Running Pixel's official development Blog. Running Pixel is a multiplatform indie games development team with several games published; this blog is maintained by Alfio Lo Castro, team founder, game designer and lead programmer.
Showing posts with label XNA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label XNA. Show all posts
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Miner4Ever, playtest the first playable version
Today, ok tonight... here in Italy is 2.30 AM... I'm going to put in playtest my latest XBLIG game, the first after a long long pause.
I'm very proud of this game because I did everything on my own, code, game-play and graphics with except for the BoxArt and the menu backgrounds that are a Benedetta's creation.
What is Miner4ever?
It's more than a Minecraft style game, it's a mining game with several browser games and RTS gameplay elements.
Start building your empire! Mine resources, dig and build structure to increase you hourly production. Miner4Ever will update your production even when you're not playing with it. Miner4Ever is a game where the classic mine crafting game meets the online real time strategy.
Here some screenshots:
Soon a gameplay footage and further details.
In the case you have a XNA Membership you could download and playtest the game on the AppHub right now.
There's a Facebook page? YES! https://www.facebook.com/Miner4Ever
I'm very proud of this game because I did everything on my own, code, game-play and graphics with except for the BoxArt and the menu backgrounds that are a Benedetta's creation.
What is Miner4ever?
It's more than a Minecraft style game, it's a mining game with several browser games and RTS gameplay elements.
Start building your empire! Mine resources, dig and build structure to increase you hourly production. Miner4Ever will update your production even when you're not playing with it. Miner4Ever is a game where the classic mine crafting game meets the online real time strategy.
Here some screenshots:
Soon a gameplay footage and further details.
In the case you have a XNA Membership you could download and playtest the game on the AppHub right now.
There's a Facebook page? YES! https://www.facebook.com/Miner4Ever
Monday, 22 August 2011
a new deal for WP7
Some months ago here there was a big debate about our #xblig games and the opportunity to port them into WP7; because we develop for living it is important that every minute spent developing have a return. Unfortunally this is hard with WP7 right now if you don't have a Xbox Live Arcade deal (and we haven't) so we migrated to other platforms leaving our #xblig and #wp7 development in a standby phase.
But wait... I have an idea! We still do like porting our XBLIG games to WP7 and the main problem is funding them... so.... here's a deal between you and me:
"if any of our games surpasses the 100000 copies sold (80 mp each) we will port all of our Xbox Live Indie Games to WP7 and give them for free."
In other words we raise fund for our wp7 ports with the xblig marketplace incomes (or with the donate button on this page)
How can you help out? Retweet this post, download our games and tell friends with an Xbox to make the same, share on facebook, spread the voice!
here's a list of our games:
Crystal Crush (shiny and innovative action puzzler)
Bricks4Ever (the best bricks breaking game available on the Xbox, amazing!)
The No Button Game (the first hands free game released before kinect)
Kozu (the dual karma shooter, multiplayer too!)
Avatar Ragdolls (because everyone loves falling hopeless rag-dolls)
Bouncing Avatars (the Xbox answer to iPhone's Doodle Jump but with avatars into, multiplayer too!)
But wait... I have an idea! We still do like porting our XBLIG games to WP7 and the main problem is funding them... so.... here's a deal between you and me:
"if any of our games surpasses the 100000 copies sold (80 mp each) we will port all of our Xbox Live Indie Games to WP7 and give them for free."
In other words we raise fund for our wp7 ports with the xblig marketplace incomes (or with the donate button on this page)
How can you help out? Retweet this post, download our games and tell friends with an Xbox to make the same, share on facebook, spread the voice!
here's a list of our games:
Crystal Crush (shiny and innovative action puzzler)
Bricks4Ever (the best bricks breaking game available on the Xbox, amazing!)
The No Button Game (the first hands free game released before kinect)
Kozu (the dual karma shooter, multiplayer too!)
Avatar Ragdolls (because everyone loves falling hopeless rag-dolls)
Bouncing Avatars (the Xbox answer to iPhone's Doodle Jump but with avatars into, multiplayer too!)
Wednesday, 11 May 2011
Say hello to Gameccino
Running Pixel ceases to be a XBLIG/WP7 game dev studio, from now on this is just my personal development blog.
The core of the team (me and Benedetta) has founded a new indie game dev company called Gameccino
Yes, sounds like Cappuccino, Frappuccino and Mokaccino but in this case some of the ingredients are the games and the fun. Gameccino will develop mainly Android and iPhone games but also PC and Mac.
Does this mean no more XBLIG/WP7 games?
Yes and no; I have some XBLIG-only unfinished project and I could decide to finish them anytime if I think that they have a single chance on XBLIG or WP7 and if I have spare time.
Why of this decision?
Because it's a new start with new objectives, because the team has been modified in the meantime and because I think that the new name sounds more "casual" and friendly.
So, say goodbye to Running Pixel as an indie studio and say hello to Gameccino (we just announced our first multi-platform game here)
The core of the team (me and Benedetta) has founded a new indie game dev company called Gameccino
Yes, sounds like Cappuccino, Frappuccino and Mokaccino but in this case some of the ingredients are the games and the fun. Gameccino will develop mainly Android and iPhone games but also PC and Mac.
Does this mean no more XBLIG/WP7 games?
Yes and no; I have some XBLIG-only unfinished project and I could decide to finish them anytime if I think that they have a single chance on XBLIG or WP7 and if I have spare time.
Why of this decision?
Because it's a new start with new objectives, because the team has been modified in the meantime and because I think that the new name sounds more "casual" and friendly.
So, say goodbye to Running Pixel as an indie studio and say hello to Gameccino (we just announced our first multi-platform game here)
Friday, 8 April 2011
wind of change
In the last two years and an half Running Pixel heavily invested time and resources on the development of Xbox Live indie games (XBLIG) and WP7. In this period we did six Xbox Live Indie Games making this distribution platform our main business and in the last moths we did 3 WP7 apps too. I can't honestly say this was a complete failure but I can't either say it was a success.
XBLIG is a strange world with its own market rules where sometime strange things happens and where good games fail and crappy one make good sales. (When I speak about good games I don't necessarily speak about my own games fyr.)
In this two years I saw heavy bugs affecting sales (the frozen top downloads list for example), a growing lack of interest of MS about their creature (XBLIG), internal fight to reach with unfair methods the top rated list, a very slow growing of the overall sales and some other disturbing things that made me loose my faith in XBLIG and in MS in general.
I think that 30 months are enough to judge a platform and my opinion is that it is a partial fail. I don't say there arent't good developers or good games because they are, but as someone else said xblig looks like a pit, once you're there you can't exit anymore, it is not a launch platform like someone (and me) could expect.
Now let's talk about WP7... well it's a great phone and I was one of the first Xblig developer making a conversion of one of its games for that phone (maybe the first) but in full honesty there are two major obstacles: the first is that there are still too few phones around and it is growing very slow (expecially compared with android or iOS) the second one is that the Xbox Live games are heavily promoted on the WP7, this put your not XBL game in an awkward position, and I have seen what this means with the XBLIG.
Six month ago in my mind the correct path would have been this -> first XBLIG and then WP7, but now I don't see this viable.
That said, I still love XNA and XBLIG but if me and my team still want to make games and live with them it's time to change platform and go for the huge markets and the freedom behind PC/Mac and Android or iOS phones and tablets. This means no more XNA coding and so it will be difficult to release WP7 and or XBLIG games because they would be threated as ports.
I'm excited about this fresh start and I can anticipate you the we're rapidly porting some unfinished but intriguing XNA projects into the new platforms to be released in a month or less. Stay tuned!
XBLIG is a strange world with its own market rules where sometime strange things happens and where good games fail and crappy one make good sales. (When I speak about good games I don't necessarily speak about my own games fyr.)
In this two years I saw heavy bugs affecting sales (the frozen top downloads list for example), a growing lack of interest of MS about their creature (XBLIG), internal fight to reach with unfair methods the top rated list, a very slow growing of the overall sales and some other disturbing things that made me loose my faith in XBLIG and in MS in general.
I think that 30 months are enough to judge a platform and my opinion is that it is a partial fail. I don't say there arent't good developers or good games because they are, but as someone else said xblig looks like a pit, once you're there you can't exit anymore, it is not a launch platform like someone (and me) could expect.
Now let's talk about WP7... well it's a great phone and I was one of the first Xblig developer making a conversion of one of its games for that phone (maybe the first) but in full honesty there are two major obstacles: the first is that there are still too few phones around and it is growing very slow (expecially compared with android or iOS) the second one is that the Xbox Live games are heavily promoted on the WP7, this put your not XBL game in an awkward position, and I have seen what this means with the XBLIG.
Six month ago in my mind the correct path would have been this -> first XBLIG and then WP7, but now I don't see this viable.
That said, I still love XNA and XBLIG but if me and my team still want to make games and live with them it's time to change platform and go for the huge markets and the freedom behind PC/Mac and Android or iOS phones and tablets. This means no more XNA coding and so it will be difficult to release WP7 and or XBLIG games because they would be threated as ports.
I'm excited about this fresh start and I can anticipate you the we're rapidly porting some unfinished but intriguing XNA projects into the new platforms to be released in a month or less. Stay tuned!
Sunday, 20 March 2011
BOUNCING AVATARS - the XBOX360 climber
Trapped in a bubble you can only bounce and climb up. Your goal is to rise as high as you can while avoiding dangerous objects, insidious platforms and much more. Play alone for the record or against your friends in a funny multiplayer match!
Price: 80MP ($1)
Platform: Xbox Live Indie Games
marketplace link: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802585507fd
Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVNK7ohFrW0
Price: 80MP ($1)
Platform: Xbox Live Indie Games
marketplace link: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802585507fd
Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVNK7ohFrW0
Thursday, 3 February 2011
AVATAR RAGDOLLS!!!
While I'm working with Emanuele to complete the awesome SheepNobi, just worked in the spare time (overnight!) to rag dolls merged up with the Xbox Live Avatars.
Here's the result... AVATAR RADGOLLS!
it is in peer review right night so hopefully it should be out and available for download in the Xbox Live Indie Marketplace in some days (or weeks...)
Here a short video showing the gameplay (one player and multiplayer)
Here's the result... AVATAR RADGOLLS!
it is in peer review right night so hopefully it should be out and available for download in the Xbox Live Indie Marketplace in some days (or weeks...)
Here a short video showing the gameplay (one player and multiplayer)
Tuesday, 4 January 2011
SheepNobi News!!! (shurikens and chainsaws...)
After weeks in wich we were distracted by other things I started working again on the development of SheepNobi.
Here's a little preview of the improvements:
It is only a minute of (unfinished) game but illustrates the new direction we got.
As you see the major changes are on the gameplay side, it is a shooter with chainsaws now.
When would it be ready?
Who knows... but I plan to put it in playtest on the next weeks (hopefully)
Here's a little preview of the improvements:
It is only a minute of (unfinished) game but illustrates the new direction we got.
As you see the major changes are on the gameplay side, it is a shooter with chainsaws now.
When would it be ready?
Who knows... but I plan to put it in playtest on the next weeks (hopefully)
Thursday, 2 December 2010
Saturday, 27 November 2010
Kozu - twin stick karma fun
First video for our game under development called KOZU.
It is a dual stick shooter featuring several power ups 5 soundtracks and an virtually infinite gameplay.
It is single or multiplayer (1-4 players local or live)
Enjoy the first video of the game.
It is a dual stick shooter featuring several power ups 5 soundtracks and an virtually infinite gameplay.
It is single or multiplayer (1-4 players local or live)
Enjoy the first video of the game.
Thursday, 25 November 2010
SheepNobi - shifted due to the Winter Uprising initiative
Hi followers,
we initially planned to release "SheepNobi: way of the chainsaw" on the Xbox Live Indie Games for this December, after 5 months of intensive development and huge gameplay changes.
Unfortunally there is a group of indie developers that joined their forces and booked a mass release of games for the first two weeks of December with a massive media coverage and some official Xbox team support.
Could be not clever to release our best project in a such period so our plans has been shifted. Maybe in January.
But in the meantime... we're going to release another project with a solid and well know gameplay but with experimental graphics and musics. Stay tuned for further details.
we initially planned to release "SheepNobi: way of the chainsaw" on the Xbox Live Indie Games for this December, after 5 months of intensive development and huge gameplay changes.
Unfortunally there is a group of indie developers that joined their forces and booked a mass release of games for the first two weeks of December with a massive media coverage and some official Xbox team support.
Could be not clever to release our best project in a such period so our plans has been shifted. Maybe in January.
But in the meantime... we're going to release another project with a solid and well know gameplay but with experimental graphics and musics. Stay tuned for further details.
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
updates... updates... updates
This was an interesting week here around. "Step Counter" for WP7 was updated and bricks4ever for xbox360 too... the first is one of RP latest app and the second is one of RP best sellers, it is 18 months old but still rocks.
There are interesting news and evolution on the SheepNobi's side too, there will be a related post very very soon.
There are interesting news and evolution on the SheepNobi's side too, there will be a related post very very soon.
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
another WindowsPhone7 app - My Level
Friday, 15 October 2010
First RunningPixel's WindowsPhone7 app
First app is published!
It isn't The No Button Game that had some little problems with the certification process (nothing major, it is in process again), it is a whole new thing I hope you will find useful.
I'm proud to announce you that STEP COUNTER is born!
It is the first step counter for WP7, usefull when jogging or during a walk. It counts every step you make and reports you the overrall number of steps, and the average. It makes use of the accelerometer to detect the steps.
Here is some screenshots and the icons.
if you own an WP7 here's the link to download it (via Zune):
http://redirect.zune.net/redirect?type=phoneApp&id=044c4f3b-51d6-df11-a844-00237de2db9e&source=MSDN
It isn't The No Button Game that had some little problems with the certification process (nothing major, it is in process again), it is a whole new thing I hope you will find useful.
I'm proud to announce you that STEP COUNTER is born!
It is the first step counter for WP7, usefull when jogging or during a walk. It counts every step you make and reports you the overrall number of steps, and the average. It makes use of the accelerometer to detect the steps.
Here is some screenshots and the icons.
if you own an WP7 here's the link to download it (via Zune):
http://redirect.zune.net/redirect?type=phoneApp&id=044c4f3b-51d6-df11-a844-00237de2db9e&source=MSDN
Monday, 11 October 2010
First WindowsPhone7 edition images
First pictures of the The No Button Game WP7 edition running on an WP7 LG phone.
The game works in three modes:
Touch Mode: jumo and run by touching the phone screen
Tap Mode: play with the phone on a table and tapping near the phone.
Shake Mode: shake the phone to jump and run (new!!!)
The game works in three modes:
Touch Mode: jumo and run by touching the phone screen
Tap Mode: play with the phone on a table and tapping near the phone.
Shake Mode: shake the phone to jump and run (new!!!)
Saturday, 25 September 2010
when you break it break it good...
new version of SheepNobi has been submitted today in playtest.
A subtitle has been added, now the complete title is: "SheepNobi: way of the chainsaw"
What is changed? Everything! The gamplay was massively changed and updated, some parts of code rewrote, piece of arts added.
Now it's a better game... I swear!
A subtitle has been added, now the complete title is: "SheepNobi: way of the chainsaw"
What is changed? Everything! The gamplay was massively changed and updated, some parts of code rewrote, piece of arts added.
Now it's a better game... I swear!
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
SheepNobi first images and details
the first four SheepNobi screenshots are visible right now on the official SheepNobi blog, I posted them few minutes ago.
Emanuele worked hard and the results are awesome.
We're at an advanced alpha development phase, the most of the contents are done and a good 80% of the code is in place.
and... here is the boxart.
Emanuele worked hard and the results are awesome.
We're at an advanced alpha development phase, the most of the contents are done and a good 80% of the code is in place.
and... here is the boxart.
Monday, 6 September 2010
A new game for Running Pixel - SheepNobi
There's a new game in the air. This involves sheeps, chainsaws, and a lot of blood and humor. Its name? SHEEPNOBI!
Stay tuned, soon will come previews and videos, here the dedicated development blog.
As for other Running Pixel games this will be published on the Xbox Live Indie Games market and hopefully on other platforms (PC and WP7 are the first).
Check out this blog and the dedicated blog for further news.
Stay tuned, soon will come previews and videos, here the dedicated development blog.
As for other Running Pixel games this will be published on the Xbox Live Indie Games market and hopefully on other platforms (PC and WP7 are the first).
Check out this blog and the dedicated blog for further news.
Sunday, 5 September 2010
THE NO BUTTON GAME - the first button free games ever on XBOX360
The No Button Game is probably our greatest success; released on August the 1th 2010 on the Xbox Live Indie Games Marketplace was downloaded 80000 times in it's first month live and with more that 6000 downloads in a single day is probably one of the most downloaded indie game in a day ever.
The game is designed around its unique control mechanism system, for the first time an xbox game (before Kinect) uses no buttons to be played.
here's a small video: enojoy!
Saturday, 4 September 2010
Bricks4Ever - everybody loves it
The second work of Running Pixel as a team and one of our most successful games with more than 50000 copies downloaded.
A new twist on the breakout genre and the most appreciated on Xbox (yes, someone said it is better than Arkanoid Live and much cheaper :D )
bricks4ever was released on 2/17/2009 - 50 levels of fun and an unique dual stick mode.
 |
| http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258550195/ |
some screenshots:
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