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PlayStation Mobile Developer Interview: Life of Pixel | PSNStores

PlayStation Mobile Developer Interview: Life of Pixel

Posted by on January 8th, 2013 | 1 Comment | Tags: , ,

It has been a few weeks since we have seen any new games on PlayStation Mobile. Life of Pixel will be out tonight and we had the chance to ask Rich from Super Icon about it. If you are a fan of retro games you might like this one.

Q: What can you tell us about Life of Pixel?

Life of Pixel is a game dedicated to the brilliance of classic gaming machines. The game is comprised of 64 levels, which are spread over 8 different game machines.

We thoroughly researched the graphics capabilities, pixel resolutions, colour palettes & scrolling of each machine and our aim was to recreate these limitations as closely as possible.

Each machine features 8 levels, and the machines included within Life of Pixel are Atari 2600, ZX81, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, BBC Model B, Nintendo Gameboy & NES.

Q: How did you decide on the different “worlds”?

Initially my favourite machines that I owned back when I first started playing games. We then added other machines that we thought would give us a nice contrast in graphical styles and settings.

Q: Were there any graphical styles, computers, you wish you would have added?

There are several, yes – including Amiga, Megadrive, SNES, EGA PC and lots more. We plan to revisit Pixel in the future to add a load of new machines.

Click to view full gallery...

Q: Can you explain the game mechanics?

Life of Pixel is an old fashioned platform game with plenty of modern twists and puzzle elements.

So we have double jumps, gravity inversion (walk on ceilings), moving & destructible platforms, spikes of death and other deadly environmental features and lots of different enemies. The aim is for the player to collect a certain amount of gems to open the EXIT door, with the focus on completing the level in the fastest possible time.

All enemies, tiles, player sprites, etc…. were all drawn based on the graphical capabilities of each host machine ‘World’.

Q: What was it like going from minis to PSM development?

We had a bit of a hiccup at the start when we tried to do 3D stuff, converting our engine from C++ to C# was just too big a task. So we instead focused on 2D games, using the Sony PSM 2D engine – and from that point on it was a brilliant experience.

Q: What is one thing you would like to see added to the PSM SDK?

Hmmm… good question. I think a bit more in-build graphics/animation management would be handy. And definitely a visual particle editor.

Q: Is there anything else you would like our readers to know about Super Icon or Life of Pixel?

Basically we’re a small indie studio trying to create games that people enjoy – so we’d love to hear feedback for our first PSM titles. We hope to continue developing good solid titles that people really enjoy playing.

Thanks for listening 🙂

Life of Pixel will be released in just a few hours for roughly $2. I will be checking it out, so be sure to check back on the site later tonight or tomorrow for some impressions. I would like to thank Rich for taking the time to awsnwer our questions. You can follow Super Icon on Twitter at @Supericonltd