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Working with PyxelEdit on our new game: Halfway

Simon
Sep 7, 2013 at 6:09 pm
Hey everyone, 
We finally announced our new game, so I can start sharing stuff I did in the last few month, manly using PyxelEdit and the awesome support of Danik! :)
For details about the game itself go to our website and read the details:
http://robotality.com/blog/announcing-halfway/

Here are some screenshots of the game. All the environment assets and objects where done using PyxelEdit. We have made some custom tools to get everything into our game easily so we have an awesome Pyxel to game toolchain now.
Anyway here the shots:







I will soon show abit more stuff, as soon I find the time. :)
Thanks again Danik for your absolutely amazing tool!

Cheers
Simon 
Delkaes
Sep 7, 2013 at 6:48 pm

O_O

#jawdropped

Edit : Did i say it's amazing ?




Danik
Sep 7, 2013 at 6:55 pm
That's looks absolutely amazing! :D
It's nice to finally see what you have been working on.

Thanks for sharing Simon, and good luck with the announcement!
Delkaes
Sep 7, 2013 at 7:18 pm
Oh and it reminds some bitmap brothers games. I like the color scheme. Do you use some in house engine ?
Simon
Sep 7, 2013 at 7:32 pm
Thanks everyone! :)

@Delkaes: bitmap brothers are a big inspiration on the artstyle btw. Love their work. (Chaos Engine was one inspiration for example)
The engine we use is libgdx by badlogicgames. Here: http://libgdx.badlogicgames.com/ awesome engine, fast as hell and really flexible. :)
T
tacoe
Sep 8, 2013 at 10:56 am
Simon: that looks fantastic. Are you creating tiles at full brightness and then overlaying effects in code to darken areas? Are you using transparency in PE to achieve the blue light bar effects? And are you drawing the actors/sprites in PyxelEdit as well? 
Simon
Sep 8, 2013 at 12:11 pm
@tacoe: Thanks! :)

About how I do it: The tiles are drawn in fullbright in Pyxel with only minor shading done. Then I export it into our own custom level editor and there I add lights etc. All the lights are dynamic but the shadows are drawn by hand for each object.
The light glows are some special brushes done with another tool and then set in our own editor and colored by the engine itself.

The characters are not done by me but by Johan Vinet and I think he uses Photoshop for it. (I have to ask him) But actually there is nothing that would keep us from doing the characters in Pyxel besides Johan used to work with PS and so it is up to him. Actually I do all the environment animations and the effects in Pyxel.

Hope that answers some questions for you :)
Simon
Sep 13, 2013 at 2:07 pm
Want to see the tiles in motion? We have updated the blog with some new informations and a gameplay video:

http://robotality.com/blog/halfway-gameplay-video/

:)
Danik
Sep 13, 2013 at 4:48 pm
Awesome, nothing else to say! :D The music is really kickass too.
Delkaes
Sep 13, 2013 at 8:03 pm
Awesome x9000 !
MiraCZ
Sep 15, 2013 at 1:46 am
This is really nice, are you planning to put in on Steam Greenlight? :)
Simon
Sep 15, 2013 at 6:01 am
Thx! :)

@MiraCZ: We would love to see it on Steam out of obvious reasons. ;) But we do not have decided yet when we are going to try. It cost alot of time and energy to do that and this energy is focused at the moment to finish the game. :)
Thndr
Sep 16, 2013 at 2:15 am
For some place like Greenlight I recommend having a finished game unless you got plenty hype behind yourself.

Doing so and tracking purchases (if it's not a free game) and honoring those purchases with steam keys when you do make it seems to be standard practice for regular indie games as Steam should not be the only marketplace you put the game on.

I would sign up to Greenlight if you have the $100 by the time you're submitting the game to any other major marketplace.
B
Boysano
Sep 28, 2013 at 9:35 pm
Fantastic sprites man, and just proof that Pyxel Edit rocks!

Also using it for my game making, but I use Game Maker Studio..
Simon
Sep 29, 2013 at 6:49 am
Thx :) here is a small video of me doing a level with our own editor:

45min -> in 4.5 min timelaps:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39v4oTrutms

I will release something similar soon with me working in Pyxel on this tileset here:

Danik
Sep 29, 2013 at 7:38 am
As I mentioned on the Robotality website, the editor looks awesome! Is the GUI using a library or made in-house?
That desert screenshot looks awesome too, can't wait to see the process of making it!!
Simon
Sep 29, 2013 at 7:58 am
The gui lib is part of the libGDX engine (open-source and java based) we use to create the game. It is rather efficient and powerful. Stefan could tell you more about it, but he loves it as far as I can tell.
Danik
Sep 29, 2013 at 8:03 am
Ok, cool. Yeah I've only heard good things about libGDX.
Simon
Sep 29, 2013 at 8:30 am
yes is awesome. :) we did a voxel tool with it too. It is really nice little engine for all major OS.

Danik
Sep 29, 2013 at 9:10 am
Sweet. :)
Simon
Nov 29, 2013 at 6:19 pm
Hey everyone,

I finally released a video where you can see me using PyxelEdit for doing Halfway Tilesets and objects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY9gYYupAqo&feature=youtu.be

Hope you like it.

@Danik: Feel free to use it for any promotional stuff you want, if you want. :) 
Delkaes
Nov 30, 2013 at 6:25 am
This is very great to see your work flow, thx for sharing Simon !
Simon
Nov 30, 2013 at 7:28 am
Thx. The workflow has changed a little bit with the latest version of Pyxel. In this video Pyxel didn't had a working copy/paste and no marquee tool to speak about. ;)
Put overall it is still the same.
Danik
Nov 30, 2013 at 12:43 pm
Awesome! Thanks for taking the time to record this video, it's great to see the program in use. :)
Simon
Nov 30, 2013 at 4:28 pm
You are welcome. I have tons of more hours of Pyxel work on tape. I will release some more later on. ;)
Danik
Nov 30, 2013 at 7:00 pm
Nice, looking forward to it!
mikale
Mar 19, 2014 at 4:52 pm
So cool guys. Thanks for sharing!
Simon
Jul 17, 2014 at 7:22 pm
Finally: After a year of crazy development and PyxelEdit usage we have now a release date: 

22.7.14 (yup, this is next tuesday ;)) 

And here is our brand new Halfway website with all the details: www.halfwaygame.com 

Here the official announcement: http://playstarbound.com/halfway-by-robotality/


also here is the launch trailer for it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKXxA382xPs

Very nervous and excited to see this baby going out of the house into the wild. Hope you will like it if you decide to pick it up. :)

Cheers
Simon

Edit: and a small gif because you know: everyone loves gifs ;)

Danik
Jul 20, 2014 at 9:30 am
Awesome!! Good luck with the launch, the game looks great!
Simon
Jul 23, 2014 at 7:41 am
Good morning everyone :) We finally released the game and you can buy it on Steam and in the Humble Store:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/253150/

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/p/halfway_storefront

This game would be not as good without Pyxel Edit. Thanks @Danik for this wonderfull tool. A live saver it is. :)
Danik
Jul 23, 2014 at 9:47 am
Great news! :D
I tried it for a while yesterday and it looks and plays great, nice work!!