We hope you've all been enjoying your Summer! We have some big news to share, so let's just jump right into it!
Launch Window Announcement!!!
Pixel Noir will launch in Q2 of 2023 on Steam and Nintendo Switch! Additionally, the Early Access will be updated in Q4 of 2022!
Our publisher, Badland Publishing, will be putting out a press release about it next week, but we wanted to let you VIPs know first! Xbox and Playstation won't be too far behind the initial launch, but we are still sorting out the timing. News on kickstarter backer merch fulfillment will be coming in early 2023, so stay tuned for those deets!
Woooo!! Time to party like it's 65,000,000 BC!
Over the years, we've been on the long road of development through countless nights, weekends, and holidays to bring this RPG concept to life. We appreciate all those who have stuck with us through thick and thin!
Steam Indie Showcase
We will be a part of a Steam event called Another Indie Game Showcase, which will be on September 12th, 2022, @ 3PM EST, hosted by our friends over at the Dual Screens podcast. If you haven't checked in on the game in a bit, we think you'll like what you see since battle mechanics, GUI -- nearly everything has evolved since the Early Access launched in 2019!
Dual Screens Presents: Another Indie Showcase on Steam & Youtube!
Okay, let's keep this party going and jump into some...
Development Updates
Bounty Hunting
We added a bounty hunting system which is accessible later in the game. You'll be tracking down and apprehending the biggest bottom-feeding scumbags that Pinnacle City has to offer. This feature gives you another way to take on new cases!
Little known fact: Slimey Saul got his name because he uses *way too much* hair product.
Phone Calls
Throughout the game, don't forget to return to the Detective's apartment to answer your phone! Private-eyes get weird phone calls with even stranger cases to take on.
Clearly, the Detective isn't really concerned with missing calls...
Buy A Drink!
Ever felt overwhelmed by all the cases you've taken on? Well, here's something small but fun: you can buy drinks at the various bars around the city!
But is the craft beer locally sourced from Pinnacle City??
Battle Positioning Optimization
In testing, we've noticed that getting into random battles throughout the city still resulted in awkward sprite positioning. Sometimes enemies would wander out of frame, and characters would turn in the wrong directions. We completely overhauled positioning battle encounters in the game, resulting in a much more optimized system that allows battles to play beautifully!
It might not look like much fun, but this was a massive win in terms of optimizing the game and reducing bugs related to battle positioning!
Other Improvements
In addition to finding and fixing MANY bugs, we also:
Updated to the 2021.2.9 version of Unity, which helped decrease load times and drove several back-end benefits
Updated colliders, interaction points, and car walk paths/speeds
Added fast travel between the Docks, Boardwalk, & Royal Island
Optimized the layered depth sprite sorting algorithm, putting an end to layering issues between sprites
And made a
ton* of AI, dialogue, and polish tweaks throughout the game
Music
We've got a juicy sample from our brand new CRDTech theme! A couple of pieces of music will play throughout the CRDTech mini-game, but this tune will play during the actual match. "Risky Gamble" features the incomparable Tim Yarborough of the OneUps on guitar. We hope you enjoy it!
::shakes head:: jazz musicians, am I right?
The Wrap-Up
And with that, we're officially wrapping up this update! If you're pumped about Pixel Noir, here are three steps you can take to make sure you're in the know:
2. Join our SWDTech Games Discord server for a constant stream of screenshots, granular development updates, sprint summaries, and chat with the development team!
Update #70: Transitioning From Development To Post-Development
Hey Everybody! As you can probably tell from each successive Kickstarter update, we've been posting fewer update content. That's because we're in the process of finally closing out our development cycle! While you'll continue to see polish and bug fixes up through release, we'll be transitioning from development to porting and localization over the next few months. Let's jump into the rest of the update!
Release & Porting News
Although we are still locking down timing, we plan to launch on Steam first and subsequently on consoles. We were hoping to have more details around release times for you by this update, but we're still in planning discussions with our publisher. Currently, the team is in the middle of heavy testing, so the amount of time needed to find/fix bugs and the defects with the porting/compliance issues that are sure to rise up will greatly influence exactly when we can target a launch date. We know launch times are important to you backers and fans, so we are working to get you this information as soon as we can.
Shade's Summons
We implemented Shade's Summon skills a couple of months ago, which means this mysterious character is ready for battle with sword in hand.
Dealing With Enemies
We've added in and polished up the enemy skills for every enemy in the game! Some of these attacks will challenge you and have you rethinking your strategy.
In addition to adding many enemy skills, we are currently on our fourth pass of balancing for the game. We've fine-tuned enemy encounters during this run and ensured that enemies have appropriate item drops. Battles were already feeling pretty good, but now they feel rewarding too!
Place Your Bets!
We're excited to showcase card-slinging NPCs. These characters will be happy to play a game or three of CRDTech with you. And happy to take your hard-earned cash while they're at it.
More Polish & Optimization
Finally, we've made several enhancements, including updating and adding a ton more player interactions.
We Added text highlighting to item, skill, & case descriptions.
And lots of optimization to pathfinding to help decrease load times!
New Tunes
Finally, on the audio front, last year composers Hiroki Kikuta and Kunal Majmudar finished out a pretty spectacular boss theme. Does it feature a turbo intense orchestra? Check. Is it full of bloops and bleeps? Double-check. Does it feature Slavic women wailing? Ja! Feast your earbuds on this!
That's A Wrap!
If you're pumped about Pixel Noir, here are three steps you can take to make sure you're in the know:
2. Join our SWDTech Games Discord server for a constant stream of screenshots, granular development updates, sprint summaries, and chat with the development team!
Our next update will be out on August 11th! See you then!
Update #69: A Look Back at 2021
Hello, 2022!
Happy new year!!! Hopefully you had a fantastic holiday! We ended the year strong with a lot of great wins (see more details in update #68). For this update, we wanted to recap all the development achievements we made this past year, so let's kick this thing off!
For the love of Pete, *punch back* 2022!
Ally/Enemy Skills & Party Combos
Over the past year, we’ve added various in-battle cinematics, meticulously working to add visual and audio flair to every battle. We’re now up to 180+ ally/enemy skills, attack combos and in-battle item cinematics!
Keep your eye on the ATB... Where the characters stop, you'll never know!
Talk about passing wind... #dadjoke2022
::Insert 80's action movie montage::
Clearly the Detective had a printer jam right before this battle.
Hot enough for ya?
This gif is a bit of a shocker.
Sometimes you need a cocktail to take the edge off... A Molotov Cocktail that is!
Here's an example of how items now look when you use them in battle
Combos got a major facelift this past year too!
Shade's blade slices through enemies like butter.
Random Encounters & A New Way To Escape Battles
While exploring the world of Pixel Noir, you never know when someone will try to mug you. Throughout Pinnacle City, baddies will jump out, sometimes alone and sometimes along with more bad dudes. Many enemies will just be hanging out in plain sight, while other enemies might be patrolling or disguise themselves as an inanimate object (like a trash can)! We've even overhauled our "run" mechanic. Previously, as seen in Early Access, you'd select run and the enemy just sort of went "poof" and disappeared. Now, when you select run, a mini game will determine if you can run from a battle.
What a nice evening for an ambush.
If you're fast, you might be able to escape a potential enemy encounter!
Pinnacle City has a few different types of mimics, so be careful out there!
Put those fingers to work if you want to run from a battle!
Visual Effects
We've added many visual effects creating much needed polish to the dramatic parts of the game. You'll see flashes of color, new animations for skills, and even heavier use of screen shakes and other camera tricks!
You want dramatic effects? We've got em'!
Whoa, trippy!
That flash of red really adds a nice "oomph" to Deuce's execution.
The Battle Arena, Hosted By Shovel Knight!
We've added a battle arena that you can access later in the game! 14 rounds with one-time prizes for finishing each round, featuring a cameo by none other than Shovel Knight! We can't tell you what the final round's prize is, but trust us, you'll want it!
That's a hell of a power, Shovel Knight!
Quality Of Life Enhancements
For starters, we’ve been iterating on the menu's user interface to improve intuitiveness as well as display more useful information. We've also added arrows that point to doors and teleports in the game world. You can see them by activating the detective's investigation mode. All main plot lines and cases (side-quests) have been loaded into the Case Manager! This means that you now have clues for each case as well as highlighted map tiles indicating key locations for both main quests and side-quests.
A peek of the latest menu UI!
You can see doorway & teleport indicators now!
It'll be much easier to keep cases moving along even if you step away from the game for a bit.
Items Discovery: Treasures, Traders, Grifters, Black Markets, & Battle Rewards.
Treasure boxes, bundles of cash, and items found through using Investigation Mode are now all in the game. You can also now buy, sell, and get ripped off in the streets of Pinnacle City with the different ways to acquire items and gear off NPCs!
The NPC that owns this garage probably didn't need it anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Investigation Mode can show hidden items all over town!
Think carefully before making a trade, no backsies now!
So is the "fork" really a fork? Or could it something awesome??? ....or maybe it really is just a $1000 fork?
Keep a generous amount of cash on hand for these Black Market dudes... They charge premium prices, but they also have primo wares!
And of course, what RPG is complete without enemy item drops!
New Game +
We also rolled out this feature that was funded thanks to a stretch goal! Upon completing the game, New Game + will allow a player to start a new game with their current experience, money, items and skills. This time, however, the player can make different choices, which could lead to different outcomes.
New Game + is officially in the game. Thanks to the Kickstarter backers for bringing this one to life!
Audio
We've added 3D sound effects to scenes and moving objects. You can really hear the city come to life as cars drive by, neon signs buzz, trash blows around, waves crash against the beach and more. Additionally doorways with doors now play creeks or other SFX when you transition between rooms.
[previewyoutube="vQDX00KtGQg;full"]
[previewyoutube="UoNsKvIlJ6U;full"]
Stat Balancing
Testing stat-balancing isn't the most exciting element in the development of an RPG, but it's absolutely essential to delivering a balanced gameplay experience. All seven chapters now feature semi-balanced battle scenarios and gear. And, of course, we'll continue to play-test and tweak difficulty up until launch.
Peace out, 2021!
To give you an idea of what's to come in 2022, our efforts will be heavily focused around...
Polish & Bugs: Implementing the last little bit of polish & stat balancing to get us into post production territory! We also have a handful of small tasks on the coding side, including save/load optimization, several GUI updates, and adding in trophies. Oh, and of course, zapping the bugs that we keep finding and fixing on a daily basis.
Porting, Localization, & Compliance: As mentioned in previous updates, the good folks over at Badland Publishing will be helping us with these tasks. We'll have a better idea of the porting roadmap and release plans later THIS year after we've finished with development.
Well, that's a wrap for our 2021 year end review update! If you're pumped about Pixel Noir, here are three steps you can take to make sure you're in the know:
Join our SWDTech Games Discord server for a constant stream of screenshots, granular development updates, sprint summaries, and to chat with the development team!
Our next update will be out on March 24th! See you then!
//Team SWDTech
Update #68: Another Giant Step For Noir Kind!
Hey Friends & Fans
We got another fully stocked update to get those gaming fingers salivating (fingers salivate right?). If you haven't already noticed, we've been more active on social media lately. That's because Pixel Noir will finish it's development cycle within the 2nd quarter of 2022 (if not earlier)!
#HYPETRAIN
Just to be clear, development will be complete, however there will be several other tasks that need to happen leading up to launch like porting, localization, compliance/QA testing, and just some general marketing planning. We also would like to remind everybody that we plan to address backer rewards closer to launch so that our team can stay focused on all the pre-launch work and bug crushing.
In the meantime, if you have still have any questions or would like to switch platforms, feel free to DM us here or on any social media platform that we're on (Discord, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram) and we'll get you squared away!
Since The Last Update...
All of the ally and enemy skills are now in the game! We had a blast creating these and of course, they will continue to get polish treatments as time permits prior to launch.
This skill was a total *shocker*
Screenshake FTW!
Flamethrower packs a punch!
We started implementation of party member combos a few weeks ago and we're looking to be finished with constructing these sometime this month!
Use combos to wreck your enemies in style!
Even a single change in your party lineup can change the attributes of the combo attack!
For atmosphere, we added 3D sound effects to scenes and moving objects. You can really hear the city come to life as cars drive by, neon signs buzz, trash blows around, waves crash against the beach, and more! Check out a little preview.
[previewyoutube="vQDX00KtGQg;full"]
We've overhauled our run-from-battle mechanic. Previously, as demo'd in the Early Access, you'd select run and the enemy just, sort of went "poof" and disappeared. Now, when you select run, a mini game will determine if you can run from a battle.
Escape depends on the levels of your party members in comparison to the enemies' level....and some quick finger work.
We also added a battle arena that you can access later in the game! 14 rounds with one-time prizes for finishing each round, hosted by none other than Shovel Knight!
Thanks to our pals at Yacht Club Games! We're excited to see Shovel Knight make an appearance!
We finished implementing and distributing all learnable party member skills AND collectable CRDTech cards throughout the various story events and game world. Keep an eye out, you can find skills and cards almost anywhere!
Gotta collect 'em all!
You can find skills just about anywhere- story events, case rewards, shops and of course your humble treasure box.
Last but not least, we made a few UI updates. Skill level indicators and skill level descriptions are now in all the necessary menus.
Sometimes it's the little touches that matter most.
Alright, you're almost done, but what's left?
This & That - Miscellaneous stuff mostly covered in the section above: Ally combos. Enemy level implementation. 3D audio. Mini-map environment mapping (making sure that mini-map is accurate). We're pretty close to being finished with this bucket of work!
Bugs, bugs and more bugs - Yes, these still are popping up, but we are tracking less every week (We expect this to be a constant up until and after we release on steam.)
Battle Difficulty Balancing - We just finished our 3rd pass of this most tedious task in testing!
Polish - We are continuing to fine-tune audio, cinematics, dialogue, and flesh out extra features such as CRDTech encounters. This will be an ongoing task until we launch
Of course we'll be crunching through the holidays!
Closing Up The Update Bag
If you're excited about this project, join the SWDTech Games Discord server or follow us on any number of social platforms! We're going to be putting out more and more content and teasers up until the release, so keep an eye out!
Our next update will be out some time in January to recap the progress we made in 2021. Then the next official update after that will be out on March 24th! Until then have a safe & happy holiday season!
//Team SWDTech
Updated #67: Sweepings From The Dev Room Floor
Hey everyone!
As we get to the end of another hot Summer, we're excited to close out several of our tasks! But, before we get to the progress we've made in these last few months, we wanted to announce that we're launching our very own SWDTech Games Discord server!
Over the last few months we've built a little home for our dev team on Discord and we are ready to open it up backers/fans/cactuars to provide a space for our community to grow. Over at our Discord server, you'll be able to communicate directly with the development team, get granular development updates, stay in the know when we're streaming development of Pixel Noir, catch the latest screenshots & gifs teasing the game until launch, connect with other backers *cough RPG nerds cough*, and more! So join our Discord server, claim your role, & post as many detective/RPG memes as you want!
Important note for backers: please follow the directions in the #choose-your-role channel so that we can add you as a Kickstarter backer! Once you're added, you'll have access to #backer-lounge where we'll drop specific announcements and answer generic backer inquiries!
If David Tennant can't convince you to join, probably nobody can
Progress
While we are keeping a lid on an estimated release date until development is finished, we wanted to give you an update on the short list of tasks we laid out in the beginning of the year.
Since our last update, we've finished:
Collectible Placement - Treasure boxes, bundles of cash and items found through using Investigation Mode are now all in the game!
Shops, Traders, Grifters, & Black Markets - Yes, that's right folks you can buy, sell, and get ripped off now in the streets of Pinnacle City!
Battle Encounter Placement - Now you'll find patrolling baddies that might jump you around town! We've also added mimic type enemies!
This is what we have left before we can ramp up on porting & localization!
Bugs, bugs and more bugs - Yes, these still are popping up, but we are tracking less with every play test! This will be an ongoing task, even through patching but we want to make sure game play is as tight as possible.
Battle / Skill / Stat Balancing - This is the longest, most tedious task in testing. We closed out our first (and longest) pass of balancing and are working through our second pass.
Polish - We are continuing to fine-tune audio, cinematics, dialogue, and flesh out extra features such as CRDTech encounters. This will be an ongoing task until we launch.
Along with the many features we've been polishing and testing from the last update, we're working our way through implementing the visual effects for skills & items in battle. It's a much-neglected area that hasn't been updated since the Early Access release. Here's a sneak peek at some of the changes!
Woof swinging that chain so fast that it creates wind shear!
Is it fair to say that this thug has officially been mooned?
Slowing down is sometimes the best way to speed up. #showerthoughts
A little randomness never hurt anyone....maybe.
Who's ready for a cocktail party?
Here's what items now look like when used in battle!
Audio
Here's a sample of the Fish Market BGM which will play in (you guessed it) the Fish Market! Here you'll be assailed by a number of colorful union teamsters and other fishy characters!
Before we sign off, there's a small issue we wanted to address. In recent weeks, our development progress tracker (the Roadmap) has been on the fritz. It's fixed now, but if you've noticed a slowdown in code pushes, know that we were chugging away--it's just that the code pushes weren't updating publicly. It should all be fixed with the correct data now. As it turns out several Google API's were updated causing the issue on our end.
It’s been a busy couple of months here at SWDTech!! We’ve got a lot to share with you, so let’s jump right in!
Vita Talk
We had a little controversy with the Vita news a couple of months ago where we thought Sony was going to shut down it's online store for Vita. Apparently some very vocal Vita fans spoke up with passion to this news which forced Sony to keep its digital marketplace online (meaning we all can still buy the games on the marketplace). However, this move leaves developers like us in the dust because Sony won't be allowing new digitally released games to populate it's online store for Vita. (Source 1: Official PS blog - Source 2 Playstationlifestyle.net's article). We may be able to homebrew it digitally, but we are still looking into figuring this option out. Obviously this news also means that there won't be a physical release of Pixel Noir on the Vita. That said, we've got a laundry list of porting to do, so we're going to have to consider our approach here. Hopefully, Sony rethinks this decision and allows game developers to add new titles in the future.
With that we're off to the development updates! We're continuing to progress through our list of open items from last update.
::continues scanning news from Sony::
First Pass Of Stat-Balancing Completed!
Stat-balancing isn't the most exciting element in the development of an RPG, but it's absolutely essential to delivering a balanced gameplay experience. As of this update, all seven chapters now feature balanced allies, enemies, and gear. But we are going to do another pass or two to tweak difficulty as necessary but that will take far less time than this initial pass.
Along with balancing, we've also been adding semi-scripted random battles throughout the game. Watch your step in Pinnacle City, you never know when someone will try to mug you!
Run away!
Case Manager Now Integrated With City's Map
All main plot lines and cases (side quests) have been loaded into the case manager! This means that you will now have clues for each case as well as highlighted map tiles indicating key locations for almost any selected case.
As a detective, it's up to you to figure out where your next clue lies within that highlighted tile...
Teleport & Doorway Indicators
Just for a small quality of life improvement, we added arrows that point to doors and teleports in the game world by activating the detective's investigation mode.
FF7 called... They want their teleport arrows back!
Arena Battles + Shovel Knight!
That's right folks, we are adding a battle arena into the game hosted by our very own cameo appearance of Shovel Knight! He runs a virtual arena in the Tronics shop Downtown where you can battle the game's various enemies for prizes!
Look into my eyes.... *poof* You're in battle land!
New Game +
As you might recall, New Game + was a stretch goal. This feature will allow a player, upon completing the game, to start a new game with their experience, money, items and skills, but this time the player can make different choices, which could lead to different outcomes.
How many cigarettes can the you get the Detective to smoke in your *SECOND* playthrough?
Bug Crushing / Polish Mode
From the beginning of the year to this point we've been play testing rigorously to eliminate any game/emersion breaking bugs as well as adding finishing touches throughout the game. For example, door sounds were added to every environment in the game. Check it out!
[previewyoutube="ty_SJyip1GY;full"]
We've also added some cool flash and sprite coloring effects to our cinematics for more of a dramatic effect!
A bloody, dramatic *Color Flash*!
Background color filter test sample.
Off screen explosions!
Audio Sneak Peek
Finally, here's a sample of the Uptown over world theme! Uptown is a nice part of town where Pinnacle City's more affluent citizens live. Here you can find the Apparel Mall, the Tronics Factory, and the Pinnacle City Gazette! Check it out:
Update #65: And Now, An Update From Our Creative Director
Hey everybody,
This is Len Stuart, creative director behind Pixel Noir and co-founder of SWDTech Games. I decided to personally come out and give you a brief summary of how I see things at the moment to let you know what's happening at this stage of development.
You can't see it from this picture, but yes I am chained to my desk. :D
While implementation is complete, a lengthy polish/bug extermination phase has been underway in these last four months to increase stability. In parallel, we are continuously testing to make the game balanced via player/enemy character stat and gear tuning, while also factoring in collectables/skills. It's a large game for as small as it is... (if that makes sense? -may only make sense to me!)
Have a look at our funny but frustrating bug collection...
Surfs up..?
What are you doing Shade!? Why can't you climb a ladder like a normal sprite!?
Party poopers...
We even have our own version of that truck sliding down the street in Texas!
For those asking about a release date, although we are very close to finishing from a development standpoint, we‘re not yet ready to predict a release date. Its because this last leg of the journey is fraught with new bugs and balancing difficulty hurdles we are continuously jumping. We want to put out a nicely polished game upon release because Pixel Noir is a project that has always focused on the quality of our game instead of profit. Not only that, but for as long as we all have been working on this project (and all the time you all have waited), we firmly believe it's worth putting in the effort at this point to make sure we can all be proud of the game we brought to life--dev, backer, and fan alike.
Now more from the bug collection...
I think the clerk is in on it!
This band is horrible but I can't leave- the eternal struggle...
She... walks her own path.
...Don't ask...
With all that said, let me remind you of the things we are currently working on at the moment with Pixel Noir:
Battle / Skill / Stat Balancing - This is the longest, most tedious with the battle testing and all that must be done over and over and over....
Collectible Placement / Shop Stocking / Traders + Grifters + Black Markets - Items and gear need to be factored into balancing as there is some complexity in the later chapters of the game. We've done this for about 35% of the game as of this update.
Battle Encounter Placement - Turn down a wrong alley in Pinnacle Ci--never mind you get the point. (25% finished)
Bug, bugs and more bugs - Of course, we are still dealing with these... However we are tracking less with every play test!!
Polish - Continuing to fine-tune audio, cinematics, dialogue, and flesh out extra features such as CRDTech encounters. This will be ongoing until we finish...
As outlined in Update #63, this phase is one of the longest parts of our development cycle outside of the environment implementation that we finished earlier last year. So just sit tight, stay tuned for more, and know that we’re still motivated to get this game out to everyone!!
2020 gave us a lot of... stuff: Covid-19. Murder Hornets (remember those?). The Cyberpunk 2077 launch...
Cyberpunk!!
But not all of it was bad! Pixel Noir grew by leaps and bounds this year! We started off the year with a battle system in need of a serious revamp, environments still needing to be implemented, and over half of the main story still not in the game. As we stated in our last update, we're in the process of polishing up and transitioning to post-production, so it's been quite a journey this year! But for now let's take a trip down memory lane!
Here's the progress we made in 2020..
All environments implemented! As you might recall, this was definitely one of the things that took us the longest to implement due to the sheer volume of assets.
Yes this is all of them! The images are a bit small, but check out how big the game world is!
Added grifter & traders feature!
You can find grifters and traders throughout the game that will give you a quick offer for weapons/armor/items (they may have some rare wares)!
Your basic grifting grifter!
Got some junk to trade for better junk?
All NPC's implemented!
This was a huge undertaking, but every nook and cranny of Pinnacle City has been filled with quirky or informative NPC interactions!
Epic Sprite Party!
Maybe check out some of those knockoff suits in Lil' Shanghai!
Game Mechanics...
We made a number of battle updates including unveiling a new asynchronous turn-based battle system, skill system and other GUI updates!
OOOoooo!!! shiney new UI stuff!
All Backer Creation Tier Content Added!
Thanks again to all the creation tier backers who gave us some truly incredible characters, items, environments, and sidequests for the game! They fit in the world of Pixel Noir like a glove :)
Is Thaddeus an evil scientist or a Dr. Light fanboy? You'll have to find him to figure it out!
Tobias is probably the best DM in Pinnacle City
Finished implementing The Main Story & All Sidequests!
This year, the Pixel Noir story officially became playable from start to finish!
Finished & Implemented All Music!
7 cutscenes. 11 districts. 23 battle themes. 65 music tracks. 100's of hours of work. Pixel Noir is chock full of musical goodness!
Muzak's is in Downtown!
We finished creating all music & added the Muzak's shop where you can listen to some sweet, pixelly jams! Check out the audio sneak peeks that we've been gathering:
We also wanted to take a minute to talk about one of our team members, who left an indelible mark on Pixel Noir. Shane Stevens was part of our art team and was responsible for most of the character / monster sprites and misc. animations in the game. He passed in late September after a long battle with an aggressive abdominal cancer. Needless to say, without Shane's talent, Pixel Noir would be nowhere near as unique as it is.
This gif is from our Thank You video after Pixel Noir was successfully funded
Rest in peace, Shane. We're lucky to have worked with you and we'll miss you!
Signing Off for 2020
That wraps it up for us in 2020! In 2021, As always, follow our official Roadmap / Twitter bot, and don't forget to check out Leo's Pixel Noir dev stream to see coding updates happen in realtime! Our next update will be on March 4th!
From our 16-bit family to yours, we hope everybody has a great holiday and a safe and happy new year!
//The Pixel Noir Team
Update #63: Endgame!!
Hey everyone, guess what?
And unlike Doc Strange, we won't leave you hanging on the master plan
At this point, the core of Pixel Noir is officially playable from start to finish including all the main story, sidequests, features, and more! BUT, There are some things to do before we can call this turkey done and ready for public consumption!
Here's a list (in chronological order) of the things we have left to finish.
Battle / Skill / Stat Balancing. This is the longest, most tedious, most important task we have left.
Collectible Placement / Shop Stocking / Traders + Grifters + Black Markets. Items and gear need to be factored into balancing as there is some complexity in the later chapters of the game, so we'll need to be careful about how these are implemented to ensure we don't create loopholes/imbalances in the game.
Battle Encounter Placement. Turn down a wrong alley in Pinnacle Ci--never mind you get the point.
Bug, bugs and more bugs. Of course, we are still dealing with these... Thankfully, we have far fewer than what we had before Early Access, woohoo!!!
Polish. Continuing to fine-tune audio, cinematics, dialogue, and flesh out extra features such as CRDTech encounters.
After these have been taken care of, we will work with our publisher to port, localize, & launch!
::micdrop::
Sneak Peeks
WTF is this guy?
Marvel at the wonders of cheap technology!
Sooner or later you may have to stay at one of these places...
Audio
Finally, as always, here's a sneak peek of brand-new Pixel Noir jammage!!!
This is the Lab BGM. For this one, Hiroki Kikuta (composer, Secret of Mana) and Kunal worked collaboratively to create something dark, mysterious, and foreboding. When you enter the labs, you can tell some really "bad stuff"™️ went on here. Kind of makes you wonder what they were trying to do in these labs... We hope you enjoy!
See Ya Soon!
That wraps our November update! The next update will be on December 19! And as always, follow our official Roadmap / Twitter bot, and don't forget to check out Leo's Pixel Noir dev stream for some good music and some good, ol' fashioned gamedev!
//Team SWDTech
Update #62: Main Story Implementation COMPLETE! Side-quests Started & Pwn'd!
In our last episode...
...we entered the "Final Chapter!" Guess what? We are extremely excited to let you all know that the main story has been completely implemented and semi-polished! AND we've already blasted through most of the side-quest implementation work!
::awkward dance party::
Side-quests
This next piece of the puzzle is already 91% finished as we've been working on them since late July. This was the next step after finishing all the main story content. To be this far along is fantastic and could spell out the end of all dev / polish on the game before the end of the year!! We're so close to being finished!! Have a look at our roadmap numbers...
Whats Next? After implementing side-quests, we will spend the next few months moving through a deep polish phase to ensure the game is bug-free, balanced, and includes the icing on the cake stuff like CRDTech battles, random enemy encounters, dialog edits, treasure drops, more environment interactions, etc.
Little do they know, this "kid" is an expert with knives :O
Breathe, Woof, breeeeathe!
"Never bring a gun to a card battle" - old proverb
Audio Update
We are 89% finished with all remaining audio for the game! However, because we had Kunal helping out with story implementation, this has been on the back-burner for some time. Now with the main story complete, audio will be finished rather soon!
Here's a sample of the recently-created "Parade" BGM that will be used later in the game. For this one, Kunal pulled heavily from his high school marching band roots!
The next update will be on November 11th! And as always, follow our official Roadmap / Twitter bot, and don't forget to check out Leo's Pixel Noir dev stream on Monday & Friday nights for more granular progress-watching, a little bit of fun and some good music!
