#pixel hero

[the-goat-king-plus-more]

episode two up

  this place be spoops

[theoldpixelhero]

There’s some big stuff in the works, namely a little (or should I say, expansive, humorous and secret packed) game called QuestQuest! QuestQuest (or maybe Quest Quest?) is going to be an original IP, and takes everything learned from Pixel Hero and jam packs it into a fresh and lively world. 

As you can tell the Hero of Destiny from the original Pixel Hero (as well as his legendary Sword of Destiny) are carrying over to the new project, but the cast of characters, the world and most of the plot has been completely reworked to create something interesting and fresh. That said, the game will still be packed with tropes, gags and even a few references, but QuestQuest aims to be a game to truly surpass everything that Pixel Hero was meant to be.

There’s a lot to still be done and planned, but stay tuned for the latest news on the new project!

[theoldpixelhero]

Visit Original Link

...

[theoldpixelhero]

(or An Experiment in Surrealism in Christmas [or The Modern Pitfall! {or This Is Why I Have Trust Issues}])

Made in 12 hours, this browser-based choose-your-own-text adventure based on the Atari classic Pitfall! is now online for your enjoyment! Death Wears A Sombrero is the perfectly absurd 10-minute time killer to help get your pixel fix!

While I upgrade my computer, get ready for the next year of college, work on PHI maintain a social life, start a streaming team and try to play some good video games all the while, I managed to throw together this surreal trip for your playing pleasures. A write up for the Combat Evolved update that came out last week is on it’s way, as are pixelations of course. But until then, have this full (if odd) game!

Enjoy!

[theoldpixelhero]

The PHP: VR Missions Postmortem

With an exciting project to be announced tomorrow, lots of new pixelations on their way and an even cleaner build of PHP: VR Missions coming soon, I found now would be a good time to give a bit of a Postmortem on PHP: VR Missions and what we did right and what we could improve. 

What We Did Right

The three biggest compliments PHP: VR got were on the art, the comedy and of course the soundtrack. So let’s breakdown how each of those went...

The Art: The chibi-pixel style of Pixel Hero has become both unique and memorable, despite all of the inspiration being from much higher resolution games. I can’t recount the sleepless nights I spent with 12 tabs worth of wiki pages and image searches to get the right coloring and contours for characters. Perhaps the best lesson I learned was the power of iteration, nearly every sprite went through some last minute tweaks to get everything perfect. It’s one of the reasons the art is done first, and it’s a method that’s worked quite well.

The Humor: I’ve always tried to make Pixel Hero a “pick your own comedy path” with much of the hilarity being in the irreverent expressions of the characters and in the comedic timing. I wish I’d added more of this humor to Dark Sector instead of simply rushing it out the door. In fact, I think only the tutorial hit the levels of comedy bombardment that I wanted, with JHQ coming in close second. It’ll be interesting working on my next project where the protagonist wears a helmet the majority of the time, I also hope to take more time to truly craft the humor.

The Soundtrack: Chris Fonte was a God sent on this one, with the soundtrack being epic, catchy and atmospheric. There’s also a lot to also be said for Bryan Teoh’s catchy 50s tunes and the charm and hilarity they added to JHQ, something I don’t doubt you’ll see more of in the future.

What We Need To Improve

Story/Lore: Due to the nature of VR Missions much of the story was dumped in dialogue branches that (intentionally) the player could skip over. That said, this broke much of the flow of an otherwise high-octane game. That’s not to say I want Pixel Hero to be all laughs, a good example of a serious moment done right is Clarus’ goodbye at the end of Dark Sector. It’s cheeky, it’s cute, but also (especially if you’ve grown attached to his Darks Souls counterpart) it can be a bit heart-wrenching. Similarly, there were a few well timed slaps in the face of the player with oddly serious moments that quite intentionally took them out of the moment.

An example of a character that needed a lot more love and attention to tell the story of was PROTO. I wanted PROTO to be fun and cheery but genuinely conflicted. Initially he was going to be a companion and due to that being scrapped, the player had little reason to care to begin with. An example of two characters who I got players to care about and enjoy where Richard (due in part to his omnipresence) and Mr. Funk (who’s dialogue tress and character progression is still my best work to date, in my opinion).

So how do I fix this? Well in part, I shouldn’t wait 3 weeks before writing all the dialogue, planning is really key and now that (most) of the engine is done I’ll be able to work on story a bit more and have introduced more meaningfully and organically. Essentially we took the Fallout approach without thinking about how shitty the Fallout approach is.

The Combat: Oh lordy the combat! The abilities and items (with a lot of tweaking) look and feel great and have exactly the kind of crunch and satisfaction I was hoping, but the basic attacks still don’t work the way they should and lead to an obnoxious amount of wiffs. 

Currently I have two solutions and I’m leaning towards the first:

Option 1 - SP Builders: Those who have played games like City of Heroes, Champions Online or the Secret World will know what this is. A generally weak attack (will likely be equal damage to the amount you have in that skill doubled and subtracted by the same of your opponents for consistent damage) that generates SP for abilities. This would however mean that I’d want to fill out the player’s options for abilities as well, and it also (to a degree) gets rid of the Rock-Paper-Scissors (Or DEX-STR-WIS) combat system the original was going for.

 Option 2 - Stop Wiffs: Make it so the minimum amount of damage done will be 1. This mainly goes back to the original design philosophy (and the reason there is no block in the game), the challenge is not to outlast the enemy, the challenge is to kill them as quickly and efficiently as possible before they can reduce your health.

I’ll likely be implementing one of these in the latest patch for PHP: VR Missions, and it will probably be Option 1 if I can make it feel good. (though I might honestly do a combination of the two).

The Spelling Errors:

This is something I was aware of early on and continues to be a struggle to combat. I don’t want to waste development time slogging through all my dialogue, so I’m just trying to get friends to help look for the errors at every step of the way.

Cut Content

Ever wonder why Altair appears on the cover and not in game? He was cut content. There was going to be an ancient dessert library with Prince of Persia-esc Sand Monsters, platforming, a library full of lore and Siegfried from the Witcher. The pixelations are mostly done but I ran out of time to work the platforming out and do the overworld sprites, so cut the content was. Wondering where that sealed off door leads in The Room? Spencer Mansion, complete with Jill, Wesker and even a tyrant... only that got cut due to time constraints as well. WIREs were supposed to have a much bigger role in what was to be called the Glitch SECTOR. Cut Content. It was really a shame, but unsurprising and not whole disappointing as the game got done what it needed to in the Sectors it had.

The only disappointing cut content was the following:

Wolven SECTOR was supposed to have a hangar and an escape sequence after the final boss fight. If the player had tweaked with the helicopter in the hangar previously they’d unlock a new (albeit short) level that would be a recreation of the first Call of Duty Zombies map and serve as a survival mode after the game had been beaten.

Dark SECTOR was also supposed to have an additional companion (Sylvannis from the Warcraft franchise) and much more interactions between companions (much in the line of the ‘false light’ discussion). There was also going to be a secret boss (the Bell Gargoyle or possibly an Angel from Bayonetta) which would have unlocked the previously discussed Assassin’s Creed sector. 

Moral of the Story

PHP: VR suffered most because it was rushed, between that and a half-assed PR campaign, it’s no wonder this game is still a relative unknown. The moral here is to plan *everything* in advance. Start writing out dialogue branches and work on art elements and mapping very early to put together a great project. I have three months to complete Pixel Hero Isolation (as it will indeed be part of the Metroid Jam) and have already done some preliminary preproducton work, this time I hope to have a game truly worthy of the Pixel Hero title...

[theoldpixelhero]

“The answer lies in the heart of battle.”

Ryku - A fervent fighter and a companion in both VR Missions and Pixel Hero: Prologue, I present to you the pixelated Ryku (inspired by Ryu from the Street Fighter series). Considering Ryu just joined the roster of SSB and we’ll probably be hearing quite a bit about Street Fighter V this week, it seemed appropriate to show him off now. 

[theoldpixelhero]

Reynard Squad - So in case any of you hadn’t heard Pixel Hero: Prologue is on Kickstarter, and we’re trying to raise funds to make the soundtrack the best that it can possibly be! To celebrate this we’ve got some concept work for Cobra and the many companions he’ll work with along the way in JACKAL’s Reynard Squad! Among familiar faces I’d hope you all recognize Ryku from VR Missions, as well as a more cybernetic Silver Fox. There’s also some new team members who will add some good flavor to Prologue cast of companions!

[theoldpixelhero]

Pixel Hero Prologue VR Missions is out! Battle through 3 Epic SECTORS and more in this totally free and exciting Role-Playing-Turn-Based-Puzzle-Stealth-Comedy Experience! You can download it via Dropbox here! Or you can grab it over on IndieDB!

With this we’ve also launched our Kickstarter (Which we’ll do a post on a little bit later)! If you liked the VR Missions, please consider backing us so that we can make Pixel Hero Prologue as amazing a game as it can be! (And yes, if you’re curious it is going to be a Pay-What-You-Want game upon release)