Paul Roundthird and his team are approaching their deadline with their Kickstarter project Pixel Press. If you haven't heard of this game before, its a uniquely designed application that scans illustrations and then turns them into virtual levels using a camera on a mobile device. Their goal, $100,000, is nearly reached with 7 days to go. For a more detailed presentation and some personal thoughts read past the break...
Forget the Code, Get Right to Creation
In my opinion Pixel Press represents where game development is headed. What Robin and his team seek to achieve is a system that makes a developer's experience completely about creativity by avoiding the monotonous coding process. Essentially, the technology in Pixel Press eliminates the relatively high demands of coding, providing those who can draw the opportunity to make games. In a sense, coding has been simplified in this process to an art form, an analog coding language if you will.
Give the Work to the People
The real potential with Pixel Press comes from its theoretical community of creators. More and more it seems, game studios have handed over the responsibility of content creation to its gamers. Why? Its simple. Create a viable platform with flexible tools and an social sharing feature and you'll have a prime environment for creative individuals to thrive. This relieves the big load off of game companies and usually guarantees a long game life (assuming the ecosystem continues to grow). This strategy is not that dissimilar to big social networks like Facebook and Youtube where, were they to lose their user base, they would lose their content in tandem. Its a give and take relationship but it allows the users to truly produce the content that they want.
A Game of Russian Roulette
The disadvantage to this heavy reliance on an ecosystem is that it does not yet exist. Its a dangerous business hoping that people will step forward to provide valued content. While Pixel Press presents a intriguing change to game design, its approach bears a risky chance of failure. Its unclear wither there is a high demand for personal level creation but I suppose we will know in 7 days. If interested, take a look at their Kickstarter page here. Their deadline ends on the 13th so don't be shy to help fund them along!
