WRLDCRAFT - the story behind

WRLDCRAFT has a story, a long story.
Everything starts  in the Xbox Live Indie Games (XBLIG) age, good bless you XBLIG, platform and market where in 2012 I made a quite successful Minecraft Like sanbox game called Miner4Ever. XBLIG market does not exist anymore but loved that game and I learned a lot about voxel engines, shading techniques and multiplayer.
It was not enough, I wanted to port it in the real world and IRL. After some attempts with marker based AR (I lost the videos of that) the true plot twist was in 2017 when I put my hands on a mobile device with Google Tango in, that is a precursor of current ARKit and ARCore and this is what I did in early 2017 (a tech show-off video, not a real game).

So digging and building in real world with persistence using Augmented Reality was totally doable. Unfortunately there were not many Tango enabled phones around, so I put the project in standby waiting for a diffuse technology letting me do a real game with all the features I dreamt.
Today ARKit and ARCore are mature enough to do what I have in mind. Persitence, cross platform, world anchored buildings, cooperative building, multiplayer experience and much more.
Two months ago I leaved my daily job as Technical Leader, resumed my old dream, worked hard, and this is how WRLDCRAFT project is born!

http://www.wrldcraft.com/index.php/2018/11/13/wrldcraft-the-story-behind/

CONTINUE...

I'm alive!

I've been so silent lately, someone could think we're doing nothing but... it's not true. I worked hard on a couple of titles for XBLIG, but because I forecast an XBLIG dark future... I'm working to port what I've done on Unity3d and then publish them on every platform available. Port XNA to Unity isn't an easy job... but neither an hard one. I'm very excited because Unity is now a truly multi-platform game engine (they added Win8 and WP8 to their port options). I also asked to be accepted as a indie dev on XBOX ONE! I have a lot of unfinished games that would fit like a glove for the brand new Microsoft console. So, hold on. Toons of news in this last year quarter coming from the Running Pixel's guys (and girls...)

AVATAR RANDOM CHAT | press release

I have been quite busy lately in doing updates to MINER4EVER lately and working on a ultrasecret mobile (iOS, Android) game. But because I think that good ideas have to be done fast... here's to you AVATAR RANDOM CHAT!

PRESS RELEASE

The multiplatform indie developer Gameccino, also known in the Xbox Live Indie Games channel as Running Pixel, has released on Xbox Indies its first social app: AVATAR RANDOM CHAT

AVATAR RANDOM CHAT is the first Xbox social app that pairs Xbox Live enabled strangers from around the world together for voice-based conversations. At any point, either user may leave the current chat by initiating another random connection. It's like a chat roulette on your Xbox, easy and fun!

To get AVATAR RANDOM CHAT just Bing AVATAR RANDOM CHAT on your Xbox or download it from Xbox.com here: http://marketplace.xbox.com/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258550b56

Genre: Other
Platform: Xbox Live Indie Games
Release Date: 06/21/2012
Price: 80 MSP ($1)

official twitter: @runningpixel
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AvatarRandomChat

developer contact: info@gameccino.com
developer website: http://www.gameccino.com

note:
it has been approved few hours ago so it should appear soon on every Xbox near you on the indie channel.

Miner4ever first minute gameplay HD

big big big BIG summer giveaway

EDIT: this contest is over, thank you for partecipating!

Yes, to celebrate this hot summer I'm giving away all the codes left for all the Running Pixel's Xbox Live games.

I have more than 100 codes to give for these games:

Crystal Crush (shiny 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!)

Not enough?
I also have a dozen of copies of Cocktails: shake it up! the most cohomprensive cocktails database app available on the Xbox.

How to win a code...
It's easy
1) choose  a game or app
2) tweet exactly the message below (*)
3) follow @runningpixel to let me send you the code and to know if there are left codes
4) cross you fingers and hope I still have a code left for the game/app you've choosen

(*)
to win Crystal Crush tweet:

I want @runningpixel #xbox CRYSTAL CRUSH http://bit.ly/flOba9 for the #giveaway rules read http://bit.ly/mUJmD7

to win Bricks4Ever tweet:

I want @runningpixel #xbox BRICKS4EVER http://bit.ly/crT095 for the  #giveaway rules read http://bit.ly/mUJmD7

to win The No Button Game tweet:

I want @runningpixel #xbox THE NO BUTTON GAME http://bit.ly/jSXsDQ for the  #giveaway rules read http://bit.ly/mUJmD7

to win Kozu tweet:

I want @runningpixel #xbox KOZU http://bit.ly/f1Ncl8 for the  #giveaway rules read http://bit.ly/mUJmD7

to win Avatar Ragdolls tweet:

I want @runningpixel #xbox AVATAR RAGDOLLS http://bit.ly/gZgG3n for the  #giveaway rules read http://bit.ly/mUJmD7

to win Bouncing Avatars tweet:

I want @runningpixel #xbox BOUNCING AVATARS http://bit.ly/hPNZyQ for the  #giveaway rules read http://bit.ly/mUJmD7

to win Cocktails: shake it up! tweet:

I want @runningpixel #xbox COCKTAILS: SHAKE IT UP! http://bit.ly/ljOujr for the  #giveaway rules read http://bit.ly/mUJmD

The contest ends as soon as I'll giveaway all the the codes so... hurry up! Choose your game and tweet now!
Edit: there are still a lot of codes left, keep tweeting and don't worry if I don't send you a code  immediately , I'll keep track of every tweet.

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)

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!

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.