Winner’s Circle
This week’s Flash Game Friday winner is Pixle by Stellar-0!
Pixle is a creative take on the classic running genre, where your skill ultimately decides how far you go (and how high your score is).
You begin as a small and slow ink-blob pixel creature. The goal is to go as far as you can, but you have a limited amount of energy and obstacles to oversome. You can collect energy, but it is spread out so you need to increase your speed to get to them in time. How do you increase your speed? Why, by breaking crystals, of course!
Pixle is a fun short-form runnin-style game with great animation, sound, and enough intrigue to keep you playing. Congratulations Stellar-0!
Get To Know Stellar-0
Tell me about yourself- how many people are on your team? Where are you based?
We are a small team of game lovers, who end up making our own games with original graphic and audio. The location spans from Jakarta, Bandung, and Jogjakarta, all 3 cities are in Java island of Indonesia, and we work and connect thru internet only. For more complete info of our positions, names and skills please visit our site.
How long have you been making games? What did you do before?
We started out with game development at around early 2008 under a different name and team (Blue Destiny Arts, trimutation) and started doing paid commissions of ingame graphics and music around mid 2009.
What was your inspiration for “Pixle”?
I think it’s NiGHTS : Journey of Dreams, Sonic, and Cannabalt. Before we started developing PIXLE, we were talking about NiGHTS alot, and then we came up with the game idea of “an endless run while collecting rings”, but in the end it turned out to be a really different game :) We have blogged about how we came up with this game though.
Did you encounter any major challenges or hurdles during development?
There were a few minor obstacles like number related balancing and formula, but no major problems.
What types of games do you like to create the most? What types of games do you like to play the most?
Mix of Strategy/Sim/RPG. Something like Brigandine, Metal Marines, Yuyu Hakusho Tokubetsuhen, etc.
The genres I enjoy most are Strategy, Sim, RPG, and Versus, with nice graphic and audio.
How long is your game creation cycle? What is your process?
From 2 years to 2-3 weeks only. As for PIXLE it was approx. 1 month.
Our process is usually like this:
1. Brainstorm ideas.
2. Create working/playable prototype.
3. Discussion and creation of GDD and the data tables, plus the resource list and schedule.
4. Implementation of new ideas, updates, or balance value.
5. Thorough testing and balancing, minor polishing and bug fixes.
6. Release alpha/beta to be tested by fellow gamedevs.
7. Final release.
Are there any game developers that you admire or consider “rock stars”?
Each team member has their own “rock stars”, such as: KOEI for its deep simulation game, Treasure for its level design, Megaten for its myth/demonology and new age themed games, and Nintendo for its simplicity.
What is it about making a new game that you enjoy most?
Like any other art form, we can inject our ideas, personality and taste into our creation. Whether it’s the story, gameplay, graphic or audio. With each creation of new games, we learn new things and enjoy great amount of creative ideas transformation.
Do you have any hot projects you’re working on right now?
Yes, it’s an arena hack n’ slash/RPG mix called Grand Steam. The details of this project can be viewed here. It will be our biggest and most experimental game to date. Don’t miss out on this one lol! ;)
Thanks Stellar-0, good luck with Grand Steam!
