Aug 26, 2020

Chicken Police - Paint it RED! - ingo.beitz

We will do a booth crawl!

Come over and see all our booths presented LIVE! And we have a lot! Visit and join us on our chats on Discord, share on social media, be part of our streamings on Twitch. Let everyone know we're starting the best indie game event online!

Check out the new content, join us in the booths and watch our live events on our Twitch channel https://twitch.tv/handygames_official

Join our community and chat with the developers on our Discord channel
https://discord.gg/tKY8jrh

TIME SCHEDULE OF IAB
(27th - 30th of August)

First day, 27th of August

9:00 - 9:30 PM (CET) | IAB OPENING BOOTH
COMMUNITY MEETING
We will start our presentation of our booths!
GO TO TWITCH!

9:30 - 22:30 PM (CET) - IAB BOOTH CRAWL
COMMUNITY MEETING
Let's walk through all of our booths
GO TO TWITCH!

Second day, 28th of August

8:30 - 9:30 AM (CET) | EL HIJO - A WILD WEST TALE
DEV STREAM
Excitement without violence? Can this work? Yes, it can! Ask
the developers of El Hijo - A Wild West Tale anything you
want to know!
GO TO TWITCH!

10:00 - 11:00 AM (CET) | TOWNSMEN VR
DEV STREAM
Ever wanted to play a video game as “god”? Our game
designer will show you some exciting news about Townsmen
VR!
GO TO TWITCH!

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM (CET) | AIRHEAD - MAKING OF
DEV STREAM
Let's talk about the making of Airhead and see what the developers have to say about their ideas.
GO TO TWITCH!

1:00 - 2:00 PM (CET) | MEET OUR DEVS AROUND THE GLOBE
DEV STREAM
Talk to our developers from all around the globe, you'll see what's happening if you drop by, so watch our Twitch-channel
GO TO TWITCH!

2:30 - 3:30 PM (CET) | PILE UP! - MINIGAMES
DEV STREAM
Jump up, slide down, play together, and carry the load! Let's
see if we can solve all the puzzles.
GO TO TWITCH!

4:00 - 5:00 PM (CET) | LITTLE BIG WORKSHOP - LET'S PLAY
LET'S PLAY
The devs are playing around and probably talk about platform porting.
GO TO TWITCH!

5:30 - 6:30 PM (CET) | ONE HAND CLAPPING - BEHIND OHC
DEV STREAM
The devs are talking about the game and will share some of their ideas behind it.
GO TO TWITCH!

7:30 - 8:30 PM (CET) | CHICKEN POLICE - MAKING OF
DEV STREAM
The devs are presenting our Film Noire orientated Chicken Police.
GO TO TWITCH!

9:00 - 10:00 PM (CET) | ENDLING - EXTINCTION IS FOREVER
LET'S PLAY
Are we even ready to save the last fox on earth and its cubs in an apocalyptic nature and a world full of dirt, garbage, dust, and humans wearing protective suits and gas masks.
GO TO TWITCH!

Third day, 29th of August

8:30 - 9:00 AM (CET) | PILE UP! - Q&A
AMA
Why cardboards and boxes? Ask us anything about this game.
GO TO TWITCH!

9:30 - 10:00 AM (CET) | SPITLINGS - Q&A
AMA
Well, you might get the idea. Ask us anything about Spitlings.
GO TO TWITCH!

10:30 - 11:00 AM (CET) | ONE HAND CLAPPING - PLAY WITH DIFFERENT INSTRUMENTS
LET'S PLAY
This has never happened before! We will try playing our early access singing game One Hand Clapping with different instruments!
GO TO TWITCH!

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM (CET) | CHICKEN POLICE - COOKING WITH THE PRODUCERS
LET'S COOK
What kind of humor is that? Developing a game with chickens and then watching the producers cooking something with them? Like it or not, but enjoy the messed up cooking show!
GO TO TWITCH!

1:00 - 1:30 PM (CET) | AIRHEAD - SPEEDRUN
LET'S PLAY
The name says it all: One of our masters of this game tries to beat the clock while he's running through the mysterious world in Airhead!
GO TO TWITCH!

2:00 - 2:30 PM (CET) | MEET OUR DEVS AROUND THE GLOBE
DEV STREAM
Talk to our developers from all around the globe, you'll see what's happening if you drop by, so watch our Twitch-channel
GO TO TWITCH!

3:00 - 4:00 PM(CET) | CHICKEN POLICE - LET'S PLAY
LET'S PLAY
Let's solve the cases together!
GO TO TWITCH!

4:30 - 5:30 PM(CET) | ENDLING - EXTINCTION IS FOREVER
LET'S PLAY
The message behind this amazing game, explained by the developers.
GO TO TWITCH!

5:30 - 6:30 PM(CET) | TOWNSMEN VR - LET'S PLAY
DEV STREAM
Ever wanted to play a video game as “god”? Our game designer will show you some exciting news about Townsmen VR!
GO TO TWITCH!

7:00 - 7:30 PM(CET) | LITTLE BIG WORKSHOP - DEV TALK
DEV STREAM
Join our crafty team for an hour of Little Big Workshop. See what the game has to offer and perhaps talk a bit about what the future holds.
GO TO TWITCH!

9:00 - 9:30 PM(CET) | AIRHEAD - STORYLINE
DEV STREAM
Let’s play and hang around together!
GO TO TWITCH!

Last day, 30th of August

We don't do any live streams but certainly, you're invited to visit us on our Twitch channel, where we'll present most of the streams as restreams!
https://www.twitch.tv/handygames_official

Oct 28, 2019

THE DEV DIARIES #10 – Animating a hobo fly with 4 arms and a double-neck guitar

Chicken Police - Paint it RED! - Babel_(HUN)

We’ve been very excited about one particular character for some time now, as he is going to stick out like a sore thumb. Please welcome one of the two insects that you’ll be able to see in Chicken Police!

SOMETHING DIFFERENT

“As mentioned above, Zoli (our character artist) and I have been looking forward to working on the Fly, because he’s such a different character! He sticks out visually, is in a unique situation compared to the rest of the cast (not going to spoil anything though), and animating him was quite a challenge!”
- Alex

Usually, our characters strike different poses for different situations, but that wasn’t the case this time. The fly proved to be challenging not because of his pose count (since he only has a single one), but the sheer number of layers that make him up. As a comparison, our average character is dissected into about 12-13 parts per state – that number in our Fly’s case was 57.

THE PROCESS

In an earlier developer diary, we talked about what goes into preparing a character for animation. To bring the character to life, however, its separated body parts have to leave Photoshop and enter Unity to have its body re-assembled.

The first step is adding all the layers to an empty shell that will be the core of the character. Then, you have to create the parent-child structure of the parts (e.g. the hand will be the forearm’s child, and the upper arm will be the forearm’s parent). This is usually a fairly straightforward task due to the low number of layers involved. However, in the Fly’s case, every single finger was added separately because of the nature of his animation, since there would be a greater focus on his hands than ever before.

“Once all that was out of the way, I moved on to setting the layer order for each part individually. This is an important step, because the parent-child layout is not the same as the order in which order the images should be rendered – you have to go from the topmost layer all the way to the bottom and give every single layer its very own number. It was a nightmare.”
- Alex

With the (layer) order restored, Alex can then move on to the fun part: animation!

CHECK OUT HOW THE FLY WAS MADE:

FlyProcess.mp4

Characters like the Fly are always welcome, as they bring a much-needed diversity, breaking up the usual formula that’s already more or less muscle memory for Zoli and Alex.
Thank you once again for reading all the way to the end. Keep your eyes peeled for more of these awesome Clawville-dwellers coming your way, and don’t forget to wishlist Chicken Police!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1084640/Chicken_Police/

Oct 10, 2019

GAMESCOM WITH CHICKENS - PART 2.

Chicken Police - Paint it RED! - Babel_(HUN)

The main purpose of our Gamescom visit was not only to connect with the visitors and showcase our demo, but to negotiate with publishers of course. Yes, a Gamescom booth is quite expensive to pay, so for a self-funded, small team, it is quite risky. (Not to mention travel, accommodation, meals, other expenses.)

As we mentioned in the first part of the this post, the game was tried at the event by somewhere between 800 and 1000 people and the feedback was extremely positive. (Almost suspiciously positive I have to say...!) Perhaps more importantly, we exchanged a lot of business cards and, of course, received a lot of useful feedback on the game.

Four of us went to the event so two of us could attend the pre-arranged meetings with the publishers, while the other two team members ensured that everything goes well at our booth.

MEETING WITH A BIG PUBLISHER

The discussions with the publishers were quite instructive, and surprisingly smooth and friendly even with the biggest of them (where we felt like really small fry...). What we noticed was that everyone was (really) interested in our game and wherever we went, people were quite enthusiastic about us, the team, the game and our ideas.

Publishers' time is precious and relatively little. What's more, Gamescom was overwhelming and very crowded, so we had to be fast, concise and confident. But we never really felt like we were rushed - not at all! Everyone was relaxed and friendly, and fortunately, it wasn't just out of politeness, as all the publishers we talked to have been continuing to negotiate with us ever since.

That wouldn't have happened without Gamescom, so after the talks were over, we were 100% sure it was very much worth the attendance!

GO LIVE!

To our surprise, the stand and the game itself were so striking that the German and the Hungarian TV also made interviews with us, several smaller and bigger German, English, Italian and Russian magazines asked for interviews as well, and one of the most exciting: with Rocket Beans TV we had the opportunity to do a demo showcase, streamed live from the event.

You can view it here:

THE CONCLUSION?

The experience was overwhelming! The event was huge, in both its physical size and significance. (In 4 days, we couldn't even see the half of the event, maybe a quarter of it!) There were fantastic indie teams, many of us were friends and there are people we have been in contact with ever since. It was a soul-raising experience for sure!

But most importantly, we had a good deal of negotiations (this was the business part), and of course, we were able to put a smile on the face of a huge amount of players (that was the emotional part). It was fantastic to see the "glitter" in the players' eyes that replaced the initial shock of the chicken-headed detectives... Of course, it was really tiring to stand, talk, negotiate, pack and start the next day again, doing 10-12 hours of work a day (the camping didn't help) - so, yes, we died a bit, but in the end, we felt like it was well worth it.

If we can give some advice to those small and independent teams who are planning to go next year, give Gamescom a chance because even though the organization left something to be desired, the event itself, the huge and grateful audience and the fact that "everyone is there who matters" is definitely worth the fatigue.

If you have a specific question, contact us, we will help you as best we can!

So we'll see you there next year?

And don't forget to wishlist the game:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1084640/Chicken_Police/

Sep 2, 2019

GAMESCOM WITH CHICKENS - PART 1.

Chicken Police - Paint it RED! - Babel_(HUN)

GAMESCOM WITH CHICKENS - PART 1.

Gamescom is a huge event. Even for big games and publishers, not to mention a small, self-funded indie game like ours.
In any case, we had to take action because we knew that no matter how expensive and risky Gamescom is, it would be a luxury to let the opportunity pass us by, because of the presence of the best publishers and many potential players. So, we decided to go for it and as a result, we’ve experienced one of the hardest but most rewarding weeks of our lives.

Now, we’re gonna tell you what it was like, with all its ups and downs...

ON THE ROAD

The journey from Hungary to Cologne is 12-14 hours long, so we set off on the 18th to arrive early on the 19th, arrange the accommodation and have our exhibitor stand ready, which was going to be quite special.
The trip was almost uneventful, except for the hotel where we slept for one night, as it was hauntingly similar to the buildings of cheap teen horror movies, where the lonely owner (who was also the doorman and server) seemed to have weird, murderous desires behind his never-ending smile... But of course, It was just our wild imagination, and it was our last good sleep for a long time to come in a locked room and a soft bed. Because from then on, we were tenting at the Gamescom camp! (The reasons for our camping were Cologne’s horrendous prices and our late booking, but we looked at it as an adventure rather than a curse. At least at that time...)

By the time we reached the venue, we had all been hurting everywhere and were quite distressed. But as soon as we saw the enormously huge complex and then our booth, all our bad feelings disappeared.
Well... at least for a little while...

A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS...

Yeah of course... It wasn't that easy.
First, we had to get to the Gamescom campsite, where we queued for about an hour and a half. After finally getting in, we had to find a place to set up our giant tent that our producer, Tamás, had acquired just for the occasion and none of us had seen before.

There would have been nothing wrong with this, but we were running out of time because, in theory, exhibitors were only allowed to be at the Gamescom site unpacking and setting up their stands until 6 PM. At half-past four, our writer, Bánk, was still untangling the tent stretchers...

Finally, we succeeded. At least it was standing... We rushed back to the Gamescom site to build our exhibiting booth. However, the booth was quite different in design (and look) from the one on the pictures we had received from the organizers. So much for our plans…

We were panicked enough, but if there is something typical of Hungarians, it is that we always get ourselves out of sticky situations. We had no choice.

The booth eventually became quite homely. It had framed pictures, a new floor, and even (as well as we could manage) wallpaper. We had imagined it a little nicer, but it turned out that people liked our humble booth, as many kept praising it.

Phew... that was only day -1.
Finally, we ate at Subway and got back to the camp, to our tent where we tried to sleep, but if you have been to Gamescom Camp you may know that it's not that easy...!

DAY ZERO - IT'S HAPPENING!

We walked a good 3.5 km from the campsite to the site in the morning. It was day zero, where only the press and the industry were allowed to attend, so we didn't expect a big spike. But luckily, we were wrong...

Our booth was quite big among the indie titles and we had 4 machines set up for the players. Two (stronger) main machines and two "backups," but to our great satisfaction, our booth was full almost all the time. That is, the game was constantly rolling on 4 machines, and the level of interest just caught us off guard.

WHAT THE CLUCK?!

Perhaps the most surprising and amusing thing was that most people who walked past our booth felt the need to say CHICKEN POLICE?! out loud. Undoubtedly, the booth and the trailer on the big TV screen were enough to attract the players, so we got the "WHAT THE F...!" sentence (or look) a few hundred times during the event.

WHY IT'S WORTH IT?

It is very important to note that Gamescom is one of the best of all the expos if you want to build a professional relationship. The very first day we received a huge number of business cards from sponsors, publishers, localization teams, artists, sound designers, translators, etc... But these are just the first steps. To make sure that you leave the event with success, it is worth arranging 3-4-5 meetings at least in advance. We have done so and fortunately; we can say that we have closed the event successfully!

But there were many things that we had to live through till then, as you’ll be able to read in Part 2 of this post.

TO BE CONTINUED...

So if you are curious about the best places in beautiful Cologne, advanced camping and expo survival techniques, how to give an almost great interview twice a day, and most importantly: our publisher negotiation experience, be sure to check out our next post as well!

Have a nice week, folks!

And dont forget to hit Wishlist:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1084640/Chicken_Police/

Jul 31, 2019

THE DEV DIARIES #9 – Making of the teaser trailer

Chicken Police - Paint it RED! - Babel_(HUN)

THE DEV DIARIES #9 – Making of the teaser trailer

Last time we checked in with Alex, our 2D animator, he talked to us about character animation. A trailer, or, cutscenes in general, are closely related, but are way more complicated. In this dev. blog post, we’ll give you a glimpse at how we reached this fairly important milestone that is the release of our teaser trailer.

A TEAM EFFORT

As everything we do, our teaser is the result of multiple members of the team working closely together. Most of the art was already completed (e.g. characters and locations), but music, sounds, and some new assets had to be tailor-made specifically for this little project.
It’s a great feeling that everyone, even those who did not work directly on the video (as it did not require programming, for example), got to express their opinions to help shape the end result.

CAREFUL PLANNING

“Planning ahead will always save you a lot of time, which is especially important when it comes to complex tasks such as cutscenes and trailers. In most cases, it is great to have at least a storyboard, or even an animatic before the final product starts being worked on.”
- Alex

In this case, because we were in a bit of a hurry, we did things the other way around and music and sounds were finished way before the video itself. Of course, László (who recently wrote about the game’s theme song in THE DEV DIARIES #7, give it a read!) did not have to work blindly – Bánk, our writer/designer planned ahead and created several mock-ups detailing what kind of scenes would be seen in the trailer. Some scenes were screengrabs or cuts from earlier cutscenes, while others were texts on a black background detailing what the viewers should be seeing there.

“This meant that I had to follow a structure that couldn’t be altered, because being even a few frames off with the scenes’ timing could be noticeable.”
- Alex

This video is a funny before-after comparison that shows how even something as simple as a few exaggerated lines can convey ideas:

https://youtu.be/AWGstF2rNkg

OLD SCENES REVAMPED

The trailer included cuts from cutscenes that were made before Alex had joined the development team. We talked about it before, but now it became even more pressing to have these videos remade at a higher quality, now that the team has someone who has been working specifically in this field for several years.

“The first scene I remade was the one where we see Natasha from behind, dancing on the stage. The team seemed to like it, and it became clear that I’d be asked to give every prior scene the same treatment.”
- Alex

COMPOSITING NEW SCENES

Revamping old scenes was fairly straight-forward, since all of them provided a frame-to-frame foundation that “just” had to be followed. However, this was not the case when it came to scenes created specifically for the teaser.
Luckily, this was not the first cutscene Alex has made in his life, which meant that he had quick 2D solutions for new content. The opening scene, set in Sonny’s office, is a great example. It is the result of a technique called “photobashing,” where multiple photos are taken and blended together to achieve a coherent – in this case – backdrop for the action.

“It’s very rare that a stock photo has everything your scene needs. In most cases, some things are missing, and some others shouldn’t be there at all. You’re better off looking for and combining separate elements according to your taste and/or needs. Take the office for example… The wallpaper was a single texture, and it was clean! The weathering came from several other textures used in different blending modes. The window wasn’t there, either, and the city behind it was added as a separate layer as well. I even had to replace the original, sunny sky with a stormy one, before turning the whole image into a night scene.”
- Alex

GAMEPLAY

As we are nearing the end of remaking our user interface, our gameplay at the time did not reflect the quality of the demo you’ll be seeing in the future. This meant that any gameplay footage we wanted our audience to see had to be replicated outside the engine, using the assets from our work-in-progress GUI.
Take a look at the teaser trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16XjBqsaVSM&feature=youtu.be

We really hope that you enjoyed the teaser we created – a lot of love and work went into it.

Thank you for reading through our dev. blog! Hopefully it was worth your time and you’ve seen something interesting here and there.
Stay tuned for our next post, and don’t forget to wishlist Chicken Police!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1084640/Chicken_Police/

————

Find our previous updates here:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1591377601110820081
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1590251069022308952
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1590249710657099888
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1593626866167457845
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1593626866163172456
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1586870834670163962
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1084640/announcements/detail/1586870834659213636