"Welcome to the Life of a Pixel, a unique indie project that takes a big step back in time to the 8-bit retro era, featuring classic mechanics and authentic pixel art/chip tune music. Play as the curious Pixel who sets out into a video game museum to explore a time when pixels ruled the roost.
The studio are currently seeking funding through a Kickstarter campaign.", writes Cubed3.
PQube and Super Icon announce new platform game creator PlataGO! for Xbox One, PS4, Switch and PC. Available in Early Access now on Steam.
Games development is a notoriously risky, with big publishers routinely shutting down large studios, and indie studios struggling to make ends meet. Sadly, Super Icon was one of the indie developers who had a tough 2013, some of which they detailed in an end of year post mortem. - PSLS
its sad, but in the same time everything have risks, launch a restaurant/store/service and the same thing can happen.
Just finished reading the article and yeah I do feel bad for these guys. Unfortunately, because they built their own Vita tech they encountered numerous bugs that held up the whole process for the game. Then their Kickstarter fail and it also looks like the game itself was too hard.
This is the dangers of being a true indie developer that doesn't have millions of dollars behind them or a really successful Kickstarter. I hope that their Vita game gets on PS+, that way they can recover some of their cost for development and get some exposure. The screenshots of the game looked good, but if the difficulty spikes are absurd then thats a sure fire way to kill a game.
Best of look to these guys in the New Year.
What a shame. If they had only developed on another system, games like "Super Golf" and "MegaBlast" would have been instant hits!
/s
Being a mediocre developer is financially ruining them, not Vita. Vita isn't exactly selling great, but they couldn't have expected massive returns from their generic games anywhere; Vita having a lower userbase was the icing on the doomed developer cake.
I think Sony didn't learn their lesson regarding the memory stick prices which are pretty ridiculous. They knew that was one of their weakness with the PSP, and it should be standard on every system. I think that's what's keeping both Vita and Vita TV from having good sales. And also letting Nintendo having an exclusive deal with Capcom regarding the PSP`s and possible Vita`s biggest Japanese system seller, Monster Hunter, staying Nintendo exclusive. Sony certeanly isn't doing a good job with the Vita, but time will definitely tell.
@NukaCola
Your comment is wrong on so many levels.
1. Media Molecule started out as it's own company, but now it is owned by Sony so the comparison bears no relevance.
2. Tearaway's success and this companies game failing have absolutely nothing to do with eachother.
3. Though Videogame development started out with humble origins we have long since passed that mark. Companies close daily (some with a large catalog of released games over a 10+ year time frame. Just recently the game industry surpassed the movie industry in cost involved to develop their titles. What once cost a few hundred, than a few thousand dollars now on average costs tens of millions of dollars to make a big budget game. A highly rated game can tank (Okami) a poorly rated game can take off into the stratosphere (Just Dance) when it started out.
Your comments are ignorant and petty. Every game regardless of whether it is reviewed poorly or not takes considerable effort to release now. Doesn't matter how big it is or what you release it on. These are peoples jobs here try to put things in perspective.
They should do some mobile gaming if done right huge profit for a small investment.
It sad, but the first mistake was working on a PS Vita title. That has so limited market, and to top it off they went with their own engine. No small company should ever create their own engine, if they can avoid it.
No small team will be able to beat the professional work a game engine developer.
Then there is the certification requirement (and this applies to all console makers) and they are a b!tch to get through, and as noted slow as hell!
@nukeitall
So no company should work on any next gen games right now either because of the limited market they have? one console being more limited than the other...
Also sounds like THEY made some really bad gaming decisions or just decisions in general.
It would b a great program for vita indie devs to offer them psn also...launch on both. Those who own vitas usually prefer indies on their mobile but psn would offer a much bigger consumer base to help financially. I think overall, its been a good yr for indies but there's so many now that not everyone is gonna make it.
"Indoor Pub Games Sports World"??!
Yeah, they financially ruined THEMSELVES - this game was never going to set the charts alight, regardless of platform.
..But sure, blame Vita... makes a convenient scapegoat for them, I guess...
right. darts? um, no. air hockey? lol, plus there is one on the vita already. snooker? wtf Is that? and pool? yeah, hustle kings. stupid move imo. i look at that game in the store, its hard to buy even for $5. ill eat up them $5 indie side scrollers tho! super crate game (fun), life of a pixel (nostalgia), flapper princess (hard), all unique good fun etc.
@PoSTedUP
If you're into the horror genre I recommend you check out Lone Survivor, if you haven't already, it's probably one of the best horror games I've played this year.
@donwell. yeah, i was gonna get a that a long time ago, i dunno what happened.. totally forgot about it. im gonna pick it up in the comming weeks. tearaway is my next game whenever i find the time. but i heard lone survivor is a must buy, i love horror.
While I can totally understand their frustrations, it does seem to be of their own doing.
Their primary problem was trying to create their own engine from scratch and getting that past all the necessary parts. In doing this, they created more work for themselves in the long run.
I'm not sure it is wise for any Indie Developer who is hurt for money to even think about creating their own Engine. Build a good game that sells. Then try to build your own engine.
They made a game nobody cares about and they complain. You don't see the successful game companies complaining. They praise Sony. Lots of huge indie success on PSN.
It wasn't that, it was the fact that they were too ambitious, when their budget was that of a unknown indie developer. You can't do that. They were trying to build their own engine, and make it big by designing a game for a new platform with a small install base. It was just a bad recipe, and if you're going to take a risk make sure it's a calculated one. Unity is by far one of the easiest ways to get to get into mobile development (even some console stuff), it's cost effective (licensing), and it's a fairly powerful engine, and it's free to download. If you're a small indie developer you should be multiplatform (especially if you have no backing) with mobile and PC as your lead platforms due to ease of development and potential market, and you should use a 3rd party game engine.
You can only commend and applaud them for taking such a big risk, but frankly this is what happens to anyone who enters a big business playing field and don't know how to budget and finance their money.
Anyone trying to own there own business I beg you take a finance class, accounting class, and learn how to properly manage your own money.
Tbh, I'd like to see more hard fact data. It looks to me those guys were a bunch of naive kids. You need QA to actually make a game work? Really? Were they really surprised by that? Being in that industry for more than two decades it always boggles my mind that people still believe QA is something done on the side. Reality check: QA is about 50% of development.
I don't think they learned anything. The quick and simple response all of a sudden - which looks obvious - is "let's scrap our tech and buy an engine"...until you realize you have 0 control over that code, you are very limited on what you can do and you are 100% dependent on the engine vendor to actually fix their bugs - which doesn't help when you have to release your game. Good luck. Unfortunately, this is a very accurate picture of the state of the (young) industry: A bunch of dreamers without experience.
If only more gamers supported the Vita. It sucks because it's a Chicken/Egg thing. Gamers need to support it to get Devs to support it, yet Devs need to support it to get gamers to support it. At least it's an awesome PS4 accessory as well. Loving remote play.
Gamers are supporting the Vita just like they should, read this
http://www.gameskinny.com/w...
Only problem is that it's a handheld ...some games work/sell on handhelds and some just don't. Personally I think that as a developer you should consider all such factors before even starting development.
That's the same thing I said. I don't want a console experience on a handheld device.
Exactly i only have a small handful of vita titles i have purchased maybe 2 games the rest i haven gotten from psplus which is great but in reality i barely play the for the vita i use it solely for remote play ever since the ps4 launched
No, from the sounds of it, this guy financially ruined himself. He made ambitious plans to build his own engine and then ended up making a broken game. He's not going to win financialy with that strategy no matter what platform he develops for.
The game is fun from time to time but it was not funded on KS; the platform they chose, do not have a huge install base, sadly, and to top it PSM which make the install base shorter than it actually is since most PSV owners or Xperia do not use PSM...
I mean it was not funded through Kickstarter !!! that alone should tell them to stop and try later or maybe try a different thing!
Well this is actually about their other game, Indoor Pub Games Sports World, rather than Life of Pixel.
Despite being one of the better games on the platform, Life of Pixel never made its money back on the PlayStation Mobile platform, news revealed to PSLS in a Daily Reaction on the failure of PSM.
- PSLS
