Hello all,

I'm Len, the Creative Director behind Pixel Noir, and today is the day we finally put this full game out for everyone to enjoy! It's been a long road to get here, and I want to thank those who have supported our dream of a noir JRPG all these years!

Thank you, thank you, and thank you!


For this release, we concentrated on two things: that the game was as polished as possible and that we could do it justice in the marketing campaigns.

This project was always a labor of love and high ambitions as we at SWDTech persevered through many hard years of development. For those who missed the discounted Kickstarter or Early Access price, the game is 20% off on Steam for its first week!

Before we get into our patch notes, I want to emphasize that you should start the game with a fresh save. As I clarified in another thread on the subject, over the years, we made changes to give you features like New Game+ and highlighting dialogue choices from a previous playthrough to the New Game+. Your old save from Early Access may not work. Hopefully, you'll enjoy the polished content in those first few chapters!

Much has changed over the years from Early Access and today's full release, so I'm not going to provide a complete list of technical back and front end-wise, but I will give you a highlighted list of features we've either fixed or added.

- First, most of the bugs highlighted by our community have been fixed, including any freezes or soft locks posted in the community section. We even improved stability on Steam Deck and made the load times WAY shorter than during the Early Access days.

- In Early Access, you had about half the game to playthrough, whereas now you have the full game AND the before-mentioned New Game +. There are multiple ways the story can go and end, making New Game + a fun way to go through the choices you didn't make in your first play-through. We even highlight your choices from your previous play-through, giving you a newer experience in your second go-around!

- We added more items, gear, and skills of course!

- Skill points are a rare commodity in the game as you only get them for completing cases. You can spend your skill points to upgrade skills and grant skills new strengths and bonuses. There is a set number of skill points in the game, so I advise spending your skill points wisely.

- Entourage member's 2-way and 3-way combos have been fully fleshed out and are now the most powerful attacks in the game.

- The CRDTech mini-game has been fully fleshed out! Many cards have unique abilities to help you take down your Pinnacle City rivals. You can even bet a set amount of cash on some of the matches you play!

- Lots of sidequests have been added.Where can you find them? Well, some clients will call the detective randomly later in the game when he visits his apartment. And others you'll either bump into or have to hunt for yourself. There's a variety of them and some were even drafted by our Kickstarter backers!

- More Black Markets - a one-time stop for rare or powerful gear. Once you buy from them, they'll take off like the wind, so you better have your cash stashed before making a deal with these shady fellas.

- More Traders - NPCs that will trade you an item for another item if you have it.

- More Grifters - NPCs that will sell you a great piece of gear if the price is right.

- Shovel Knight Arena - a place you can access later in the game that pits you against the toughest mofos you can find for some sweet prizes.

- Bounty Hunts - At the Bail Bonds office, you'll meet a Max Cherry-like character willing to pay you to hunt down some bounties for good pay and skill points.

- Summons - Shade has facets she can call upon in battle. You'll usually get these abilities through the natural course of the game while they are in your party. There are some super rare ones out there if you can find them.

- Timed hits and blocks have been retooled to make them more accurate and have more of a payoff. Instead of a 1.5 for a successful timed hit, the character will attack again for around the same damage.

- Super secret Easter egg stuff has been added... That's all I'll say about that.

That does it for this announcement. Enjoy the full game everyone!

The official Steam launch has been pushed to February 8th. Here's what that means for everybody:

• For those of you who will be at MAGFest in MD on January 18th, the game will be fully playable and we will be selling DRM-free copies of the game as originally planned.
  
• For backers who selected Steam, this means that {LINK REMOVED}Pixel Noir will be launching on Steam Thursday, February 8th instead of tomorrow 1/18 as previously communicated. The extra time is needed to finalize the launch discount on Steam that we promised in our last update.

As always we're happy to answer questions in the comments or DM's. Hang on just a bit longer -we're nearly there!


As you can imagine, for launch, we are coordinating with Press, Influencers, and Streamers. If you fall into any of those categories, we’d love to work with you! Click here for our Press Kit. Streamers: we are setting up a streaming schedule, so please be sure to tag #pixelnoir on social media and coordinate with us through the email address press@swdtechgames.com if you do plan on streaming the game!

We will have a limited supply of merch at MAGFest. However, you Kickstarter backers that stop by the booth will be able to get either the DRM-Free game/OST, the arranged album, a Pixel Noir T-Shirt, or all three (depending on pledge levels). Here's what we'll be selling at MAGFest....



Pixel Noir (DRM-free version) & complimentary 60 track OST for $25 ...Boo-yah!

Pixel Noir T-Shirts! for $20. That's right, you too can rock this sweet, noir aesthetic!

Pixel Noir Arranged Album for $10 (exclusively for MAGFest)! Some of the arranged artists are playing at MAGFest such as Lacey Johnson.

For display and demoing the full game (but not for sale) we'll have two fully operational Pixel Noir arcade Cabinets!!!


The team was pretty excited about this one. We built and 3D-printed the parts ourselves and we can't wait to debut it!
If you're excited about Pixel Noir, here are three steps you can take to make sure you're in the know:

• Join our {LINK REMOVED}SWDTech Games Discord server for a constant stream of screenshots, and granular development updates. You can even chat with the development team.
  
• Spread The Word on your social of choice that Pixel Noir will finally be out! You can follow us on:
  
  • Instagram
    
  • Facebook
    
  • Twitter
    
  • TikTok
    
  • YouTube

Our next official update will be Feb 8th or 9th (unless we have more breaking news before then).

Onward and upward...

//Team SWDTech

As many of you know, we've been trying to link up with the perfect publishing partner for the past year. Given that we've been sitting on a finished product, we've made a BIG decision.....


Drumroll, please!
Tuh tuh tuh truh tuh tuh truh....! We will be releasing the game ourselves! This empowers us to deliver Pixel Noir directly to you, our backers and the fans! So, without further ado......


January 18, 2024 Pixel Noir will launch on PC, Mac and Linux available on Steam!
BOOM! Mark your calendars, set your alarms, tell your pals, snitch on the cat lady down the street, and join us for an unforgettable journey as we head to launch day! But that's not all...

In celebration of the end of an era in development, we will present the full version of Pixel Noir to the general public at MAGFest's Indie game showcase (MIVS)! If you're going, swing by our booth for some good times and exclusive merch!


Note: cover art for the Pixel Noir Arrange Album is still under construction

• DRM-free Pixel Noir USB keys with the digital OST for $25
  
• Physical Pixel Noir Arrange Albums by various musicians for $10
  
• Stylish Pixel Noir T-shirts for $20
  
• All of the above for a sweet $50 bundle deal!

Heads up, savvy gamers! The Early Access price is available right now of $14.99 at the moment, but come launch day, it will leave Early Access and transition to its retail price of $24.99. But fear not! We will roll out a 20% launch discount on Steam during the first week! Backers, you're already covered, so enjoy getting in on the ground floor and helping us build this odyssey of a game!


You get a discount. You get a discount. *Everybody* gets a discount!

After launch, we'll transition to getting out the backer rewards! We plan on having a more detailed backer rewards-based Kickstarter update sometime in the months after launch. That all said, this is a great time to ensure that your BackerKit survey is current- link here to review!

Porting will also be a central focus after this initial launch. Pixel Noir will first spread its wings on Steam, then Epic Store, and GoG for PC/Mac/Linux. After that, Nintendo Switch will be our next goal with XBox Series X and PS4/5 on the horizon! Our dev team is taking on the challenge of porting with no publisher in the mix.


The SWDTech Games mantra 💪

We're thrilled about this initial release! We also want to say thanks and congratulations to all the backers and Early Access patrons--this will be the end of an era and hopefully the start of a new one!



Stay tuned for more updates as we figure out the best way to bring Pixel Noir to you. Here's how you can stay in the know:

• Spread the Word: Share a story or status on the social medias of your choice that Pixel Noir will be launching January 18th! Please tell people about this unique TBRPG that our team has carefully developed over many years of work and dedication!
  
• Join Our Discord: Prepare for launch by joining the Pixel Noir community on our SWDTech Games Discord server. You'll receive exclusive screenshots and granular development updates while chatting with the team!

Our next official update will be on January 17th--the day before Pixel Noir launches!

// Team SWDTech

We hope you all are having a great summer! We're excited to bring you another update into the latest developments on your favorite detective RPG, Pixel Noir. Let's dive in!

As we navigate around launch territory, we want to be transparent about our ongoing pursuit of a publishing partner. While we've had exploratory conversations with a number of publishers, we haven't aligned on a deal that we're comfortable with. One common theme we're seeing is that our Early Access launch on Steam has presented a unique challenge that cause most publishers to back away from proposing a deal. We released Early Access to gather feedback from you all, as well as to get the game out to everyone while we finished the rest of the development. However, it was launched with minimal marketing support from our previous publisher. In essence, the Early Access launch has made Pixel Noir appear as if it has officially launched when, in reality, it hasn't. Publishers care about this sort of thing because of the Steam search algorithm prioritizes unreleased games, which effectively means you can market to more people.

To be clear, from a development standpoint, Pixel Noir is complete and now we're using this unforeseen (and semi-unwelcomed) extra time to refine many aspects of the game. The team is committed to continue delivering a great experience by meticulously polishing to perfection and we're determined to find the right launch strategy for the full game.




While the publisher situation is frustrating, don't think for a minute that we don't have any goodies in store for you! We've been working on addressing Steam feedback to make the game even better. We patched the Pixel Noir Early Access. Here's a list of what you'll generally find in the new build:

• Enjoy an even more engaging experiences with improved story events, skills, audio, and user interface interactions
  
• Experience more difficulty balanced battles, ensuring satisfying gameplay
  
• Discover exciting item effects like Lunar Redeye that boosts your adrenaline, Chili Pepper causing Enrage, and Dive Poster as valuable quest items
  
• Adding to the city atmosphere as police cars now patrol Pinnacle City, making the environment feel alive with the occasional siren passing by
  
• More dynamic gameplay with custom damage events and environmental hazards that create new challenges.
  
• Have more fun playing CRDTech with smoother and more enjoyable card game mechanics
  
• Test your stealth skills as enemies now have a cone of vision.
  
• Enjoy a smoother experience as we introduce refined dungeon mechanics in critical areas.
  
• Enhance your combat strategy with the new "Pistol Whip" skill, giving you more ways to approach battles.
  
• Jump into the game faster with optimized backend data that minimizes load times for better seamless gameplay.

Here are the known issues for the latest Pixel Noir Eary Access build version 9/12/23.

• Initial load times in selecting New Game or loading saved game data from the title screen clocked in at ~90 seconds. However after loading a game, load times are significantly shorter.
  
• Saved data from previous build versions will be bugged in this version, It's advised to start a New Game from the title screen.
  
• Soft lock in battle with combo tutorial event in ch3 (rare)
  
• Random battles can take place if already in a cinematic which can cause soft-locks or even freezing (very rare)
  
• Premature fade out to enemies in Armory when in mid-room transition (in some instances)
  
• Getting hit by cars next to a roadblock at the end of the street can push the player outside of the environment colliders
  
• Minor issues with graphical asset layering (very rare and can be brief)
  
• Achievements may not be accurate because of a mismatch between old/new build versions
  
• Door SFX can play when failing to fully go through room transition areas
  
• In Ch2: Chapel as a following NPC can step through objects at times
  
• Causing paralysis status while a character (enemy or ally) in battle is going to attack will still allow the character to take their turn. Paralysis status takes effect after the inflicted character's preceding action.
  
• In CRDTech: Using Kato Sheng card’s ability on Deuce's card, causing the use of Deuce card’s ability to back out by pressing Shift (or B / cancel) soft-locks the game
  
• In CRDTech: Kato Sheng card placed last can cause a soft-lock
  
• In CRDTech: Bai Hu card doesn’t use its ability when placed
  
• In CRDTech: Using Meeks card’s ability can cause an opponent to take two turns

Since our previous Kickstarter update we've been putting in all kinds of polish.

Hazards: We've added damage causing environmental hazards as well as functionality within story events, allowing us to improve immersion both inside and outside story events.


Watch your step!


Sometimes reality hurts.

More Skills: We've even added a few skills such as Pistol Whip and some more "summon" discoveries for Shade, our masked vigilante, which should allow players to expand battle strategies.


Smack!


Epic discoveries to behold!


Hair of the Dog?

Skill Point Usage: We added skill point costs for skill upgrade levels AND we added cost discounts for using skills depending on the gear you have equipped.


More points to upgrades means MORE POWER... random Home Improvement reference.

Skill Bonuses mean skills cost less in battles!

Finally, we couldn't let this update pass without debuting a new track from renown producer, musician, and all-around-great-guy, Mustin!!!! A while back we asked him to help with some of the music production on the game. He's the reason why the OST sounds extra-polished, why the audio in the game is all balanced now, and why you're going to have fun listening to the Pixel Noir Arrange Album! This latest track from him is featured in the game and is called "Four on the Floor". It's played at a popular club in Uptown filled with a DJ and lots of EDM fans. And no, it's not cool that you spilled your beer on me, bro. Alright?

[url][/url]

We're excited about the progress we've made in these last few months and can't wait for you to experience these improvements firsthand. As always, thank your support fuels our passion in delivering a game that lives up to your expectations! Stay tuned for more updates and announcements in the coming months as we figure out how to get this game out to all of you.

If you're excited about Pixel Noir, here are three steps you can take to make sure you're in the know:

• Let a publisher know about us! Whenever you find a publisher you believe would be an excellent fit for Pixel Noir, tag us in a social media post/email mentioning the publisher. We made it easy on you guys--click on the links below to go with a pre-drafted message (or feel free to create your own): 1. X (formerly Twitter) Template, 2. Email Template
  
• Join our SWDTech Games {LINK REMOVED}Discord server for a constant stream of screenshots, and granular development updates. You can even chat with the development team!
  
• Follow our daily progress on our official X bot (formerly Twitter bot).
  
• 
  Our next official update will be Feb 8th (unless we have some breaking news before then). We welcome all feedback and thoughts! Please enjoy the updated Early Access build!

//Team SWDTech

This is going to be a bit of a rollercoaster of an update. We're going to laugh together, cry together, and probably end up in a pottery class together. But before we jump into it, we wanted to let you all know that a few of us are going to be at PAX East this weekend! Look out for the 30-something-year-old nerds in Pixel Noir T-shirts and say hi if you see us!


It seems like ages since we were at a con! We won't have a booth this time around, but we'll be floating around!

As mentioned in update #72, we ended our business deal with BadLand Publishing due to a myriad of reasons. Here's an overview of what BadLand was supposed to provide and what we've been able to source ourselves:


There are several big gaps we need to close. If we launch without a publisher, there's no guarantee we can accomplish all of this.

As you can see above, since we dropped BadLand Publishing, we were able to successfully fill a few gaps:

• We hired Elevated Play, who is currently helping us in QA/testing the full Steam release. Switch testing will be our next order of business likely starting in May.
  
• We've acquired porting equipment for Playstation and Xbox (Switch is still pending).
  
• We had talks with a few potential publishers, no deal with any of them so far (but we'll keep you posted).
  
• We're still on track and working our collective asses off to finish full development by the end April.
  
• A few of us are starting to transition to backer rewards fulfillment. The team is going to kick this workstream off with finalization of the official Pixel Noir OST.

As we have no publisher yet, we're not in a strong position to go live with the finished game. As a result, we are officially delaying our Steam launch to Q4 or earlier. The decision to pull back our launch date was due to the fact that we've poured years into this project and want to have a strong launch for our passion project. To recap: we're on track to finish with the game as promised, we just need to line up marketing support before we can launch.

So bummer: yes, but worth the delay: absolutely yes because it will get into more hands in the long run as well as set us up for delivery of more of the things we had promised with our previous publisher! If you have a publisher in mind for Pixel Noir, PLEASE let either them or us know so we can move forward here...the sooner we get a publisher lined up, the sooner we release!

In lieu of all this info, we will do two rad things:

1. We'll update the Early Access on Steam sometime in May or June. Less bugs + more polish = more fun!
   
2. We will look to accelerate distribution of the OST as part of our fulfillment to backers who purchased digital merchandise. It doesn't fill the void left by a delayed launch date, but if we can't launch, by god, we'll start to deliver on some of the other promises we've made. At the end of the day, you guys have supported us through thick and thin and we appreciate you all. Hopefully you will enjoy some of the sweet tunage from our composers Kunal Majmudar & Hiroki Kikuta.

Once we get the OST out the door, we will transition efforts to the Arrange Album, which has some incredible talent on it! Here's a sneak peek of the lineup for the Arrange Album:



Our next stop on the update rollercoaster ride is dev team updates! Because of the work that has been done in coordination with Elevated Play as our QA support, we've been able to identify many new bugs AND we've already managed to fix a majority of them. By the time we update the Early Access on Steam, our goal is to have as few bugs as possible.


"Uhh, I'm stuck.... Alittle help here!?"
Dungeon switch mechanics: We had to reimplement some of the dungeon switches due to issues with saving/loading resulting in soft freezes galore--particularly if you spawn when inside the environment after unlocking some of the doors or extending bridges.



New item added to game: We added the new item "Chili Pepper" to the game- a minor item that heals some HP but also causes Enrage status, which speeds a character up in the ATB bar and makes them auto-attack when their turn is up. Enrage is similar to what "Berserk" does in Final Fantasy 6:


Woof: "Let's get pissed off and start swinging!!"
Achievements: About a month ago, we added the rest of the trophies into the game. In the Early access there's 10 trophies you can get but in the full game you'll have 30 to try to obtain!


This one goes out to all you completionists out there!
Quality of life: We put in some small quality-of-life features. A simple save data overwrite confirmation and an easier way to erase save data. We also put in a way to equip gear within shops.


Just trying to make things easier for ya!
As mentioned above, we'll keep you guys in the loop if we sign with a new publisher--and in the meantime, we'll get going on some of the backer rewards! As always, we appreciate you all and the journey of epic proporations that Pixel Noir has taken us all through.

If you're excited about Pixel Noir, here are three steps you can take to make sure you're in the know:

1. Wishlist Pixel Noir on Steam!

2. Join our{LINK REMOVED} SWDTech Games Discord server for a constant stream of screenshots, granular development updates, sprint summaries. You can even chat with the development team!

3. Follow our daily progress on our official Twitter bot.



Our next official update will be on July 27th, however we will likely put out a smaller update before this one with more details around the OST/Arrange Album as well as an update on a Publisher (if there is news to share).

From our 16-bit family to yours, we hope everyone is having a great 2023 so far!

//Team SWDTech

We hope you've had a great holiday season. We're all very excited about what we have in store for 2023. But for now, we wanted to focus on the progress we made in 2022.

Last year saw a major shift in the game's development. We moved from a very long development to post-production and throughout the year crushed many many many bugs and added a lot of great polish edits, culminating in an update to the Early Access last month!

Let's take a trip down memory lane!



One of the bigger changes to the game was how skills are managed. This included changing how characters acquired skill points, as well as adding skill bonuses to gear, effectively reducing skill cost.



We updated the CRDTech card game, adding in tons of skills, new BGM / SFXs, and even implemented Gambling NPC's throughout the city who will gladly throw down some cards to win your hard-earned cash.



Speaking of NPC's, we put in grifters, traders and bums who you can potentially get some goodies from. We even added some random dialogue to all shops. and we updated all the bartenders in the game, they now sell alcohol!


Time at the bar!


Charitable giving can be rewarding.


Damn inflation!

We implemented New Game + which will allow you to replay the game and carry over things like experience, cash, and gear from your last play-through. You can even see which choices you made on your previous play-through so you can make some different choices and maybe take a different path through Pixel Noir's story!


Yeah you signed in on your first playthrough, remember?

We've added the bounty hunting system, effectively giving players another whole set of side-quests & cases to solve!


Track down some of the most notorious thugs in the city!

We've also made a lot of little changes such as updating the design of the club in Uptown (inclusive of flashing lights, obnoxiously loud music, & all!), varied the typing SFX's for all characters, added more polish to the casino games, and decreased load times. GUI upgrades were another big focus area including "quality of life" upgrades such as highlighting key terms or call to actions with red/green text, the ability to zoom in/out when looking at the the Map of the city, and lots more!


Un tis Un tis Un tis Un tis Un tis ...




Call to attention highlighting so you don't miss the important stuff.


We even added more ways to fast travel to parts of the city.


The house always wins.......maybe.

Most recently we updated the Early Access build on Steam[/url] with another update on the way in the coming weeks! If you either previously played the Early Access or were planning to, give it a shot and drop us a line in the [url]Community Forum to let us know how you like it!


That wraps it up for us in 2022. But as we move into 2023, If you're excited about Pixel Noir, here are three steps you can take to make sure you're in the know:

1. Wishlist Pixel Noir on Steam!
2. Join our {LINK REMOVED}SWDTech Games Discord server for a constant stream of screenshots, granular development updates, sprint summaries. You can even chat with the development team!

3. Follow our daily progress on our official Twitter bot.

Our next update will be on March 23rd!

From our 16-bit family to yours, we hope everyone had a great holiday season!

//Team SWDTech

As we close out 2022, we'll get to our usual updates but first and foremost, we wanted to share the news that we will be ceasing our business agreement with BadLand Publishing.

BadLand was providing us with Marketing, QA, Localization, and Porting services. The termination of this relationship is unfortunate, but rest assured we've already made alternative arrangements for some of the services BadLand provided and are in talks with other publishers.

While we can't get into more details now about the termination of the agreement, please be aware that we are continuing to move towards our Q2 launch commitment. If we can't arrange for certain deliverables such as Spanish localization for example, we will let you all know. It's a bummer and we are disappointed, but like most bumps in the road, it's not the end of the journey.

And with that, we're moving on to brighter pastures! Let's kick things off with the long-awaited Early Access update, chock full of new features and goodies!



As promised in our last update, we patched Steam Early Access! Chapters 1-4 of Pixel Noir are playable with all of our updated features. Here's a brief recap of what you can expect:

• Battle updates galore including the new skill system, asynchronous turn-based battle system, loads of new party/enemy skills, and many more battle encounters throughout the city.
  
• The CRDTech minigame has seen a major update with more cards, new music/SFX's, and NPC's who will happily battle you for some cash. We included more card abilities, which will make the game more strategic!
  
• Lots of audio updates including 3D audio, text typing, and more--all this helps Pinnacle City come to life with cars now audibly whizzing by you, doors now sounding like they're being opened, conversations between NPC's no longer sounding monotonous, audio transitioning seamlessly between exteriors/interiors and beat-syncing to transition into battle music.
  
• Loads more NPC's and intractable objects around town. We've added grifters, traders, and bums to add to the atmosphere Pinnacle City!
  
• Updates to graphical assets in the GUI, environments, and sprites--everything looks sharper and cleaner and new character portraits added to boot!
  
• Creation tier content has been added in! Thanks to all our content creation tier backers! In the Early Access version you can expect some of said content.
  
• Tons of back-end optimizations, decreasing load times, ensuring that menus bug free.
  
• More side-quests are now available for you to play through and experience!
  
• And much more!

We can't wait for people to play this new version! Of course, the full game will be coming out next year but, if you can't wait, the Early Access will surely whet your appetite!


*crowd noises* Oooh! Aaaah!
Yes, we're still adding little bits of polish to the game as we continue to work through the bugs in our list. Here's some of the things we've added since the last update in August:

Applied new SFX/BGM to CRDTech card game - Kunal squeezed out more some more audio to improve CRDTech's experience! Check it out...



Audio Voice Effects - Kunal also added new SFX for character voices. Previously, every NPC and party character in the game had the same typing sounds. Now there are multiple types of typing sounds effectively differentiating the "voices" of characters throughout the city. Check it out in action!!



Gear Skill Bonuses - Skill bonuses from armor & accessories reduce use costs for learned skills.



Menu organization has come a looong way from when we launched the Kickstarter!

Charitable Giving - Outside of being able to hit them up for intel, you can now help Pinnace City's homeless population out! We've implemented a feature where you can choose to give them a few bucks of your hard-earned money. Sometimes they'll give out an item of appreciation. Remember: it always pays to be good to people, so hopefully this adds a small, but fun dimension to the game.


Tis the season to be thankful!

The game is in a polished state but we're still dealing with some bugs. However, we're happy to announce that we've closed out this year with implementation of all of the final features we wanted in the full game!

More launch details will arrive next year sometime in Q1, but we wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who continue to support us--we're excited to finally be at this point! Happy holidays & have a great holiday season!

If you're pumped about Pixel Noir, here are three steps you can take to make sure you're in the know:
1. Wishlist Pixel Noir on Steam!
2. Join our {LINK REMOVED}SWDTech Games Discord server for a constant stream of screenshots, granular development updates, sprint summaries, and chat with the development team!
3. Follow our daily progress on our official Twitter bot.



Turn the wrong corner in Pinnacle City and...

Our next update will be our year-end wrap up January 12th!

Later taters!

//Team SWDTech

We hope you've all been enjoying your Summer! We have some big news to share, so let's just jump right into it!



Pixel Noir will launch in Q2 of 2023 on Steam and Nintendo Switch! Additionally, the Early Access will be updated in Q4 of 2022!


Our publisher, Badland Publishing, will be putting out a press release about it next week, but we wanted to let you VIPs know first! Xbox and Playstation won't be too far behind the initial launch, but we are still sorting out the timing. News on kickstarter backer merch fulfillment will be coming in early 2023, so stay tuned for those deets!



Woooo!! Time to party like it's 65,000,000 BC!

Over the years, we've been on the long road of development through countless nights, weekends, and holidays to bring this RPG concept to life. We appreciate all those who have stuck with us through thick and thin!





We will be a part of a Steam event called Another Indie Game Showcase, which will be on September 12th, 2022, @ 3PM EST, hosted by our friends over at the Dual Screens podcast. If you haven't checked in on the game in a bit, we think you'll like what you see since battle mechanics, GUI -- nearly everything has evolved since the Early Access launched in 2019!


Dual Screens Presents: Another Indie Showcase on Steam & Youtube!
Okay, let's keep this party going and jump into some...


We added a bounty hunting system which is accessible later in the game. You'll be tracking down and apprehending the biggest bottom-feeding scumbags that Pinnacle City has to offer. This feature gives you another way to take on new cases!


Little known fact: Slimey Saul got his name because he uses *way too much* hair product.

Throughout the game, don't forget to return to the Detective's apartment to answer your phone! Private-eyes get weird phone calls with even stranger cases to take on.


Clearly, the Detective isn't really concerned with missing calls...

Ever felt overwhelmed by all the cases you've taken on? Well, here's something small but fun: you can buy drinks at the various bars around the city!


But is the craft beer locally sourced from Pinnacle City??

In testing, we've noticed that getting into random battles throughout the city still resulted in awkward sprite positioning. Sometimes enemies would wander out of frame, and characters would turn in the wrong directions. We completely overhauled positioning battle encounters in the game, resulting in a much more optimized system that allows battles to play beautifully!


It might not look like much fun, but this was a massive win in terms of optimizing the game and reducing bugs related to battle positioning!

In addition to finding and fixing MANY bugs, we also:

• Updated to the 2021.2.9 version of Unity, which helped decrease load times and drove several back-end benefits
  
• Updated colliders, interaction points, and car walk paths/speeds
  
• Added fast travel between the Docks, Boardwalk, & Royal Island
  
• Optimized the layered depth sprite sorting algorithm, putting an end to layering issues between sprites
  
• And made a *ton* of AI, dialogue, and polish tweaks throughout the game

We've got a juicy sample from our brand new CRDTech theme! A couple of pieces of music will play throughout the CRDTech mini-game, but this tune will play during the actual match. "Risky Gamble" features the incomparable Tim Yarborough of the OneUps on guitar. We hope you enjoy it!




::shakes head:: jazz musicians, am I right?

And with that, we're officially wrapping up this update! If you're pumped about Pixel Noir, here are three steps you can take to make sure you're in the know:

1. Wishlist Pixel Noir on Steam!

2. Join our {LINK REMOVED}SWDTech Games Discord server for a constant stream of screenshots, granular development updates, sprint summaries, and chat with the development team!

3. Check in on development by dropping by Leo's Pixel Noir development streams on Twitch Tuesday and Friday nights. Also, remember you can follow our daily progress on our official Twitter bot.


Our next update will be on December 15th!

Catch you all on the flip side!

//Team SWDTech

Hey Everybody!
As you can probably tell from each successive Kickstarter update, we've been posting fewer update content. That's because we're in the process of finally closing out our development cycle! While you'll continue to see polish and bug fixes up through release, we'll be transitioning from development to porting and localization over the next few months. Let's jump into the rest of the update!



Although we are still locking down timing, we plan to launch on Steam first and subsequently on consoles. We were hoping to have more details around release times for you by this update, but we're still in planning discussions with our publisher. Currently, the team is in the middle of heavy testing, so the amount of time needed to find/fix bugs and the defects with the porting/compliance issues that are sure to rise up will greatly influence exactly when we can target a launch date. We know launch times are important to you backers and fans, so we are working to get you this information as soon as we can.


We implemented Shade's Summon skills a couple of months ago, which means this mysterious character is ready for battle with sword in hand.





We've added in and polished up the enemy skills for every enemy in the game! Some of these attacks will challenge you and have you rethinking your strategy.



In addition to adding many enemy skills, we are currently on our fourth pass of balancing for the game. We've fine-tuned enemy encounters during this run and ensured that enemies have appropriate item drops. Battles were already feeling pretty good, but now they feel rewarding too!



We're excited to showcase card-slinging NPCs. These characters will be happy to play a game or three of CRDTech with you. And happy to take your hard-earned cash while they're at it.



Finally, we've made several enhancements, including updating and adding a ton more player interactions.



We Added text highlighting to item, skill, & case descriptions.



And lots of optimization to pathfinding to help decrease load times!



Finally, on the audio front, last year composers Hiroki Kikuta and Kunal Majmudar finished out a pretty spectacular boss theme. Does it feature a turbo intense orchestra? Check. Is it full of bloops and bleeps? Double-check. Does it feature Slavic women wailing? Ja! Feast your earbuds on this!



If you're pumped about Pixel Noir, here are three steps you can take to make sure you're in the know:

1. Wishlist Pixel Noir on Steam!

2. Join our {LINK REMOVED}SWDTech Games Discord server for a constant stream of screenshots, granular development updates, sprint summaries, and chat with the development team!

3. Check in on development by dropping by Leo's Pixel Noir development streams on Twitch Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights. Also, remember you can follow our progress on our official Roadmap / Twitter bot.


Our next update will be out on August 11th! See you then!

Happy new year!!! Hopefully you had a fantastic holiday! We ended the year strong with a lot of great wins (see more details in update #68). For this update, we wanted to recap all the development achievements we made this past year, so let's kick this thing off!


For the love of Pete, *punch back* 2022!

Over the past year, we’ve added various in-battle cinematics, meticulously working to add visual and audio flair to every battle. We’re now up to 180+ ally/enemy skills, attack combos and in-battle item cinematics!


Keep your eye on the ATB... Where the characters stop, you'll never know!

Talk about passing wind... #dadjoke2022

::Insert 80's action movie montage::

Clearly the Detective had a printer jam right before this battle.

Hot enough for ya?

This gif is a bit of a shocker.

Sometimes you need a cocktail to take the edge off... A Molotov Cocktail that is!

Here's an example of how items now look when you use them in battle

Combos got a major facelift this past year too!

Shade's blade slices through enemies like butter.

While exploring the world of Pixel Noir, you never know when someone will try to mug you. Throughout Pinnacle City, baddies will jump out, sometimes alone and sometimes along with more bad dudes. Many enemies will just be hanging out in plain sight, while other enemies might be patrolling or disguise themselves as an inanimate object (like a trash can)! We've even overhauled our "run" mechanic. Previously, as seen in Early Access, you'd select run and the enemy just sort of went "poof" and disappeared. Now, when you select run, a mini game will determine if you can run from a battle.


What a nice evening for an ambush.

If you're fast, you might be able to escape a potential enemy encounter!

Pinnacle City has a few different types of mimics, so be careful out there!

Put those fingers to work if you want to run from a battle!

We've added many visual effects creating much needed polish to the dramatic parts of the game. You'll see flashes of color, new animations for skills, and even heavier use of screen shakes and other camera tricks!


You want dramatic effects? We've got em'!

Whoa, trippy!

That flash of red really adds a nice "oomph" to Deuce's execution.

We've added a battle arena that you can access later in the game! 14 rounds with one-time prizes for finishing each round, featuring a cameo by none other than Shovel Knight! We can't tell you what the final round's prize is, but trust us, you'll want it!


That's a hell of a power, Shovel Knight!

For starters, we’ve been iterating on the menu's user interface to improve intuitiveness as well as display more useful information. We've also added arrows that point to doors and teleports in the game world. You can see them by activating the detective's investigation mode. All main plot lines and cases (side-quests) have been loaded into the Case Manager! This means that you now have clues for each case as well as highlighted map tiles indicating key locations for both main quests and side-quests.


A peek of the latest menu UI!

You can see doorway & teleport indicators now!

It'll be much easier to keep cases moving along even if you step away from the game for a bit.

Treasure boxes, bundles of cash, and items found through using Investigation Mode are now all in the game. You can also now buy, sell, and get ripped off in the streets of Pinnacle City with the different ways to acquire items and gear off NPCs!


The NPC that owns this garage probably didn't need it anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Investigation Mode can show hidden items all over town!

Think carefully before making a trade, no backsies now!

So is the "fork" really a fork? Or could it something awesome??? ....or maybe it really is just a $1000 fork?

Keep a generous amount of cash on hand for these Black Market dudes... They charge premium prices, but they also have primo wares!

And of course, what RPG is complete without enemy item drops!

We also rolled out this feature that was funded thanks to a stretch goal! Upon completing the game, New Game + will allow a player to start a new game with their current experience, money, items and skills. This time, however, the player can make different choices, which could lead to different outcomes.


New Game + is officially in the game. Thanks to the Kickstarter backers for bringing this one to life!

We've added 3D sound effects to scenes and moving objects. You can really hear the city come to life as cars drive by, neon signs buzz, trash blows around, waves crash against the beach and more. Additionally doorways with doors now play creeks or other SFX when you transition between rooms.





Testing stat-balancing isn't the most exciting element in the development of an RPG, but it's absolutely essential to delivering a balanced gameplay experience. All seven chapters now feature semi-balanced battle scenarios and gear. And, of course, we'll continue to play-test and tweak difficulty up until launch.



To give you an idea of what's to come in 2022, our efforts will be heavily focused around...

• Polish & Bugs: Implementing the last little bit of polish & stat balancing to get us into post production territory! We also have a handful of small tasks on the coding side, including save/load optimization, several GUI updates, and adding in trophies. Oh, and of course, zapping the bugs that we keep finding and fixing on a daily basis.
  
• Porting, Localization, & Compliance: As mentioned in previous updates, the good folks over at Badland Publishing will be helping us with these tasks. We'll have a better idea of the porting roadmap and release plans later THIS year after we've finished with development.

Well, that's a wrap for our 2021 year end review update! If you're pumped about Pixel Noir, here are three steps you can take to make sure you're in the know:

1. Wishlist Pixel Noir on Steam!
   
2. Join our {LINK REMOVED}SWDTech Games Discord server for a constant stream of screenshots, granular development updates, sprint summaries, and to chat with the development team!
   
3. Check in on development by dropping by Leo's Pixel Noir development streams on Twitch Monday and Thursday nights. Also remember you can follow our progress on our official Roadmap / Twitter bot.

Our next update will be out on March 24th! See you then!

//Team SWDTech