On the philosophy and naming of the team

#1

What follows is the start of a discussion on the philosophy that guides the team’s work. A possible name change (and corresponding logo, marketing efforts, etc.) for the team should aim to represent or be inspired by that philosophy.

anyhow... main things distinct about our approach - open source - continuation of neglected gameplay styles combined with modern fixes to serious flaws in old genres - "valve time/blizzard time" - taking the time to do our games right, rather than just aggressively shipping and dumping them - really open to moddability and user-made content I actually don't think we want to peg pixel art as one of our things, since we might well have games under our aegis that aren't pixel art at all. Cube trains, for example. I myself am quite likely to do some non-pixel-art games at some point. - simple mechanics with emergent gameplay, rather than a complex "wall-of-stats-and-ui". We seem to be philosophically opposed to doing a "romance of the three kingdoms" or "FFTactics", because if we did do such a title, we'd streamline it so the game could play quickly and with the least amount of meta. One other thing I think we shouldn't subscribe to is I think we should not peg ourselves as a group that's committed to story-driven games. Sometimes we'll do a game that has a strong story ? but just as often sometimes we'll do a game that has no story whatsoever - and for myself at least, I emphatically think some games should *not* have a story bolted on. Indeed, by including Cube Trains, that's already false Yeah. Citadel as well. It should be stated that a strong distinction should be made between "story", and "flavor". Flavor - like MTG, or Dota, or Street fighter or mortal kombat et al, has - is fine. An actual, laborious "storyline" with cutscenes and all that bullshit, though, is a bad idea. (in certain forms of game) fwiw, I think what DDR is doing with the campaign in Citadel seems to be "just right". * marcavis nods But I think we really want to avoid "making it a promise to our fans" that we always put a strong, driving story in every game we make, like bioware or something. ... - Another item is we're really not profit-driven as a group; we're doing games "for the art" (art of game-making, not visual-art).
#2

I know beforehand that I’m going to be wrong about this, but I haven’t reached the point where I am yet to me. [size=8pt]It’s weird, like being cognisant of “the best course of action” and pursuing one you know will end in failure at best.[/size] [size=6pt]Maybe a weird compromise, like when you want to punch your computer but know that will hurt it, and by extension your pocket-book and your pride, so you settle for banging on the desk or walls a bit, or just controlled-ly hammering your keyboard a bit.[/size][size=4pt]Anyway, moving on here?[/size]

The first bit, at least. It’s strange, and I’m a little weirded out by it.

So. I liked the name “Lost Pixel”. It has a bit of class to it, a bit of winsomeness. A lonely pixel, out in the cold, on a journey to find home. Like the “Lost Forest”, a name evocative of some pristine, beautiful, primordial thing discovered again, reclaimed for man one more. The lost art of per-pixel drawing.

I think a big thing is that we’re … not really retro. At all. We have kind of chunkily graphics, but that’s just a /style/. We happily throw it out the window to rotate stuff, wheras a truly retro game would rotate stuff on a large-pixel basis. We rotate the pixels individually, sort of. Anyway, pixel art was once about striving mightily against the bounds of the hardware. (Read that article. It’s /fascinating/.) The original, or at least best, “feel” to the thing was “Woah, you can do that?” Unfortunately, as a “genre”, pixel art has sort of become defined by those limitations. We (ie, Jetrel) have fought against that, and are actually progressing the pixel art as an art form, unlike Cave Story. Dem graphics, man. :stuck_out_tongue: Pixel-art today is often a refuge for those who cannot draw, as they can seemingly turn out any old thing and have it accepted as a legitimate art asset.

Another part of the feel of Lost Pixel, for me, is that we’re Not Gamemaker. This is a horribly, terribly important selling point for us which we are not capitalizing on. We are like a grown-up version of Gamemaker, thanks to Sirp and somewhat recently, Krista. :smiley: Our interface is really pretty damn rough, though, in comparison ? but, damnit, we should be able to fix that. I should be able to fix that.

Gamemaker gives you a bunch of pretty empty pre-made maps and pretty assets that just scream to be added to the maps. It is, immediately, a Place. Where Stuff can happen. Just from the first five minutes, I’d sure as hell go with Gamemaker. Look! I made an island! I can walk around! Cool! I can add events! It says they’re easy! Oooh, the possibility! Frogatto, otoh, presents itself much less well. While you can jump right into the editor, it’s somebody else’s story at the moment. It’s not yours. The thing doesn’t have a fancy comparisons page, it doesn’t have step-by-step tutorials with images prominently linked from the front page. The Eliza tutorial is pretty good, but it’s not as… shiny. :expressionless: I dunno how to put it. Extensive, maybe. This background feeling of frustration is also part of the atmosphere, to some degree.

Uh, anyway. 'nuffa that. Sleep, sweet sleep, she beckons to my tired eyes. I must answer her call.