not words! With any luck my next Blog will be titled "Gamma Bros v1.0b is ready for beta testing!" or something like that. So, check back next week!

In future blogs, I'm going to be writing about other games we've got in mind, A simple tutorial on making pixel art, animations & the programs I use for it, A blog about our first game, Game 01, where Rat, Burger Boy and the Gamma Bros come from. I will probably be setting up stuff with Game art for sale too, like posters and t-shirts on cafepress.com, and perhaps other sites similar to cafepress.com that might be a little cheaper for you and me.

That's all for today. Arreviderci!
Rich

In the other beginning..

The Birth of Pixel Venus by R. Grillotti

(originally published: April 05, 2006)

Hello and welcome back! First, a quick update on Gamma Bros.. Things are moving along very, very well! Most of the sounds and music are in, and we're getting close to finishing. we've been adding some really nice details, and as new ideas pop up (and they do constantly) we are keeping track of those for our "Deluxe" version of the game that we hope to create/release around December 2006 (which is not to be confused with Gamma Bros 2, or the action/adventure/platform Gamma Bros related game we've got in mind for the future).

Mark DeNardo, 8-bit musician extraordinaire, visited Chicago last week, played an Omac show with Miles and our friends Bobby K & Richie D, as well as a solo set that same night. During the set he played the theme song he wrote for Gamma Bros, w/ guitar and vocal accompanyment (which I've got a recording of & will share at a later date). He also layed down some tracks for Gamma Bros while he was at our place, and we've now got almost all that we need now for the game sounds and music. I really love his Gamma Bros song.

So, last week I revealed some of Miles' earliest Flash programming experiments. That was some pretty funny stuff, no? I particularly liked the enemy head file. Well, this week I'm going to reveal where my end of things began. I (Rich) have been doing pixel art and animation for a long time. It began as a love of abstract pixel art, on a site I started in 1997 or so, "pixeljam.com". For example, this is one of the first animations I did for it:






this one was called "Orange". It took me a while, but I eventually made a new version of Pixeljam last summer, pixel sunsets and sunrises. I've got plenty of ideas for future series', but for now I've got games to work on.

Around the time I was creating new work for Pixeljam, I was invited to put some artwork in an art/fashion/music/multimedia show here in chicago, called "Seamless", by M5. I wanted to do something new and something pixel related, so I began to work on developing the most minimal pixel style women I could, with 2 eyes, arms, legs, charm and beauty. After a couple weeks of experiementing I wound up with characters and a direction I was really happy with. I had my first series of pixel models!








If you're interested in seeing them all, I've got the whole pixel models 01 series up on my site anything.org.

My pixel models were eventually projected onto huge exterior windows throughout the show and people responded very well. With their big pixel eyes, they were just plain cute! I planned on going forward and making more of these women, but around this time Miles and I began to work on the Adventure style game I mentioned last week, and I found myself doing some experiments for animating pixel people walking. After some trial and error, I began to get an idea of how to make it work. I was amazed that I could emulate human movements with such few pixels. At that point, I was hooked and we were both excited by the possibilities for making games with these characters.

So, we went to work on "Game 01" and I began to create all sorts of characters, objects, fruits vegetables, enemies, etc. Miles started to work on the game map and we both worked on ideas for game story, character personalities and game play. We took it pretty far, and have a semi-complete game that's actually beautiful and a whole lot of fun to play, but we had to stop for a variety of reasons. We'd love to complete it, but you know, first things first, and of course we'll need to somehow make a good deal of time/money before we can begin again.

Okay friends, that's all for today. Have a good one.
-Rich

In the beginning..

(original publish date: March 29, 2006)

Hi. welcome back to the pixeljam game blog. I'm your host Rich Grillotti. Today, I'm going to be giving you a tour of the original files that Miles began his game programming tests and experiments with. A little glimpse of how it all began.

But first, I've got to mention Gamma Bros progress briefly. to be honest it becomes more and more amazing to me every time Miles programs new stuff for it, and last night I came home to a Gamma Bros with SOUND FX!!! Oh my god. I can't even explain how incredible it is to play with the awesome sound fx Miles added to the game. They're amazing, and mostly based on sound fx and an 8-bit jam session (or two) by Mark DeNardo. Mark provided the raw material, Miles finessed them and added them to the game, attaching them the the most appropriate events and actions. The background space ambience is such a nice effect. He's made it through Level 1 with sound fx, and he added Mark's 8-bit instrumental song "Motherbox" (I'm pretty sure that's the name) to the first boss battle. It rocks!!!! I was pretty amped playing the game before, 'cause it's constant action, but the music and sound fx in that battle made it feel epic! I was really pumped up and blew them away with joy. ahh.. you'll see. It will be FREE and It will be ready for beta testing very soon. :)

So, now let's go back in time, maybe 2 years? or a year and a half? A while ago, when I first had this impulse to design an alternate version of the old Atari 2600 game Adventure for fun. I used to LOVE adventure. I still do. It's amazing, and maybe the first game ever with a secret and a hidden area. The first role playing video game too. It really stuck with me, and I wanted to expand the universe of Adventure, so I started to design some new areas for the game, and Miles was going to use it as an opportunity to try to program a simple game for the the first time, using Flash/actionscript. The following are the first few experiments of his, in order. You can move the little block/character around with the arrow keys, however once you click on a thumbnail below and a new window pops open, you've got to CLICK IN THE GAME AREA WITH YOUR MOUSE. Otherwise the arrow keys will not do anything. It has something to do with defining the "focus" to what's in the browser window.

make the block go into the other room. don't forget to click in the game area first.	pick up a key! move around with it. don't forget to click in the game area first! how annoying.
this one doesn't work so well..	pick up keys, watch one disappear.
similar to the last one.	pick up a bunch opf keys. They don't disappear.
pick up keys, drop them with space bar. yellow key doesn't open door yet..	yes! Open the yellow door with the yellow key! drop keys with the space bar.
open the yellow door again..	attack of Miles' first enemy!

There you have it. that's where it all began. The idea of a sequel to Adventure was eventually dropped in favor of doing our own original game instead. :) At the time I started to design characters and character animations, and "Game 01" was born. I will definitely write about that one in a future blog. it's unfinished, but still a great game, similar to Adventure, but with robotron 2084 playing/shooting style, and more detailed characters and game area.

well, that's all for now. I would love to share some of Gamma Bros with you, but maybe in a couple weeks, and you can see some screenshots in my previous blogs here. If you want to request to be a beta tester, you can email us at games@pixeljam.com. Maybe describe a little about why you think you'd make a good beta tester.

See ya!
-rich

Gamma Bros is a good time

(original publish date: March 22, 2006)

Hi! Today I've got a couple things to mention and some images to show, but I'll try to keep it brief. I should be spending my time on making games, not talking about them! But, I suppose I can take a few minutes to keep people updated..

1) Rat from Ratmaze has been bugging me to help him create a myspace profile, so I went ahead and set one up for him. check it out if you want! http://myspace.com/ratmaze

Add him as your friend, send him a message or leave a comment. He'd love that. He's pretty good at replying too. And he's recently gotten into blogging.

2) Ratmaze stuff! I'm going to be setting up a whole selection of artwork based on Rat and Ratmaze soon on Cafepress.com. I've got one shirt up there so far, a "baby doll" womens T-shirt, which I actually made as a surprise gift for the person who motivated us to finish ratmaze in the first place, after I wrote the blog about how Ratmaze wasn't going to happen. The URL to the shop is http://cafepress.com/ratmaze, and here's what the first shirt looks like:
Check it out soon! I'll be making a bunch of stuff available, including a mousepad ;)

3) Gamma Bros! It's coming along so well! I'm officially addicted to it. It's a lot of fun, and really wakes me up if I'm feeling tired. It's kind of constant action. Miles thinks we'll have it ready for beta testing in a couple weeks. If you think you'd like to request to be a beta tester, email us at games@pixeljam.com.

So, if you'd like to see, I went ahead and took some recent screenshots of the game in progress, and here they are! Brand new, exclusive screenshots just for the readers on my games blog. Actually, we give permission to use these screenshots for review and other press related purposes. Just please give credit to Pixeljam Games, and a link to games.pixeljam.com please. And let us know too, so we can see where it winds up. Thanks! Now for the screens. Click for larger versions:


Oh, and there's one more.. I feel like I'm giving too much away, but I suppose if you're taking the time to read this blog I should make it worth your while! Check it out, you can upgrade to better ships throughout the game! You'd better collect those space coins or you'll be sorely disappointed. New ships are faster and have better armor than the one you start out with. You'll also be able to purchase power-ups from that little orange guy when he comes by. He's actually the "mini orange boss" from "Game 01", which I'll write more in depth about another time. In Gamma Bros, he knows how hard it can be to commute home sometimes with all those unreasonably hostile enemies attacking the whole time, so he tries to help the Bros. out.. but he's also looking to make a buck, so you'll need to have enough cash on hand. He doesn't care THAT much. only as much as your wallet is large. And trust me, you're gonna want to buy everything he offers.

That's all for today! Visit Rat's profile if you like and say hello. He'd be glad to hear from you.

-Rich

Ratmaze 0.5 exposed

(original publish date: March 14, 2006)

Hello & welcome back! It's time to lend a helping hand to all of you Ratmaze players out there. I know, Ratmaze isn't necessarily easy to beat with the "BEST" rating (under 127 seconds) but I'm here today with some assistance. I've created a Map of the game, and I've also created a version of the map with the route I took to get my best time of 102.3 seconds. It's the best time I know of so far, but once you get a look at what I've got here, I'm sure it will be beaten promptly. After that, I'm going to reveal the original graph paper & pencil sketch of the Ratmaze 1.0 map that Miles created in the first place. A little "making of" type of stuff is always interesting.

So, Here's the Ratmaze map, and then the map with the route that seems to work best for me so far. click thumbnails for a larger view:

Ratmaze map normal

Ratmaze map w/ Rich's route

There you have it. I've even revealed one of the two secrets in the game. If you can't get a better time after reviewing those maps, then, well, I don't know what to tell you. keep practicing & I'm confident that eventually you will get a "BEST" time and see Rat do backflips!






And for anyone who is interested in the behind the scenes stuff, here's a scan of the original maze design for Ratmaze. Click it for a larger view:




Pretty cool! I'm glad he dug it up recently. Very good timing for this blog. If anyone wants to use it for a background on their computer for some reason, I've also uploaded a 1240 x 1024 pixel version of it for monitors with that resolution setting here.

In other news, Gamma Bros. is coming along amazingly well. It's great fun to play, and is becoming a game that I find myself really wanting to play! That's a good sign. It's like the space shooter we've always wanted. We totally revamped the weapon upgrade capsules last night and I think they look great! We're getting close to having a finished beta version too, so if you're interested in beta testing, send us an email. We've still got room for more beta testers.

More of something next week, and with any luck the end of March will be all about the release of the beta version of Gamma Bros 1.0b! woohoo!! That's the hope, but don't hold me to that.. this is all a voluntary labor of love and our time is subject to being stolen away in an effort to actually support ourselves.

for now, good luck getting better times on Ratmaze!
-rich