pixelartkid

[pixelartkid]

Pokémon Go - City Safari | Chile 2025

Niantic Labs and Pokémon Company between of 29th and 30th of March of 2025, made an official event called: City Safari in Santiago of Chile!

The objetive was tryied catch Pokémon Shinys and collect seals in differents point of the city!

A lot people assisted for play Pokémon Go in the Park and was fun !!

I tried the catch some Pokémons and I hope see similar events in the future!!

[pixelartkid]

Skull Island-Rise of Kong

This was the next project I worked on: Skull Island - Rise of Kong! But first of all, I want to clarify, which is the version of Kong we have worked on to develop the game, because many people are confused about which Kong the game was based on (yes, there are a lot of different intellectual property of the great ape).

The eighth wonder of the World!

In 1933 Edgar Wallace & Merian C. Cooper diriged & produced; King Kong, a movie of adventure in black & white, that used special effects with Stop Motion Animation used models of creatures made by Willis H. O`Brien. Here the original Kong has 18 meter of height!

Well, yes, this is the great ape from 1933, but also, it is based on the novels and comics written and Illustraded by Joe DeVito, (an artist and sculptor who has worked for Mad magazine as well as DC Comic), which the intellectual property is licensed by the heirs of the original creator of Merian C. Cooper.

Joe DeVito has delved into the lore of Kong with its mythology and the secrets of Skull Island, for example: On Skull Island some vegetation and creatures are as gigantic because there some crystals minerals in the island that produce mutation, the deathrunners before were inteligent humanoids or the Tagatus tribe could control the Kongs in the past use soem plants.

"An Atus village in ruin (read King of Skull Island novel book), the size comparation with Kong Mother height from the prologue story!" For this reason, the others Kong license are of the Monsterverse (other propierty intelectual) where Kong can fight against Godzilla or other Kaiju and be so a colossal monster of 50 meter of height in comparation with the original Kong has 18 to 20 meter of height.

Games of King Kong that used Merian C. Cooper and Joe DeVito IP (before of Rise of Kong)!

1) King Kong: Skull Island Adventure: In 2008 was released King Kong: Skull Island Adventure, a puzzle game adaption of Joe DeVito 2005 novel King Kong Skull Island, was developed by Large Animal Games for PC & Mobile, currently this games is not available for downloads, is an Abandoware! Its distribution was through Oberon Games and later in Big Fish Games Launcher (publisher & developers for casual games for mobile & PC) in 2008!

2) King Kong of Skull Island 1 & 2 (VR Arcade): Raw Thrills is a company of the game develoment and manufacture of Arcade, founded by the legendary game designer; Eugene Jarvis (Defender, Smash TV, Cruis´n USA, Roboton 2084), developed a special cabinet with VR technology and movement sensor for King Kong! The first game was released in 2021 & second title in 2023!

The UI/UX for Skull Island - Rise of Kong:

I made the Wireframes, Screen flow, UI Assests such buttons, icons labels, Mockups, Tagatus Fonts & the integration of UI in widgets in Unreal Engine 5!

For example, between the transitions there are splash animations, between the game screen and the pause menu, making the transition dynamic! The UI elements are irregular shapes or torn edges, with it we evoke this wild nature (and dangerous) of Skull Island!

Some Wireframes & animationa of transitions that I made for the UI document I ´ve wrote!

Some Mockups & icons I´ve made for the game!

Joe DeVito designed the Tagatus tribe alphabet, I had make the all symbol in vectors and conver this in a real font, so yes, the symbols have meaning!

The Development & Its Release

We had 1 year for full development, it was the budget that the publisher had, it meaning that we had a tight schedule for to complete its development! The omen about the result began, when our publisher released the Teaser Trailer with some capture in close-up of Kong in Nintendo Switch (I like the console, but required optimize a lot), the player compared Kong graphic with Lord of Rings Gollum, (I understand, but Gollum development had 5 years of development, we no).

Maybe in my opinion, the game needed 5 months more to polish or fix several things (like cinematics , gameplay issues or level design) maybe for achieve that game was minimum acceptable for the players!

When the game was released on October, a lot video reviews appeared in Youtube & Twitch (in Spanish and English) and the game was known to many, but not as we it would have liked, it converted in a meme!!!

The game was sell by the meme in fact!! But while the various criticisms were appearing, the team had been working on the latest console and PC patch, which fixes few things (e.g. the map that initially had a placeholder, but had to be implemented later in the final patch, because the priority was to implement Collosal Deluxe and its content).

Part the content for the Collosal Deluxe is the making of of recording the music of Rise of Kong, by the Orquesta Symphony of Valdivia! (This material you can be found on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox SX & PC). In Spotify you can to lisen the original soundtrack, here:

We were aware of that, but if you played the game and you finished , I want to say: Thank you playing the game! A curiosity is that was there are a some of people trying to speedrun the game, but it was fun to watched it!

"SFX Magazine, a british magazine about sci-fi, fantasy and horror, wrote an article before of the release" However, although the game released with all it, I recommend that read the novel of Joe DeVito y check his artworks! Joe DeVito website: https://www.jdevito.com/

"I read the novel, is a good book!"

[pixelartkid]

Chile Game Conference 2023

Chile Game Conference was a special event made between GameDev Planet, VG Chile, and ProChile. Saturday 29th October was the first Conference for Chilean Game Developer Conference, meeting in the Pro Chile office!

Game Developers Speeches

There were many talks of developers with interesting topics like: - Tomás Jiménez of Ace Team (Clash: Artifacts of Chaos) - Francisco Foco Cerda (Game Composer of Omen of Sorrow & ProtoCorgi) - Max Kübler CEO / Co-founder of Aone Games - Aaron Frenkel (Studio Voyage & Producer in IguanaBee) - Margarita Pino (The Powell Group a Publisher & Investor) - Fernando Gonzales (Invaleb company make AdverGames) - Sven Von Brand (VGChile & Abstract Digital) - Mario Pino (Lead Programmer & CEO of Kemono Games) - Rogelio Iturra (QA of Gamaga)

Demos of game developers

Also, a lot of game developers showed an advance in their game creation like: - The Amazing Crackpot Club (AstroBard Games & IguanaBee) - DayBreak Slam (Aone Games) - Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire (Octecto Studios) - ProtoCorgi (Kemono Games) - City Racebots (Fishbowl Games) - Salmon Simon (Evil Suitcase 4) - Bubblegum Galaxy (Smarto Club) - PartySaur Dino Mayhem (Dire Grine Studio) - Ink of Fate (Cloud Creature Studio) - Bounce Castle (Robot Monkey Brain) - The Omni Gallery (Eternal Echoes VR) - Cute Land (Niebla Games) - Soulember (Niebla Games) - The Eightfold Path (Friendly Llama) - Erebus (Wekufu Studios) - Orphans (Infinity Gear Studios) - Siner`s Tavern (WoolCat) I can´t play all the demos, but I suggest you check out a podcast of my workmates at IguanaBee; Osvaldo and Diego talked about each game but is in Spanish only.

In conclusion, was a great event where I met new faces and also I met with old friends and devs again.

[pixelartkid]

IguanaBee in ExpoGame 2023

ExpoGame Santiago was celebrated on the 13th (Fri), 14th (Sat) & 15th (Sun), in Estación Mapocho. I wanted to go by the special guests as Daniel Pesina, Carlos Pesina, Ho-Sung Pak (Mortal Kombat Original Game Actors) & Charles Martinet (Original Voice Actor of Mario) but they can´t go (the good news ExpoGame give me back my money).

IguanaBee Stand

But in ExpoGame, IguanaBee was invited as an exhibitor for the 3 days, with a wonderful space and location for the stands. The demo that we showed is The Amazing Crackpots Clubs!, an incredible development between Astrobard Games (formed by some mate works of In Vitro Games & friends of Oscar Gacitua, Lead Programmer of the game) with co-development and published by IguanaBee.

"Some photos were taken on the stand with a stage that had a screen for a tournament."

I went on Sunday in the afternoon to help the team, I was amazed because the event had the same level of production that Festigame had in years past. Was a funny and incredible moment at ExpoGame, a lot of people enjoyed playing The amazing Crackpots Club!

"We had a sponsor, they we lent laptops and monitors with the seal of Thunderbolt."

"Fantastic material for all game projects development of IguanaBee"

[pixelartkid]

Henk Roger in Chile

Henk Roger (actual CEO with Axeley Pajitnov of The Tetris Company), is a Game Programmer, Game Designer, various games, and Chief Executive of game companies, he arrived in Chile for Festigame 2023 on the 12 and 13 of August! I went on Saturday and I got to know him, he could sign me some Bullet Proof Software (best known as B.P.S too) games.

Was so fantastic his interview on the main stage of FestiGames. I will tell you the trajectory of Henk Roger before and later of Tetris.

The Birth of Bullet Proof Software

Bullet Proof Software (known as B.P.S) was an American/Japanese game Developer and Publisher founded by Henk Roger in 1983 in Japan. In the next year, the first game developed by B.P.S was Black Onyx, which was the first introduction of the RPG (Role Playing Game)/ Dungeon Crawler genre for the gamer Japanese before they developed games such as Dragon Quest (Enix), YS (Nihon Falcom) or Final Fantasy (Squaresoft).

Black Onyx had Inspiration from successful American RPGs like Ultima by Richard Garriot in 1981, and Wizardry by Andrew C. Greenberg and Robert Woodhead in 1981, obviously, those games are based on Dungeon & Dragon (a tabletop game created in 1974 by David Gygax and Dave Anderson), the original mother of all Rol Playing games.

Its development was for NEC-PC 88, NEC-PC 98, SEGA-1000 and, and had a sequel for Famicom called Super Black Onyx.

"Black Onyx for NEC PC 88 (hardware Japanese of 8 bits)"

"The Original Team of B.P.S during the development of Black Onyx in 1984"

"Bullet Proof Software Office in 1984, the screenshots are of a Japanese Magazine called Beep! about videogame, 1984 which they worked on in Black Onyx's Third chapter, showed GDD and Sprite Editor that was unreleased". (source by VGDenetsu)

B.P.S Club Ad, show the next game for PC 88 and Famicom like: -MicroGo1 (1987 developed by B.P.S for Famicom) is a Go game -Archon (they were the publisher for the PC 88/FM 77 version in 1986) -Lyrane (they were the publisher for the PC 88/FM 77 version in 1986 and 1987)

Tetris, From Russia with Love:

I suggest you check the great documental: "From Russian with Love" created by BBC, but I will try to resume the story: Axeley Pajitnov's 1985 program Tetris his Electronika 60 in the Science Sovietic Academy of Moscu during the URRS, his creation did not have the proprietary right concept, the game was spread all over Europe. The game quickly arrived on different PCs until you reached a Computation Exposition in Europe. A man called Robert Stein from Andromeda Software was interested in Tetris, and he wanted to contact Axeley Pajitnov, but the Soviet government was awarded the game to negotiate with any wanted of getting the rights of commercialization for selling Tetris via Elorg, Ministry of Technology of the government.

Elorg sent the first step for negotiating to Robert Stein, but him believed that was a contract for the right of commercialization, he started selling the rights commercialization to Mirror Soft (a British Company created by the Multibilionaire Robert Maxwell), This company sold the rights to Spectrum Holobyte (game developer and Publisher in the USA) that this sold the rights to Atari Tengen (for Arcade and Console) and finally Atari Tengen sold the rights to Henk Roger from Bullet Proof Software for can sell Tetris for Famicom, during a CES of 1987.

"This was the first version of Tetris for Famicom released in 1987, that didn't same NES version released in 1989 was developed by Nintendo Japan". But Elorg didn´t know about the commercialization of Tetris in anything platform until 1988, when they saw the different Tetris versions on PC. Elorg contacted Robert Stein because he traded the rights without Elorg's permission., while Mirror Soft at the same time they wanted the rights to Tetris, and Henk Roger was contacted by Hiroshi Yamauchi because Nintendo they worked on a new Console Portable: Game Boy. Henk Roger, Robert Stein, and Kevin Maxwell made a trip to URRS, to negotiate the complete rights of Tetris, without knowing each one traveled with the same intention, was a legal fight and very bureaucratic, and this scaled to the KGB, Kremlin, and finally to the Mijain Gorbachov, but Henk Roger got the exclusive rights for develop and sell the game for Game Boy and VideoGame Home Console. With the rights to the Video Game Home Console, They can stop and cancel the version of Atari Tengen for NES, obviously, Atari demanded Nintendo in a Legal Trial for the rights to sell the Home Console (at this moment ATARI made a re-engineer inverse to the NES for manufacture own NES Cartridge without permission of Nintendo they had another legal trial).

In 1989, Tetris was sold with the release of the Game Boy, which was developed by Bullet Proof Sofware, It was a success for Nintendo and BPS, but Axeley Pajitnov at all times earned nothing from the profits of his creation, Elorg and URRS kept the profits until 1996 when Russia change to the capitalist system and rights of creation were delivered for his creator.

Axeley Pajitnov, Henk Roger and Hiroshi Yamauchi (President of Nintendo Kyoto in 1989)

Testris and the Friendship:

Axeley Pajitnov wanted to work as a Game designer and work in the game industry, and his best friend could help. Bullet Proof Software since 1989, opened a filial of development in Redmond Washington (very near the Nintendo of America office), Axeley Pajitnov could exit to the URRS, and traveled to the United States with his family. His first work in B.P.S was: - WellTris - FaceTris - HaTris - Knight Moves - PipeDream ( based on the PC game of Lucas Film Game) - Yoshi Cookies (based on an unreleased arcade game of HomeData) Later Pajitnov worked at Microsoft and in 1996 he founded with Henk Roger, The Tetris Company.

"Hatris and PipeDream was the next game designed by Axeley Pajitnov after Tetris, Facetris & Welltris"

"An article from 1990 by GamePro Magazine (Review of Hatris & Pipe Dreams Puzzle Games for Game Boy)"

"Club Nintendo Magazine, CES of 1993"

"Ads of some Game of Bullet Proof Software".

[pixelartkid]

Atari Expo 2023 Chile

Atari Expo 2023, was an event dedicated exclusively to the hardware of Atari like Atari 2600 (also known as VCS) and Atari 800 (micro-Computer), and Atari ST (hardware of 16 bits).

The place of the event was on a Saturday (July 22) (in a day very rainy winter) in Biblioteca de Santiago in Matucana 151.

Some Atari Hardware like 400, 600, 800, 800 XL

There are small stands that sell some Homebrew software & Atari Merch, for example, Lost Squadron for Atari 800 XL & XE was developed in 2020 by Janusz Chabowski (Code and sprite graphic) and Michal Szpilowski (Music and SFX), this game was the winner of the ABBUC competition (Atari Bit Byte User Club since 1985).

Shump top down for Atari XL/ XE

I knew some people of the Atari Community in Chile, they make Homebrew & created games for Atari.

1) Vladimir Zuñiga better known as VHZC is an enthusiastic indie game developer, he writes his games in Basic for Atari 2600, and he is a Graphic Designer, developer in Front End for Websites.

Game of the Bear 2 Much to Bear. (Atari 2600 & 7800 version)

You can play his game here: VCHZ Itch.io

2) Victor Parada, a Programmer with experience, and an indie Homebrew developer by hobby, like to create a game for Atari 800 in an optimized way and he write his games in Assembler with 10 lines only, he show me his recent project in an Atari 800 XL; Block Chaser.

You can play his game here: Vitoco Website

Block Chaser is still in its development!

3) Marcelo Waldbaum & Pedro Caraball , were the founders of Turbosoft in 1987 in Argentina with to Mauro Pieressa & Pedro Dominguez & In 1988 they founded TurboSoft in Chile and in with Coelsa company (official Atari hardware & software dealers) developed and they sold various products for Atari 800, maybe they are the first software and hardware developer in our country.

They developed:

- Loading Game with System and Error detector for Cassette (DCE) while loading a game you could play Tubo Tennis (before that Namco patented the mini-game in the loading screen for PlayStation games)

-Otari (a machine that copies cassettes)

-Cassette with 6 games for play in 1991

-Loading Software Injektor (reduce the time of load to 45 Seconds, before the cassettes, were take between 5-8 minutes to load the program

-Turbo Cartridge of 64K (between 9 to 25 games)

-Turbo VHS, you can play videogames in VHS (yes, read well in VHS)

-Revista Turbo News (1989-1991) a magazine about games and Hardwares of Atari with advertising of Coelsa.

I suggest watch the documental in Spanish of Frognum on his Youtube channel: Here

3) Robert Jaeger, the legendary indie game developer famous for making Montezuma Revenge published by the legendary Parker Brothers in 1983 for Atari 2600, 800, Commodore 64, etc, gave us a preview of his next new projects and answers us via live broadcast of our question.

Recently he launched the Version Montezuma Revenge for NES programmed by Felipe Renaud, who was written the game in Assembler (Felipe Renaud is a Chilean Programmer, who currently working at UbiSoft), Robert Jaeger has founded Normal Distribution LLC his new game company, and they made a Kickstarter for Montezuma NES in 2019, and the game packaging and Manual was designed by Alejandro Cobelli (Youtuber of "Juego del Recuerdo").

Recently Montezuma Revenge's has a new version was released on Steam, Nintendo Switch, and Mobile devices.

Also, I met with José Bargas, who is working with Robert Jaeger on an update called Director Cut, he made Montezuma Maker, a Romhack of the original with more rooms of 16 K to 32 K (an expansion of the original in resume).

Montezuma Revenge for Atari 800 was released by Parker Brothers, but in our country, we received the unfinished version, a copy, when Robert Jaeger was looking for a publisher with the Demo and finally this was filtered from the CES 1982, which was the most popular version for the Chilean users of a Atari 800. During the day I met with old friend, how I met some youtubers of my country.

[pixelartkid]

Gamercity 2023

On 14th, 15th & 16th of April, was the big event about the Gamer & Geek Culture, in Movistar Arena, Parque O'Higgins in Santiago City, Chile.

I found an Awesome Chun-Li Cosplay

The event had Special Guests from the Game industry: -Akira Yamaoka: Game Composer of various games known as Silent Hill, Sparkter, Jerry Boy /Smart Ball, and Snatcher among others games.

-Tommy Tallarico: Game Composer of various games known as Super Caesar Palace, Disney`s Alladin, Cool Spot, and Earthworms Jim among others games.

- The David Wise 5 Band Formed by: 1) David Wise Game Composer of various games of Rare as Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country, Donkey Kong Country 2 Diddy Kong Quest, and Star Fox Adventures, among others games. 2) Kevin Bayliss Game Artist in 2D/3D of various games developed by Rare like Battletoads, Killer Instinct, Donkey Kong Country, Diddy Kong Racing, and among others games, currently is of the Lead Artist of Playtonic Games, together with David they have a Youtube channel called DK Creation. 3) David Doak Game Designer famous in Rare for his work in Goldeneye 007 and Perfect Dark or in Donkey Kong Country 3 in Network support for Rare, as in other games like TimeSplitters and Second Sight.

4) Nigel Atkins the Drummer and part of the band 5) Philip Jordan the Guitar and part of the band 6) Daniel Vetter The manager of the band and the Keyboard guy

Here with Kevin Bayliss, David Wise, and David Doak in Meet & Greet.

I bought only one ticket for the day on Saturday because was very expensive for the three days, I select The David Wise 5 concert & Meet & Greet (I love the Rareware games because Killer Instinct, Donkey Kong Country or Battletoads were my games in my childhood).

During the Meet & Greet, I could Know other Rareware fans Like me!

You can watch the full concert here:

[pixelartkid]

ProtoCorgi

ProtoCorgi was released on 15th July of 2023, after 6 years of development for Steam & Nintendo Switch. I knew about the development of ProtoCorgi whit an early prototype with the design of the first sprites in 2018, when the Game Designer, Lead Programmer, and CEO of Kemono Games; Mario Pino (Mizardo), arrived at the Aone office when I worked in Omen of Sorrow, he shows the game and request me that work in GUI for Protocorgi. My 1st task for the UI was to create an advise label for the bosses before the start of a battle, mixed between 3 languages! Was accurate the use of orange and yellow in the display text, calls the attention of the player with a font in Display with a round construction.

Banner for the Bosses Battle

Mario Pino has created a system of scale thinking in different aspect ratios from 4:3 (240 -270) to 16:9 (720 to 1080), I always worked on a canvas of 480 x 240 px (4:3), this is for when the sprites are scaled in different resolution there has no pixel distortion.

My next task was to design the UI flow I hoped to create the wireframes before making the UI, but I hadn't time for this, the team needed to make a demo with the GUI as soon as possible, I made the first idea in a rough sketch in the paper.

Also, the team expected me to design the dog animation for Main Menu & Background, I draw on a paper sketch with some of the early ideas for the game, like a cursor the player would pet to Protocorgi in the PC version.

I`ve made the first iteration of the Idle Animation of ProtoCorgi for the Main Menu, I used as a reference the first concept of Protocorgi designed by Hector Alvarez (Eto 2D), and I used it as my main tool for pixel art Asesprite.

The next was the background, the idea always was a futuristic city with one theme: buildings with fish designs that were cute. I wanted to hold the hand-drawn crayon style with a blue sky (the cloud would have parallax).

Later I thought of the Animation of the camera when the player interacts with the first iteration of the UI.

But was better to choose a background with a night sky, that communicate better the idea of a futuristic city, with color bright less.

The last one I made was the mockups and UI flow with a prototype in Figma, using a Control of Xbox 360 for the user can navigate and interact.

In the end, the assets in the game and the UI were designed thinking in the best way for optimization and better game performance during the gameplay, as a best practice for creating assets, is good to apply 9 Slice and the power of two (16 x 8px or 32 x 32px for example).

Protocorgi was developed in Godot, a 2D & 3D Game Engine

About Protomaker mode or HUD, I not needed design those UI elements, because since the first prototype this was resolved in its UX about all in ProtoMaker mode had a reference in Mario Maker of course.

You can play Protocorgi right now On Nintendo Switch and Steam! I left some pictures of an game event called Game Dev Planet, which was in the HUB of Providencia in Santiago City, Chile, where there are some developers of ProtoCorgi below.

Mario Pinto Game Designer/ CEO of Kemono Game (left side), Francisco Cerda (Foco) Game Music Composer (Center), Fernando Castillo (I write about in this blog) UI/UX Designer (right side).

Francisco Cinfuente (Metaru) game artist (left side), now works in Ulpomedia, Hector Alvarez (Eto 2D) game artist (right side) now works in Ulpomedia, Fernanda Catex (in the Center she was the producer for Ulpomedia).

[pixelartkid]

Fukushima - Game Jam 2013

On August 2nd of 2013, in a special collaboration between the Informatics School: Diego Portales University in Santiago of Chile. with International Game Developers Association Japan (IGDAJ) celebrated the Fukushima Game Jam 2013 (FGJ).

This Event began in Japan in 2011, later of a natural disaster produced by a big Earthquake and Tsunami in the prefecture of Fukushima in Japan, the first FGJ was in Tohoku, in an effort to revive and renew the technology & morale of the people after the disaster.

The objective of Game Jam is to make a game within a time limit of 47 hours.

I participated in the game for two days (until Saturday night), my team was with a Game Maker programmer that was looking for a team for the future to create an indie game company, Ricardo Verdugo CEO of In Vitro Games.

Also, I met a Graphic Designer dedicated to my specialty in UI, Fernanda Vergara (who is a big Friend my actually today and she working in the Game Industry with great experience).

"My laptop, I used Pixel Art Software called Idraw 3 Chara Maker"

"Our Prototype in Game Maker Studio called Project Dash "

Although not finished the prototype, this was very funny and I knew new people!

[pixelartkid]

Charles Martinet in Chile (Super Mario 3D Land & Super Mario Bros Wii Release)

On November 11th of 2011 arrived in Chile, Charles Martinet, the most voice actor in Nintendo, interpret different Nintendo characters' voices like Mario, Luigi, Wario & Waluigi and also in other videogames, Ads & Movies. All begin at a CES (Conference Electronic Show) in 1992 with Mario Real Time, a Technology developed by SimGraph for Nintendo promotional events, it is a Screen in time real where Mario could talk with people in there.

Facial Sensor that could interpret facial expressions from actor to Mario Head 3D Model in Time Real.

Montage Model 3D with video Background in a video edition in Time real!

But most people knew the voice of our Italian Plumber for the first time in Super Mario 64! Memorable Mario dialogue in the Game by Charles Martinet:

"It´s me, Mario!"

"So long, King-a Bowser!" Charles arrived very early in the morning in Mall Plaza Vespucio in Santiago and the event about Super Mario 3D Land & Super Mario Bros Wii release, began at 10 am, with a large waiting line of Nintendo Fans (obviously one of them was I). I wait in the waiting line until 3 pm, it was crazy, but it was worth it! He Signed me a Super Mario 3D Land Poster! Thank the gamers take those photographs in the waiting line!

[pixelartkid]

Little League World Series 2022

At IguanaBee, after working on Nerf Legends, I started working on Little League World Series 2022, a sports game based on Little League Baseball, which in 2022 will be 75 years since its founding in 1947 in the United States.

"The mythical Howard J Lamade Stadium, which is a classic Little League stadium, is very well represented in the game".

The game had to be released in conjunction with the return of the league championship in 2022 Post pandemic, which took place in the USA from 17 to 28 August as part of promoting the championship, during those days our Publisher GameMill, had its stand promoting Little League World Series Baseball 2022.

We also had other brands sponsoring the game such as Easton bats.

"Todd Frazier, a current Major League Baseball (MLB) player for the Pittsburgh Pirate & former Little League champion in '98, was in the booth with his son enjoying the game". Play Ball!... My main job was to design the complete UX / UI of the game, from creating Flowcharts, Wireframes, Mockups, Assets and to integrating the Widgets from the engine (we use Unreal Engine 4).

Some material from my work I made in the project! The game was a success for its launch, we had a post-pandemic team meeting.

" The teams Little League World Series Baseball 2022 & What Lies in the Multiverse ".

"The Official Ball of the Little League World Series".

All Little League Baseball videogames that were released before LLWS22:

Little League Baseball Championship Series (for NES, developed by SNK 1990)

Little League 2002 (for GBA, developed by New KidCo, 2002)

Little League 2008 / 2009/ 2010 (Wii & Xbox 360, developed by Now Production, Published by Activision)

Little League 2008/ 2009 (for Nintendo DS, developed by Black Lantern Studios, Inc, Published by Activision)

Little League World Series Baseball 2022 (for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series XS, developed by IguanaBee, Published by GameMill)

The Release Game Yaaaaay!!

[pixelartkid]

How create the Loadscreens for C64

The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit microcomputer released in 1982 that was very popular in British countries, the United States, Argentina and Australia.

Its operating system was based on Basic (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) and its system of reading the software was by means of a  tape cassette.

It competed with other computers such as the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the Amstrad CPC and the Atari 800 XL. Of course many of the software were video games, which were developed by companies like Lucas Art (Maniac Mansion, The Secret of Monkey Island or Loom) or games from companies like Epix (California Games) or independent developers like Palace Software (Barbarian).

The artists to make the Sprite or loading screens used a Software named Koala Painter, which most of the artists of the time used a Joystick, Mouse, or even keyboard, but very few used the drawing tablet.

Creating a C64 LoadScreen using the limitations of the Hardware in 2022:

This mini tutorial we will use actual Sprite editing tools which is Asesprite and well my drawing tablet clearly (watch your hamstrings and don't use Mouse to draw as a tip).

First of all we have to be clear that the C64 has a screen resolution of 320 x 200 px (since CRT (Cathodic Ray Tube) monitors and cable RF connected TV screens were used) and it adapted to these monitors by stretching.

Resolution:

Hi Res:

320 x 200 px (2 colors per 8x8 px grid) Higher resolution less colors that could be used on screen by memory.

Multi Color Mode:

160 x 200 px (3 color + Black which is Transparency by an 8x8 px grid)

Lower Resolution more colors to process on screen.

Asesprite Configuration:

A Loadscreen uses a resolution of 160 x 200 px (Multi color) and a Pixel Aspect Ratio of 2:1 (a brush of 2 brick-shaped pixels).Luego tendremos que buscar en la librería de colores, la paleta de C64 que consiste en los 16 Colores.

From there we need to have a visible grid of 8x8 px and a background also of 8x8px.

We open Grid Setting and set 4x8 px since we use a 2:1 pixel brush for drawing.

Beginning to Paint:

Already having my canvas configured, I start to draw the Lineart (in my case with a reference of the movie Harakiri (1967), when I have the silhouette ready, with another layer I start to paint the pixels.

I suggest to use the Preview window to visualize the real size.

Now you have to consider that when painting, understand that each pixel is 1 bit of information that you can use in RAM, thinking that each 8x8 px frame can only use 3 colors maximum (I use black as transparency).

Test the image on a C64 emulator (VICE):

When we have finished the image, it is important to test it on a C64, in this case we will use a VICE C64 emulator.

First export the image to a BMP (BitMap Pitcture) format and convert it to a PRG (Program) format (a binary executable format).

For that I use a PRG Converter program called BMP2MC.

Load a BMP and click .prg and press the GO button!

Now just open the VICE C64 emulator and when you see the Basic operating system screen, drag the .PRG file and the image will load.

[pixelartkid]

Improved UI optimization for video games.

-Export Asset in Power of 2:

This is a general rule when creating assets for video game development, be it UV Mapping, Sprites, VFX, etc, for full 2D or 3D games.

Why is it used?

Since the development of a video game in the 8-bit era to our current era, the Power of 2 is essential to integrate assets in a game engine (whether Gamemaker, Unity, Unreal, etc.), as a hardware requires to process information efficiently while rendering objects and images of a video game in real time, so the most efficient way for a computer to process these objects on screen, is the use of power of 2, since the Sprites being square, are optimized so that the hardware does not cost him work to instantiate the multiple objects of the software, while using the graphics card at the time of playing.

The pixel size values used in power of 2 are: 8 px, 16 px, 32 px, 64 px, 128 px, 256 px, 512 px, 1024 px & 2048 px.

"The size used by the asset depends on the size it occupies in the maximum screen resolution, for example if on a 4K screen an icon occupies a size of 64 x 64 px in a mockup, it has to occupy that size in the engine, so that the asset loads optimally during gameplay".  Also depending on the hardware in which the assets are used, they must be thought in a correct way of scaling according to the maximum resolution to be worked in one or multiple platforms, for example:

"Resolutions and Aspect Ratio used on different hardware in 2022″.

-Sprite:

Objects on screens that are drawn in bitmap on graphics hardware without additional CPU computation.

The definition of Sprites was popularized by Jay Miner (Hardware designer of the Atari 2600 and the Commodore Amiga), who defined these bitmap-processed objects as Sprite after the European mythology of sprites or elves.

-Asset export format for optimization according to use:

1) PNG (Pitcture Network Graphic) 24 Bits:

The use of this format is perfect when using 4 channels (RGBA) and more than 4 colors, with gradient and transparency use, if 24 bits PNG is used it is a lossless compression, for a better color quality.It is recommended to use it depending on the Game Engine as in case of Unreal 4 for UMG, for certain assets and its context.

*RGBA: 4 Channels of colors in Red, Green, Blue and Alpha.

"512 PNG image and exported at 128 px in RGBA color mode at 72 ppi (Pixel per Inch) ″

TIFF (Tagged File Format):

Its main use is to create grayscale assets and images with Black and White mask (2 colors), without transparency, this is often used to colorize the assets with Shaders from the game engine image editor to minimize the weight of the assets in memory during the game.

A more detailed image, using gradient more than 4 colors and transparency is usually costly, as it has more information to process.When using elements in grayscale or black and white, it allows a greater economy of use of memory with only drawing the form and from the GPU coloring the pixels, taking into account to evaluate its Color Value of a sprite according to its necessity.

Shaders:

It is a computer program that makes graphic calculations using directly the GPU (Graphic Proccesing Unit) of a hardware and it is mainly used to generate VFX and Colorize Pixels.

Color Value:

It is the luminosity of a color, being white the maximum spectrum of luminosity that has a value of 255 and black is the spectrum of absolute absence of light, having a value of 0.

"512 px image in TIFF in Scale Gray 8 Bits mode at 72 (Pixel per Inch) and exported to 128 px ″

TGA (Truevision Graphics Adapter ):

This format is mainly used to export UV Mapping textures in 3D model, the best thing is that this format uses 4 channels (RGBA) without compression, it works perfect with Mipmap.

In the case of using TGA for UI assets, it is the same way as creating UV Mapping textures, it works in a better way to create

Sprite Sheets or known in Unity as Sprite Atlas.

"UV Mapping of Vargant Story from PS1 SquareSoft 2000″.

Mimmap:

A bitmap rendering technique that by zooming in or out of a game camera, lowers or raises the texture quality without the use of Anti-Aliasing).

-Export Sprite Sheet / Sprite Atlas:

The Sprite Sheet or Sprite Atlas is a technique from 8bit hardware to the present day for optimization, which packs a certain amount of Sprites in power of 2 (always recommended) in a single image, so that the Game Engine can reduce the weight of the images as 1 single complete image, this way the objects are instantiated in a more economical way for any type of hardware.

"Sprite Sheet from the Tilemaps for backgrounds and HUD for Little Medusa from NES (Mega Cat Studios), each Sprite has a size of 8x8 px and the hardware re-draw those sprite when needed, the sprites require YIQ color depending on the tv″ monitor.

"Sprite Sheet of CAR-VUP (Amiga / Atari ST) by Core Desigdesignn, screenshots taken from The One Magazine issue 26 November 1990 ″.

"You can put together Sprite Atlas from Unity or put together a Sprite Sheet in Game Maker." 

-9 Slice:

Graphic technique to modify a size of a square sprite by dividing 9 parts, allowing to scale its X and Y axes, having importance that the 4 corners keep their proportions.

Its utility in UI to draw and instantiate the same sprite in real time in different contexts of the game, it can be for buttons, containers and popups.

Depending on the Game Engine you are working with its integration varies, in Unity, Game Maker and Godot it simply requires a square asset, but in Unreal 4 it requires using the margins using the image as a Box.

-Repeat a Color Ramp in X and Y Coordinates for Backgrounds:

Similar to its use in web design, it simply requires a sprites width of 1 px and its width in power of 2, the asset can be in RGB mode and exported as a 24 bit PNG or in Grayscale mode in a TIFF file and colorize with Shader.

By simply scaling to the necessary resolution, for example 1920 x 1080 px you will have a gradient background (depending on the engine).

"In this example I used an asset in 8-bit grayscale mode and saved as a TIF."

In other engines like Unreal 4, you can create a Material to make a Color Ramp from a white and square Texture, created from the Widget in UMG, but we will see that in future UMG Tips for Unreal 4.

-RGB Tint Texture Mask:

A Sprite using exclusively 3 RGB color channels to generate with Shaders, being able to color all 3 channels available.

It is mainly used to make UV mapping Custom textures or multiple textures of different colors of the same sprite.

It is required to modify these channels using Shader Graph (Unity) or Material Blueprints (Unreal 4), to color the available channels.

-Red: Color Value de 255 -Green: Color Value de 255 -Blue: Color Value de 255

"In this example the Green channel is to create transparency in the blueprint."

[pixelartkid]

NFL CLASH

Nifty Games & GMR:

In 2019 I was hired by Giant Monkey Robot, to work on a mobile project, from the company Nifty Games, which in that year was just founded by Jhon Middelton & Pete Wanat in San Francisco. The goal of Nifty Games is to create casual games at the level of the games developed by Super Cell (a company better known for games such as Clash Royale or Brawl Stars), but with a touch totally focused on sports with the use of the official licenses of the biggest sports leagues in the United States, the name of the first project of Nifty Games is NFL CLASH.

My experience with mobile games was small and very casual games, which in 2013 and 2014 abounded in the Apple Store and Google Play, such as Flappy Birds or Timber Man, being free games, the way to monetize was by adding an AD Remove system (remove advertising) and games like Candy Crush (King) or Harry Potter Mistery (Jam City/ WBG), are monetized, that at certain levels when losing, the player to continue playing, has the option to pay money to continue playing ( this reminds me of the business model of arcade games) or wait for a certain time to try again.

However, games from 2017 to the present tend to be games whose incentive is the collection of objects, in each game the player is gaining Currency of the game (to buy Loot), leveling up, and if he wins, he will get a reward box with rare items to get.

This type of business model is very effective in mobile games (as also recently in the PC and console industry is being implemented, as in Pokémon Unite or Genshin Impact) and several companies such as Blizzard or EA have developed games for this purpose such as Hearthstone and Madden 19 Mobile.

 These games are called Gacha games, derived from the Gachapon machines in Japan, and when you insert a 100 Yen coin, you get a surprise reward.

NFL Clash is a strategy card collection game, centered on the sport of football with the official license of the NFLPA (National Football League Players Association) players in both their name, team branding, and current role.

"A screenshot of the final game".

Personally I didn't know much about the sport, with the team we had to do research and sometimes after work we would go out to watch a game in a bar.

Also when I was working, I used to listen on Youtube, a lot of NFL podcasts by Enrique Garay (Mexican sports journalist who narrates NFL and NBA games).

Rodrigo Acuña (Game Designer) & Marcos Quinteros (3D Artist) of the team were the ones who had more knowledge about the sport, Nifty Games developed part of the gameplay in conjunction with the GMR programming team, and many had been working in the EA Sports team in their previous projects.

"The team between October 2019"

In fact, I bought a John Madden 94 (the retro sports games are so cheap, about all of Sega Genesis or SNES) for understand the game rules.

My Tasks in NFL CLASH:

My role was to work on Wireframes, Mockups, and assets (a lot of proposals) for example, retouch player portraits according to the NFL & NFLPA guidelines, and work on some game assets from 2019 until September 2020, from there I left Giant Monkey Robots.

"UX WireFrame for NFL Clash".

"Some early assets I made & Mockups"

"An early screenshot of the Beta of NFL Clash in 2020" Undoubtedly what I learned is that a mobile game of this level as NFL Clash can have a similar investment to a AAA game in its development, clearly being LiveOps, the game has to be kept in constant service for users.

So mobile development tends to a different target audience that seeks to enjoy fast games that generate gratification and is willing to pay to obtain difficult-to-obtain items for your collection, but at the same time, it is an industry with greater competitiveness in the market, stand out is not easy, but once an app becomes the most downloaded, the challenge becomes what is a sustainable service, NFL Clash was a game designed for it and clearly has a community base enjoying the game today.

The Giant Monkey Robot team together with David Price (Senior Producer of Nifty Games who went to Chile in 2019).

Important moments in the NFL that happened during the development of NFL CLASH (between 2019 & 2020):

2019: Tom Brady (QuarterBack) leaves the New England Patriots and trades to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

2020: In the final of Super Bowl 54 Kansas City Chiefs win 31- 20 to the San Francisco 49ers (here I understood why the Super Bowl is a big event).

2020: The branding of the Washington Redskins team was changed to Washington Football Team, due to controversy and public pressure, and now in 2022 it is called Washington Commanders. In the Office, we had some decorations as flags of the San Francisco 49ers o figures.

"I have a jockey of Nifty Games "

Nifty Games Close !

NFL Clash official release was in May 2022, but in same year, the app was shutdown! In June of 2023, Nifty Games closed , it was an announce in Linkedin by the same CEO Jon Middleton! The new was written in Pocket Gamer.biz (a website about mobile games industry).

[pixelartkid]

NERF LEGENDS

My next project started between late 2020, early 2021 entering IguanaBee which had already released in that year G.I Joe Operation Blackout , the company FunLabs from Romania (who have 20 years of experience in the industry since 1999) contacted us together with the Publisher; GameMill Entertainment, to support in the development of Nerf Legends.

Nerf Legends used Unreal 4 Engine for the graphics engine, so it was nice to work directly on the engine again, (I had used the engine previously on Omen of Sorrow), my main role on this game was to design the UI / UX of the whole game from doing Wireframe, Flow Screen, Mockups in Figma and on the Engine directly.

"I designed the UX of the game by creating a flow with a prototype in Figma with Wireframes, before thinking about the UI design and its Look & Feel."

"Mockups with the UI design, certain elements had their modifying according to the need of the project."

Since the pandemic broke out at the beginning of 2020, the whole industry had to adapt, so many of us brought the office to our homes, working remotely.

Together with my IguanaBee team colleagues like Daniel Winkler (CEO), Leo Gutierrez Lead Artist, Andrés Levineri (Director Artist) and Chriss Vázquez (Product Management/ Community Manager) we communicated with the FunLabs team from Romania including Tudor Nimara (Game Designer) and Cristian Predonescu (Art Director) and Dragos Ababei (Senior Programmer) all remotely.

My work desk of 2021 with my Xbox 360 controllers and Unreal 4 mapping in UMG.

In Unreal 4, I made several UI animations, in which some were integrated and others were cut due to production and time decisions, I'll leave some as a sample:

The most notable work in my opinion of the project, apart from the scenario design, was the development of the Blaster design, which Hasbro (owner of the IP of the Nerf brand) delivered the original concepts of the models and the 3D artists recreated masterfully.El juguete de The Judge Original

The Judge model in Nerf Legends

I was between 7 months in the project working on the UI / UX Nerf Legends, for which I moved on to the next project, which in IguanaBee we are working, soon I will write about this new project when it will be released on the market.

Nerf Legends is a game of the FPS genre (First Person Shooter) and that came out November 2021 for Nintendo Switch , Xbox One, Xbox X Series, PS4, PS5 and for PC.

My Nintendo Switch copy that I bought!

[pixelartkid]

Rock of Ages 3

Rock of Ages 3 M&B was developed by the legendary independent company ACE Team formed by the brothers; Andres, Carlos and Eduardo Bordeau, in collaboration with Giant Monkey Robot (former founders of Wanako Games & who were part of Behaviour interactive Chile). When I started working in 2019 at GMR, I was focused on a project (which I still can't announce because of NDA), Juan Pablo Lastra, who was the project manager, approached me to ask for help on a project that he was also leading, so he took me to the room where the team was developing ROA3, re-encountering some colleagues and at the same time Andres Bordeau was in the room for the meeting, Pablo Riedemann, (part of the programming team) who was programming a new game mode for ROA 3, named "Make". The Make mode, is a 3D Level Editor, initially inspired by the concept of Super Mario Maker, but applied in a three-dimensional environment, I remember that Pablo  showed me in the engine, his progress, which had created a system so that the terrain could be modified with the input, being able to expand, divide, cut, scale (X / Y), to rotate a segment and add extension of the terrain from a mesh. Already seeing the functions of the Make mode, I was asked for support for the UX (User Experience), so I put together some Wireframes, creating icons for the buttons and some mockups, while Sammy (from the programming team of the project) integrated the UI and widgets for this game mode (the flow), and Ace Team was in charge of the UI. I had influence for the UX of the level editor, in games like Z: Steel Soldier (The Bitmap Brothers) and StarCraft (Blizzard) for navigating the map in its PC version (with map dragging) & Sim City (Maxis/ EA) for its inventory, object layout and space control.

Rock of Ages 3 final level editor

In that same year 2019, Ace Team had just released SolSeraph and at the same time while working with Rock of Ages 3 together with us, they were advancing in the development of an interesting project, which will be released very soon, and at the same time is their most ambitious project: The Eternal Cylinder.

Un video de ACE Team sobre Rock of Ages 3

At the time I worked with the team.

Rock of Ages 3 was released in July 2020 on multiple platforms and I personally liked the development of the game, the project was based on Rock of Ages 2 (released in 2017) but the team gave many more novel features to this third part of the series, (like sharing and playing online in levels created by other players), its development lasted 2 years approximately.

My workspace in the GMR office in 2019.

In mid 2020 I stopped working at GMR and am currently in a new development company, working on new projects, in which very soon I will write my experience in this humble blog.

[pixelartkid]

How I `ve entered in the Game Industry -Retrospective

A long time ago, when I was a child, in my sweet six years old I played for the first time Super Mario Bros / Duck Hunt for the NES, Alex Kidd in Miracle World for Sega Master System, and in the Arcades, I played a cabinet of Taito called Grand Champion of 1981, the videogames opened me a range of opportunities for living diversity of experiences, in the which with a gamepad, joystick, and keyboard with a mouse, I could interact with those tiny sprites in movement in the screen, and that moment said myself:

- As an objective of life, when I was an adult, I`ll work in game development.

(Super Mario Bros, 1985 Nintendo)

 (Alex Kidd In Miracle World, 1986 Sega)

(Grand Champion, 1981 Taito)

During that time I ask myself recurrently:

- What that kind of study is required to be a game developer?

I like draw (I answered myself in my mind)

But one day, when I had twelve, the real answer arrived at me, when reading a videogame magazine, the Club Nintendo issue 44 (the Chilean edition, but its origin of magazine is Mexican) had a special report about an Institute of Technology called Digipen in Vancouver, Canada!

it is my Club Nintendo magazine (Issue 44), Killer Instinct 2 cover is awesome!

In the report spoke about different areas of production of development of videogame:

-Programming

-Music & Sound

-Art & Graphic Design

As a postgrade, the objective is to create a team and development a game as a Demo, (in fact in 2007, a woman with her mates called Kim Swift worked on a game that later with the support of Valve would develop Portal).

In 2006, when I was graduating from high school, I was looking for a university that had a career in video game development, someone said me that an Institute called Arcos had a career in Game Design, I went to investigate, but I was disappointed because none of the teachers had experience in the game development and they none had the structure of the team that I was searched.

At that moment I thought:

-If I want to work in game development, is better to study and work in another country!

I wrote an email to DigiPen and asked to they:

-How I can study at your Institue?

They answer me:

-You need to have a career first depending on the area you want to specialize in, how is a postgrad, we needing have people with knowledge of his area, which can be in:

-Programming

-Music & Sound

-Art

-Graphic Design

These are areas that are important to have a title of your study for you can enter.

I decided to study and be a Graphic Design because I knew that knowledge was broader in different areas and would be useful for me, my skill always was in visual communications.

However, my goal was enter to the Digipen, but this plan changed, in my mid study (2009), I watched in the TV the news, and there was interviews with 3 indie game developers companies in my country (Chile):

-Amnesia Games (founded by Alejadro Woywood)

Game developers with experience in Java Games for Mobile Games (before of the smartphone era) its big hit was Ninja Joe, an Endless Runner inspired in Canabalt de Adam Atomic.

-Wanako Games (founded by Triburcio  with Juan Pablo Lastra and Benjamin Prieto) 

Developer for PC & Consoles games (but subsequently Mobile Games), they made exclusive PC games like Phoenix Assault or 3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures, being published by Sierra On-Line, its owner was Vivendi Games (that in turn was acquired by Activision-Blizzard), but later Wanako Games was acquired by A2M (later know more later as Behaviour Interactive).

Its big hit was Assault Hero and Its sequel for PC y Xbox.

-Ace Team (founded by the brothers: Andres, Carlos y Eduardo Bordeu)

Indie Game Developers  with previpusly experience in Wanako Games and in the classic Mods of Doom 2: Batman Doom.

They achieved developed his first game: Zeno Clash, a game developed in Source Engine, a Game Engine developed by Valve that is derivative the Quake 2 Engine  by Id Software (yes, the same engine was used in Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2,  Portal, Lead 4 Dead, and more).

The game was published by Valve same!

Later, I conviced that is a reality and is possible develop videogames in my country!

in the 2011, when I graduated of my career of Graphic Designer, in Chile arrived an ex 3D artist that worked in Electronic Arts (EA)/ Maxis. 

Oscar Contreras want found his own game develop company and he founded a Postgrade class in the Academia MacPC, (Gabriela Mistral University), about Game Design and Managment company.

In the postgrade classes, we had as teachers (with experience in videogame developed to):

-Oscar Contreras ex employees from EA / Maxis (3D Modeler/ Producer)

-Consuelo Gil from Behavour Interactive Chile  (Rigger / Animator)

-Gabriel Garcia from Ace Team (Animator)

Maxis, is a game company founded by Will Wright and was adquired by EA in 1997!

Oscar Contreras worked as 3D modeler in console departament in Maxis in the next games:

- The Sims ( Nintendo Game Cube)

- The Sims Bustin' Out (Nintendo Game Cube)

-The Sims 2 ( PS2, Xbox & Nintendo Game Cube) 

- The Sims Pets ( Nintendo Gamecube/ PS2)

- The Sims Casteway ( Nintendo Wii / PS2)

- Sims Urbz (PS2 & Nintendo Game Cube) 

- Sims Animals (Wii)

I don´t thought two times and decided study in the post grade, which was so useful with the experience give my teachers

In the Postgrade, I made my own game (Dragon Island),  as same time with a few team we made a prototype game.

With my post-grade mates and Oscar, at a graduation party for postgraduate, In November 2011.

Thanks to the postgrade I enter in the Game Industry, I knew to other game developers with same passion, that they could found own indie game developer companies.

Julio Marambio, Fernanda Zuñiga, Juaquín Cárdenas & Gonzalo Gaete founded Octeto Studios.

Other students of the second generation, like Marco Gonzales and Oscar Riquelme founded Micropsia Games.

Who knows what else awaits me in this incredible industry?, but it is always good to see my origins, to see how far I have been able to go and how much I have been able to learn not only in my career but also from the people who have built this interactive industry.