Working on pickups

Aside from trying to squash a bug with the new 'hunter' enemy type, we're currently working on some pick up designs. Earlier in development we had wanted to implement a smart bomb which would affect all enemies on screen. We're still investigating how this could work on the Spectrum ( as ideally we'd like each character to 'wiggle' when the bomb is set off ) but trying to come up with a method of moving all the enemies has proven a bit problematic.

If we move them on screen then there's a chance they'll overlap some of the background graphics and so over-write what was there. We're thinking about some ideas of swapping to a smaller 'stunned' graphic ( similar to the glooped animation ) so we'll see how that goes.

Next up we have a stop watch - this will pause all enemies on screen for a few seconds ( and stop the timer from ticking down ). This should help give the players enough time to get through a screen :-) One thing we're not sure on is whether enemies should still be deadly to touch when they are stunned?

The other pickup is a weapon upgrade. The regular shot will have a much smaller range in Gloop Troops 2 than it did in the original game. This means you won't be able to find a safe spot on screen and hide from enemies!

Still lots to do! Hopefully some more screens will be uploaded soon :-)

Gloop Troops 2 - Loading Screen

I thought it was time I uploaded some more artwork for GT2.
I`ve started the new year with the loading screen artwork.
It took, on and off, three days to complete.

Happy New Year!

Happy new year all! We've been working away on Gloop Troops 2 the last few months ( with a bit of a break for some festive fun ) and are hoping to not be too far off from releasing the game. Gloop Troops 2 has now been in development for quite a while! We never anticipated the game would have taken this long, but we've all been busy at one time or another, and re-writing the game to take full advantage of the 128k Spectrum has been quite a challenge.

State of play:

We have the main game structure for Gloop Troops 2 in place. You can start a new game, view the opening cinematic, then move around the world map to pick a level. Once you've chosen a level you'll be whisked off to that level to try and collect all the ingredients for Princess Amelia's cure. Once you've beaten all the levels in a world you'll unlock a boss level. Only after finishing the boss level will you be transported to the next world. Between worlds you'll have additional cinematic screens with a final cinematic when you finish the game!


To do:


- More enemy types! We have a few more enemy behaviours to go in.


- New feature!  We have an unannounced feature to go into the game. It shouldn't take very long to do and will add a lot to the level design.


- Keyboard support.


- Support for better sprite masking.


- Refine levels, pick the best ones and make them final.


- Music! There will be many more tracks of music in Gloop Troops 2 compared to Crimbo.

Work slowly continues

Whilst everyone has been outside enjoying the unusually warm October, we've been busily working on some level design ideas for Gloop Troops 2. At the moment we're playing around the idea of multi-screen levels. We wanted to expand a bit more on the levels of Gloop Troops but are unsure on what the best implementation for GT2 will be.

The ideas currently floating around are:

• Allow levels to be made up of multiple screens, with the player freely able to travel between them.
• Have multiple screens make up a level, but you only access the next screen once you've completed the current screen.
• Keep with the original design and only have single screen levels.

Each idea seems to have some interesting pros and cons. The first idea makes the game feel much more open and gives some interesting level design space as now each level is 3 or 4 screens in length. We could either have a selection of pickups that you need to collect in order to finish the level, or have a single pickup that you need to find in order to complete the level. The multiple screens and freedom of movement makes the game feel quite different to it's tighter arcade parent. You no longer feel as constrained in your movement and stunning enemies to run past them feels too powerful.

The second idea feels more like the original Gloop Troops, you have to deal with a screen before you can advance to the next screen. The disadvantage to this method is the screens don't feel part of a cohesive level  :-(

The third option of only have single screen levels is still a possibility, though it'll mean either adding more level markers to the world maps, or creating more world maps. As we're running out of memory pages on the 128k Spectrum, we'd need to put more level markers within a map, and that makes the map look busier and not as clean.

Wrk continues - it's possible that we might split the project off into a separate future project which can utilise some of these features!

Little shop of pixels is now on the iPhone!

Thanks to the awesome work of Jon Needle, our games are now available as part of free iPhone version of Spectaculator!

But that's not all :-)

We've also provided our previously unreleased game as an exclusive for the emulator! Gloop Troops: The Lost Crown!

We'll shortly post up a making of for Gloop Troops: The Lost Crown and why it was previously unreleased in a future blog post!

World 4 - Final Cutscreen

The final version of the world 4 cutscreen.

World 3 - Final Cutscreen

The final version of the world 3 cutscreen.

World 3 & 4 cutscreen sketches

World 3 cutscreen sketch;


World 4 cutscreen sketch;

Cutscreen Designs

Here are the designs for the cutscreen images shown after the player completes the first island area.
The temple is the focal part of the second island area so we wanted to base the cutscreens around this.

First end of level boss concepts!

Below is Andy's concept sketch for our first end of level boss!

Lots of work still to do to get this guy into the game!

World map and level art montage!

Below is Andy's montage of our world maps and level art! Each of our islands will have its own tile set to help uniquely style it. Each level on an island will follow the island's style. This should help make the game feel varied and consistent :-) In the below images we have each island map followed by a level from that island.

We are able to have this many tile sets as we are targeting the 128k ZX Spectrum for Gloop Troops 2. The extra memory is being put to good use to store all the tile set variations

that we'll need for the game :-)

Still busy working away

Hopefully we'll have some more screen shots and concept art ready to post up soon! Currently we're playing around with the layout and controls of the map screen for Gloop Troops 2. Each world map is currently fully accessible! The player can choose to play any level on the world map - only when they've defeated all that world's levels will they go to a show down with the island's boss. Control wise we have implemented something of a pac - man style control scheme. Pressing the joystick once will cause Pokey or Peeky to walk in the direction indicated. Our heroes will stop only when they hit a level or wall piece. Hopefully this'll feel just right :-)

More in development screens

Here we have some of our 'cutscreens' converted to a Spectrum palette :-) Andy is experimenting with the images by moving them into a Spectrum palette. The resolution of the images shown isn't within the Speccy's 256 x 192 just yet.

But it gives you some idea of where we're going with the story and characters!

More Gloop Troops 2 in-development screens!

Below are the mockups for Gloop Troop 2's intro sequence! This time round Pokey and Peeky arel collecting rare ingredients needed to cure the Princess!

New Gloop Troops 2 screen shots

Progress on Gloop Troops 2 is under way! First to be shown is our big new feature to the game - Island maps!

Now the player will have choice over which level to tackle next! Gloop Troops 2 will be set across 4 different islands - each one containing a unique theme! Posted above is the in-development shot of our Aztec styled island 2 ( currently unnamed ). Clearing an island requires Pokey and Peeky to complete all the levels on that island. Only when all the island's levels are completed will they advance to the island's boss! Once an island's boss is defeated, our heroes will make their way to the next island.

Next up is an in-development shot of one of our jungle themed levels:

In this shot we see Pokey and Peeky wearing Knight armour! Our heroes have been Knighted and sent on a special mission by the King and Queen. Story will play a stronger role in Gloop Troops 2, with a return of the atmospheric 'cut-screens' seen in Crimbo!

Concept sketches for Gloop Troops 2

Fresh from Andy's drawing board are some new character sketches for Gloop Troops 2! There's tons of character and story development work being done alongside the game's development. Should be our biggest and greatest game yet!

Gloop Troops in Return magazine

Return have an article on Gloop Troops this month!

Work continues...

Things have been very busy here at the Little Shop of Pixels! Over the last few weeks we've been busy making steady progress on Gloop Troops 2. Andy has done lots of experimenting with the Spectrum's colour palette and has nailed the look of our big unannounced feature! We will be posting screen shots for a big reveal shortly :-)

Andy has created all of the art assets for Gloop Troops, Crimbo, and our previously aborted Spectrum game ( more on this in a future post ). Through several years of work he has developed a high degree of mastery of the Spectrum's colour palette. So you can expect to see some very good things soon!

Meanwhile I've been getting my head around how we can best take advantage of the extra memory on the 128k Spectrum. I've gone backwards and forwards on this one, but think our memory usage plan is now in place. Getting to this point has unfortunately required a big re-write of the GT2 code base. The end result of this extra work is that the game is now capable of supplying richer environments than our previously released games.

We've also got an article on Gloop Troops in the 8bit Return Magazine!

We are hoping to post up some in-development shots of the game very soon!

Differing versions and the trouble with post release fixes

Publishing updates for a retro game out in the wild is tricky business! Modern PC and console games have the luxury of being able to easily connect to a server, download and apply then patch before relaunching the game.

This fantastic functionality can be hidden from the player. At worst the system can prompt them that the update process is about to begin!

Older platform's, without any online connectivity, do not have this luxury. Instead the best we can do is provide a version number on the game's title screen to help identify it. We then need a way to inform the player that a new version of the game is available for download.

Because of the extra hurdles involved, we've been reluctant to implement feature suggestions into titles we're already released. For example, with Gloop Troops we'd received some excellent feedback ( requests for music, keyboard control and a re-jig of the level order ). But by the time we were able to collect all feedback there had already been 4 versions of Gloop Troops made available over the internet!

One was the original version, then there were two hacked versions - one with music and one with a change to the title screen to circumvent a bug on real Spectrum hardware, and finally the official fixed version we'd released.

This makes it more difficult for anyone reviewing the game. If we release a version, then collect feedback and release another version then you may have conflicting reviews on game sites. We would also need a solid method of communicating the new version to existing players.

There are a number of solutions to this. We could provide a version number on the title screen along with a URL and a message informing the player to check for updates, but this feels messy and convoluted. This may be an interesting method to pursue if we explore an episodic game series.

The current solution we have in mind for our upcoming tiles is to have a beta period for our future titles. This way we can collect feedback and catch any issues with the game whilst it is being developed. The result of this extra testing should result with us releasing solid, quality games which we can all be proud of :-)

Level design lessons from Super Mario Bros 3

We are constantly looking for sources of inspiration whilst development continues on our next game. As luck would have it I stumbled across this post yesterday:

Design lessons from Super Mario Bros 3

The post does a great job of breaking down the early game of Super Mario Bros 3. Concepts like gradually introducing new mechanics to the player, teasing them with possibilities, and rewarding exploration are things we want to implement.

How these design lessons fit into Gloop Troops 2 however remains uncertain. We are currently re-evaluating all the work done on Gloop Troops 2. We're questioning every decision and making choices about whether it's better to stick with the current formula, or to take the game into a bold new direction.