Pixel Legions (Deluxe) has made it's way from the Playbook to the Nook Color.

Get it now in the Barnes & Noble app store!

Thanks to FGL and Difference Games for all their hard work in making this happen!

Making a multiplayer platform racing game is pretty tough when you don't have any players! Now that Sky Riders is in a playable state, it's time to open the floodgates a wee little bit and starting letting people in to break everything and make me miserable make sure it works!

So if you're interested in helping out and getting a sneak peak at the game (albeit, in a very unfinished state) post your Armor Games account name in the comments below or email it to me at evan@pixelante.com

If you don't have an Armor Games account... sign up for one!

Keep in mind this is ALPHA testing, not beta. That means the game is VERY ROUGH AND INCOMPLETE.

Testing will start some time next week, and we'll be setting specific times of day to meet up and race. More details coming soon!

That’s what I said when I announced Sky Riders and there’s been considerable interest in what it actually means. I’ve been itching to reveal the details, so today I’ll start with social gaming and walled-gardens.

Social gaming is broken
The current trend of ‘social games’ is to create anti-social experiences. People play single-player games and then spam their friends to extort items from. They pressure each other to sink more time into the game out of a selfish desire to progress faster by literally using one another as tools.

Single-player games? Notification spam? Peer pressure? Using people like tools?

Anti-social.

MMOs make up another genre plagued with anti-social design practices. Developers are so scared of griefing they’ve all but eliminated multiplayer from their ‘massively multiplayer’ games altogether. Instancing prevents people from even seeing one another. Party systems and match-making have been marginalized, often relegated to the ‘end-game’, or are not even implemented in the first place.

This is ‘social gaming’. This is ‘massively multiplayer’.

This is broken.

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I've been bad and haven't blogged for a while now. With a project this ridiculous in scope -- and such a short development cycle -- I'm finding myself either buried in work or very burned out.

But things are moving along at a brisk pace and I played with some environment art today. This is another behind-the-scenes look at what the game's level editing looks like.

Needs some work, but it's getting there!

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I needed to whip together a tool for artists to see how their sprites will look on the in-game character. It's simple and ugly, but it gets the job done and you can bulk import a whole texture set (or swap in individual pieces) and see various animations

I'm looking forward to being able to show something nicer than my silly placeholder crash test dummy!

UPDATE: Positions have been filled. My thanks goes out to everyone who applied.


Original post:
I'm looking to fill a bunch of freelancee contract positions for concept, logo, 2D environment and 2D character artists for Sky Riders, a multiplayer platform racing game developed for Armor Games.
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I'm a bit of a fiend when it comes to tricking out my browsers. It wasn't unusual for me to run 30+ extensions back when I used Firefox. Nowadays I use Chrome, and have been meaning to write a list of my favourite Chrome extensions for a while now.

Here we go, in alphabetical order: Read full article...

Uplift is a recurring segment on Pixelante where we take a moment to escape the overwhelming negativity of the internet and appreciate something positive in life.

Chris Machado was a big fan of Double Fine when Psychonauts was released, going so far as to bribe them with homemade cookies for a tour of their studio (well played, Chris).

Fast forward a few years and Chris was struck with a an illness called Hydrocephalus which affects the brain. He underwent two successful surgeries and prepared for a third. While in hospital, he received a mystery package from Double Fine who had (somehow) gotten word of the situation and tracked him down to give their support. It had a pack of Double Fine swag and a fantastic hand-illustrated card signed by the entire staff.


It's a wonderful gesture of kindness from a game developer to one of their fans, years after meeting each other. Get better, Chris! We're all rooting for you.