Piste Gamez

Q-Lat in a Browser!

2009-12-26T02:00:00.005+02:00

According to our server statistics 44% of you visiting Piste Gamez site use Firefox as a browser of choice. 7% of you use Opera, and 4.7% use Google Chrome. Safari users make up 1.6% of all visitors.

And that makes me happy, since it means that 57% of you will be able to enjoy our slightly delayed X-mas present: A small browser version of Q-Lat! You can claim your gift from here. Official link will follow later. Even though the game works with all the browsers mentioned above, Firefox users will have the extra advantage of not having to use paper and pencil to save their hiscores.

Q-Lat's browser version was build using new features of HTML 5 specification (canvas and localStorage). The specification is still a work in process, however many browsers already support some of these features. Sadly Internet Explorer is lacking behind with no support for canvas in sight, meaning that the 39,5% of you using IE will not be able to play the game with your browser. So if you don't want to miss out this addictive little game (methinks it's actually more addictive than Q-Lat3) do yourself a favor and grab the latest version of Firefox browser from www.getfirefox.net. You'll notice the installation is pretty straight forward, quick, and even all of your IE bookmarks will be copied to Firefox. Or ask your kids to install it. Or if you are at work (where you of course never play games online), ask your tech support to install it. Because of... emm... it's more safe... and faster. And every one else already has it. ;)

Back to School

2009-12-04T22:19:00.002+02:00

We'll, it looks like 2010 is going to be a pretty busy year for me. Actually the next 3 years or so are going to be very busy, since I'm returning to my old school to study, with the purpose to graduate as a Master of Business Administration. As I'm looking forward to studying again, it also means that most of the little spare time I now have after work, will go to studying :( So basically that means that don't expect anything big to happen for the next 3 years. Jerome will continue working with the editor, and perhaps we will get a small game out at some point, but nothing in the scale of PK3.

Luckily the world is full of great games and many of the are free. If you don't know where to start, I can recommend you this site which features all sorts of interesting games in development.

Another interesting site related to indie games is IGF (Independent Games Festival). Of course I'm only mentioning this because we submitted Q-Lat3 this year ;)

October Ramblings

2009-10-11T13:38:00.003+03:00

It's nice to see that there are people that are still interested in PK3's development even though the game has been in development forever. For those of you wishing that Santa would bring PK3 as an x-mas present this year, I have disappointing news, since there in no way the game will be ready this year, or even next year. We've done so many changes to the engine since the beginning of PK3's development, that the game's scripts pretty much need to be rewritten from scratch. We've also come to realize the magnitude of the entire project and that it's probably too big and ambitious for such a small team. So the game needs to be rethought in a way that we can actually get it done with the very little resources and time we have. And since we seem to have a bad(?) habit of doing all sorts of smaller side projects, there is no way I could give the game any deadline. All I can say that it's ready when it's ready.

Q-Lat3 Final Version Out

2009-09-03T21:22:00.003+03:00

Finally! The latest version introduces a more balanced game, with 3 difficulty levels (with their own hiscore tables) to choose from. Also when you start a new game, the easier maps come first, and the maps get more difficult as you play the game. It also has a few new stages, stereo sound effects, two new songs, a new evil bonus item and lots of other more or less visible game play and scoring tweaks.

You can download the new version from the game's homepage. Enjoy!

Piste Gamez @ Assembly '09

2009-08-09T20:47:00.002+03:00

This year the whole 3 member Piste Gamez crew was present at the Assembly demo party/festival. And even though Q-Lat3 didn't win any prizes, I still have to say this has been the best Assembly for me, and we had lots of fun.

In the upper picture Jerome is delivering some serious whoopass in Street Fighter tournament. He actually placed 3rd, so we did not have to walk out of the event without any prizes :D

We also attended some very interesting seminars during the event. In the lower picture Petri Purho from Kloonigames (who did Grayon Physics among other games), is keeping his presentation while playing the game Spelunky. In the first row you can also see Jonatan "Cactus" Söderström who has done many interesting experimental indie games, and Erik Svedäng who made the game Blueberry Garden. Both of the gents also had very interesting presentations at the show, and shared ideas of the creative process behind making their games.

Thanks for everyone at Assembly for making it such a nice event!

Q-Lat3 Is Out!

2009-08-04T22:45:00.003+03:00

The game has been available for a few days at Assembly site, but now it's also downloadable from our site. The version at the site is the same as the one we submitted to Assembly (with all the updates).

More updates are to come once Assembly is over.

Q-Lat3 Is Going Public This Week!

2009-07-27T20:18:00.004+03:00

Q-Lat3 has now been submitted to Assembly '09 game development competition. According to the Assembly's site all the games participating in the competition will be published July 29th. So keep an eye on the Assembly website, since that will be the first place to get it!

One big change before submitting the game was to change the game's resolution from 800x600 to 1280x720 (HD). This meant a lot of changes and a few levels had to go. But all in all I'm pretty happy how the game turned out.

Pekka Kana 3 images

2009-06-07T12:36:00.003+03:00

Because of public demand (mostly Ivan), I posted some development screen shots of PK3 to the forum. Many of the screens are quite old and from deleted test levels so they aren't images of the actual game. The game itself is about 5% done and might eventually look completely different.

Piste Gamez @ Assembly 2009 - Q-Lat3

2009-06-07T12:07:00.003+03:00

News people! Piste Gamez is going to Assembly 2009 event this year, and we have something new to show! At the beginning of this year I prototyped a new version of Q-Lat with our new editor, and things got a little out of hand... Now after half a year Q-Lat3 is nearly complete, and soon ready for revelation. My first goal was to release it in March to celebrate my 30 full years of existence, but I thought that the game still needed some polish and love at that stage. So now the plan is that we'll contribute the game to the Assembly game development competition. So keep an eye on Assembly's site, since that will be the first place to find it!

Release of Q-Lat3 will also mean the first release of our new engine and a software with working title Piste Player, that you can use to play the games made with our new game editor.

All of this means unfortunately, that PK3 has been on hold for the entire year. The good news is, that while making Q-Lat3 we added a lot of stuff to the editor and engine, that can be used in PK3 too.

Merry X-mas and happy New Year!

2008-12-24T11:53:00.002+02:00

Since year 2008 is closing to an end I thought I'd should write something about it. This year has been an exceptionally busy year for me. Unfortunately the busyness has been mostly work related, which means I haven't been able to spent as much quality to time with PK3 as I intended. So the bad news is that Pekka Kana 3 won't be ready 2009. :( The good news is, that the game editor we've been building to make PK3 has progressed leaps and bounds. A while ago I started doing a small tech demo for it, to see if it could handle a game that is completely different than PK3. As usual, things got a little out of hand, and the small tech demo grew a bit bigger than intended. So there probably will be a release in 2009 even though it's not poultry related. :) I'm sure this will be a disappointment to many, but that's how it sometimes is in the world of free games. The money has to come from somewhere else.
Anyways, lesson learned here is that there will be no more pompous release year announcements since it's too hard to predict in what ways the real world will mess with my hobby next year. I'll update the blog once we got something interesting to tell. I hope it's soon.

But despite of all that, I still dare to hope you all have a merry X-mas and a happy New Year :)

Slow, Slower, Piste Gamez

2008-06-01T11:52:00.000+03:00

Has it really been 6 months since I last posted? Time sure goes fast.
A lot of changes have been made to the editor and the game, as you might
see from the updated picture on top of this page (if you still remember
the previous one). After reviewing some of the comments at the forum about
Pekka's new look (he being fat with big boobs), I decided to redraw him
once again (we do read all the feedback although were too lazy.. erm busy
to reply). I'm actually pretty happy with the new look now. Surprisingly
I learned a few new things while doing Elf Destruction which helped doing
the new Pekka. Even though it's 2008 I still work mostly with Deluxe Paint
via DosBox and use Gimp for post work like adjusting levels and making
alpha masks. The process is slow but sometimes I actually manage to do
something decent that way.

Jerome has done excellent job with the editor, and there have been big
changes since Elf Destruction. Scripting will be more important now and
there will be less hard coded stuff. Most stuff in the Elf Destruction
were hard coded to the game since time constraints, and are not usable
for PK3 anymore. What comes to Pekka Kana 3, I wouldn't call it even a
game yet, since even most of the basic functionality is still far from
done. We have collision detection and lots of pretty effects but no
actual game play yet. Well, once the editor starts to be in a stable
state the real work with writing the scripts will begin. Which is a lot
of work and year 2009 is coming fast. Or at least it feels that way.

Oh yeah, and we apologize for the black sprite problem with Elf
Destruction. There is a bug in the game that causes sprites to go
black with some new graphics cards. Hopefully this didn't spoil
your holidays.

Happy New Year!

2007-12-30T19:36:00.000+02:00

Accompanied by a complete renewal of the site's design, our Christmas/New Year surprise is finally ready for it's public release. It was supposed to be little tech demo showing off the capabilities of the upcoming editor, but we go a little carried away with it... The game is titled Elf Destruction, and it's a simple jump & run game where you collect gifts, throw snowballs at snowmen and kick their ass (you can do that literally!). You know, the usual Christmas stuff.
We were planning to release the game dramatically 1.1.2008, but what the heck, I'm sure nobody minds if we are a little ahead of schedule ;)

One thing I need to say is that although it's a tech demo, there is a lot of hard coded stuff too, because we wanted to get the game ready in time. What is hard coded is enemy AI, number displays, Elf's attacks and variables that update when items are collected. But most of the work with enemies and levels were really done in the editor, and I think it's pretty decent game made in about 2 months by two people who have (real) jobs and all. It's not very long, but hopefully fun all the way.

So grab the game from our renovated site and enjoy! Or get frustrated, because it's not a very easy game. ;) Some beta testers did have problems running the game under Windows 98 and Vista, so it may not be the best present for everyone.

Still, Happy New Year and Post Christmas!

Santa's Coming Late This Year

2007-12-21T20:25:00.000+02:00

Despite of our best efforts, we had to give our Christmas present a new deadline, which is now 1st of January. Christmas just came too fast this year. I never thought I'd say that...

I've also worked with a new site design for Piste Gamez that will (hopefully) see the daylight the same day we reveal our gift. So do come and visit us at www.pistegamez.net after you have recovered from all your New Year partying ;)

Wrapping Presents...

2007-12-06T01:53:00.000+02:00

It just might be that this year Piste Gamez has (finally?) a small Christmas surprise to give. Or at least we are working hard to make it happen. No promises yet, though. If it doesn't make it in time, it just has to be a ... uh ... New Year's present?

And it's not PK3, if you wondered. But it is a glimpse of things to come, anyways. ;) And maybe a tradition we will repeat next year too.

Stay tuned for more information. And remember: Elfs are watching...

The New Feathers of Pekka Kana

2007-09-01T16:27:00.000+03:00

That's right! The unlikely hero - the rooster with brains size of a peanut - is coming back. Pekka Kana 3 is the latest game project Piste Gamez is working with. The project started in January (2007) and our humble goal is that the game would be finished in 2009 before that year's Assembly event (which is held every year), and the Game Development Competition they have there. We'll see what happens. There is still a long long way to go before the new Pekka will see the sunlight.

This time the PK team has grown from one man project to a team effort. The core team working with the game consists of me doing the graphics and doing the major part of the game design, and Jerome ... uh sorry, XFactor doing all the coding. Outside of Piste Gamez comes composer Mikko Tarmia, who is doing the music for the game. Since this is a big project, we will probably need more help. Especially with writing the story and doing the levels.

So far we have worked quite a lot to improve the visual side of the game, and Jerome a.k.a. "Mr. Born To Code" has done a huge job with the Editor, that will be used to create the game. It's far from ready, but I'm already having tons of fun with it. Unfortunately the actual game is in very early stages, but I expect that to change since we are giving it more focus now.

Images used to decorate this blog were taken from misc. screen shots of some PK3 test levels. They give you a clue of the new visual style of the game, but the actual game graphics will be more brighter than the images you see here, since I had to adjust them quite a bit to make them better background graphics. And as you can see (if you have played PK2), Pekka indeed has new feathers ;)

Hello World!

2007-09-01T16:22:00.000+03:00

After thinking about it for a some time, I decided that it was time I'd do a blog for Piste Gamez. Since PK3 is the game we are currently working with, this blog will be mostly about it for now. But if I actually one day come up with something meaningful to say about Piste Gamez, or about games in general, I'll post it here.