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Pixel story is a 2D puzzle platformer in which you explore a world of pixels that develops through stages as you play. The story follows the player as a rogue pixel that breaks out of his world through an error, and starts a fight a journey of survival as the computer he is inside tries to destroy him.
The world around you develops as you do, with the entire graphical scale and design style of the environment and your character changing as the computer gets more powerful.
Dare has been unlike anything we’ve undertaken before. It’s incredibly invigorating to be able to put your all into a product every day and really see the rapid developments as fruits of your labour. Simultaneously as your own product develops, you can see other incredibly skilled teams trying out new ideas and constantly improving their games, it’s very inspiring. There’s a very good sense of camaraderie, everyone is willing to offer help, and give feedback and advice on what you’ve done.
I don’t think we would have been able to achieve anything near the quality or consistency that we have in the same time scale without everything Dare and Abertay University have afforded us. Regular guidance and advice from a wide range of very helpful and invested industry professionals has really made sure we get the absolute most out of our product. I don’t think any participant would think twice about advising anyone interested in making games to try their hardest to get into Dare to be Digital.
We’ve received a huge amount of advice, both in techniques about our individual skills but also in the mentality behind design and how to treat your audience when attempting to convey an experience. I think my own, as well as many others’, approach to design and construction of a product would vary massively from the beginning to the end of this process.
Rules applicable to any art, appreciating that rest and time to consider decisions, is as important as actually sitting down and churning out content. Testing has been a crash course in understanding how differently you and the public may interact with your product, a great deal of patience has been tested and modesty learnt, at the sight of players not getting a concept you think is extremely simple.
I would say the emotions are a mixture of excitement coupled with concern. You want to show off the project your team has put all that work into for nine weeks, as well as see the outcomes of all the other work going on around you.
You’re pretty sure people enjoy it as much as you want them to, but opening your game to the wide world, to people who may hate it, or worse not understand it, is certainly a cause for pause. In the end it’s the climax of everything we have all worked for, and it has in no small part tailored what our game is, so I think it’s very much in everyone’s minds.
Our team of five have worked together for a long time, so we’re very happy and used to working with each other. I think we’re really quite happy, and excited, about where our game could go, and are certainly considering continuing to develop it after Dare.
No matter what, we know we definitely want to make games.
Follow Loan Wolf Games on Twitter @LoanWolfGames to learn more about their game.
Dare ProtoPlay and Indie Fest takes place between August 10th and 12th in Dundee, with all 15 Dare student games on show, as well as indie games, conference talks and much more.
