Oct 22, 2018

Kynseed - Matt Allen 🦇

Welcome to Issue #40 of The PixelCount Post, a periodically released update from Kynseed's team. In today's issue: Matt talks of Early Access on Nov 8th, Matthijs works on leitmotifs, Neal sees the future, and Charlie introduces Kane Hines: Master of Dogs.
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ

I'll be keeping today's update straight to the point (a far cry from last week's) so that I can highlight the recent news that the team's all jazzed about:

On November 8th, Kynseed will release on Steam Early Access!

Also of note is that the Kynseed Late Backer program will be coming to a close on November 2nd at midnight PDT (GMT-7), so if you fancy grabbing any rewards or upgrading your existing tier then be sure to do so before that time.

The team's hands, and probably even feet, will be incredibly full these next few weeks preparing the game and community for an influx of new players - many of whom will be hearing of this quirky game for the very first time. It's a busy but exhilarating time over here and we look forward to seeing new and familiar faces on Thursday, November 8th!

So, I'm very much a fan of leitmotifs. That's a melody that represents a character or other thing within a narrative. Wagner is known for them, John Williams has made some of the most memorable ones on the planet, and Kynseed uses leitmotifs too. I've planted them into various parts of the soundtrack, but so far there haven't been many opportunities to really make them shine.

However, with the release on Early Access, certain elements will be added that allow me to really make use of some of the leitmotifs I've put into the game so far. Thing is, I can't describe exactly what these elements are - too spoilery. Suffice to say that there's a hidden theme in the game so far that I hope to give some new meaning to when this new thing in the game happens (ah the confusingly cryptic wordings that come from trying to avoid giving spoilers).

The tricky part is that I don't make my themes super obvious. I weave them into things. And every time I use them, because they're woven into other things, they change. And just to make it more confusing, not all ingredients are in place. Many parts of the game where themes should become more obvious aren't in yet. But I do have to plan for them. This means that the musical puzzle that is Kynseed's thematic material won't truly come together until the game is finished.

Meanwhile, game development is more than a little unpredictable, so I have to change things along the way even though certain elements are already implemented in the current build of the game. I keep the notion in the back of my mind that by the end of it, I may have to go back in and alter certain tracks just to make them thematically consistent.

Feedback has also started to come in on combat and its sound effects. Some work well, some not so much. Do I try to work on them some more now, or do I wait for a more complex sound engine that can create more variety in the effects? Tough question. I've been spending a lot of time playing the game's combat system though. Even at this early stage it's fun - deflecting bottles being thrown at you is pretty entertaining! I'm glad the sound effect for it appears to be satisfying, going by the feedback so far. I'm also expecting a new trailer to be requiring music soon, which will be a lot of fun I reckon. I'm very fond of composing directly to picture as it's much easier to control the experience when every second of it is predetermined. I also hope to include some of the aforementioned leitmotifs in it...

This week follows our announce of a date for Early Access on 8th November! It's been an interesting time getting to a point where we feel confident to commit to a date publicly. In some ways I feel until it's said out loud in that manner you can't be truly sure of whether it is the right choice or not. The struggle is that without it, it's hard to ever know when to stop or perhaps when to push to fulfill a date as it feels fake in a way when not public. I guess it's about accountability and the narrative that we tell ourselves too and how much belief there is in it.

Another angle is perhaps the distance away from it. Estimates are notoriously difficult to make for any point into the future - it's impossible to predict what changes of circumstance might occur and what might turn out more difficult or easier than expected to produce on time. All that to say, at this moment we believe this is the best date for Early Access based on everything we know right now and what we predict of the future. Time will always tell whether that's right or not but whatever the outcome we'll still be aiming ever upwards to make this game the best we can!

PART 1:
KANE HINES - MASTER OF DOGS

Hello. I am Kane Hines. I live in Summerdown. I am known as being the Master of Dogs.

I love dogs. I even write books on dogs. Some people say I am very dull, because all I talk about is dogs. I think this is not true. There is so much more to who I am.

But back to talking about dogs. Did you know that there are different breeds of dog? There are small dogs, called Pugs, who were named after an ancient evil God called Pugsley Addams. These dogs are not evil! They are small and have squashed faces that look like someone has grown them inside a milk bottle.

There are other dog types too. Big dogs. Hairy dogs. Spotted dogs. Cats. Although cats are not technically a type of dog, but they do live in a house and they do have four legs and do shit all over the place.

I suppose I should tell you some more about me, Kane Hines. I like eating pork chops and I wear spectacles. I enjoy long walks, always with a dog. I worship my Goddess and sacrificed my wife on Offering Day. I also enjoy sunshine, candies, and the sound of water. Nature is beautiful, just like dogs.

Please read all my books. They are very interesting, just like me. And dogs.

Oct 17, 2018

The PixelCount Post - Issue #39

Kynseed - Matt Allen 🦇

Welcome to Issue #39 of The PixelCount Post, a periodically released update from Kynseed's team. In today's issue: Neal battles with combat boxes, Charlie chats about camaraderie, Matthijs picks at his nits, and Matt spontaneously climbs a mountain.
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ

Combat got a whole bunch of attention these last few weeks. First off, I'd been working on this overly complex system for weapon arcs where they changed shape and size over time independent of the animations themselves. After getting nowhere fast with this and with an imminent team review, I decided to pare things down and go with collision boxes based on animation frames. It's a decision that instantly got good results, made some reuse of existing systems, and massively simplified the headaches I'd been having. In retrospect, I can't believe I hadn't gone with it sooner and it definitely goes to show the use of a deadline for rethinking solutions which may be 'realistic' but don't justify the time and effort!

The team review was also really handy for putting things in perspective and being able to compare notes and see the system in use. It's something which I think is a trap development often falls into on a team, where it feels like there's such an overload of work there's never time to react or review it in-progress. Since time was made for it though, I've now pushed along bits that would have taken me a while to spot or get to and it makes for a more collaborative team effort.

The best time for review (and feedback) seems nearly always to be as soon as possible because that gives the most chance to course correct and leads to the least work being redone. We also had a review this morning which had a much smaller quantity of feedback to give, hopefully showing that the majority of the initial flow of it is in shape. Still to come will be the fine tuning and variations on a theme when we can add more variety to the combat based on creature type. It's another feature that'll need to jostle position for attention from now on. Hopefully there's not too many more of those and that they get the benefits of experience as the code matures and hands more responsibility off to data.

Another week rolls by...another Post update I forgot to write. Time at the moment just blurs along and it sometimes feels like crawling through honey. It is a sweet experience, but very slow and messy.

As new indie devs, we find that we live by the three 'ations'...organisation, communication, and motivation. These sometimes fall apart as we have so many plates to spin and people tire or personal lives get on top of them. There may be money worries, or just a bit of illness pop up, or bad internet, or just not feeling creative. Problems come and go, but throughout it all we have learned some powerful lessons.

The first is that we have great team camaraderie and spirit - when one flags, the others prop them up. The second is that we have amazing support from our backers and community. Every nice comment, every piece of art, every bit of excitement and encouragement...each fires us forward.

It is surreal to experience it all firsthand. At Lionhead, the excitement was more diluted among the entire team and more towards the big names. At PixelCount, we are the ones responsible so we feel more of that community sunlight (when not experimenting in our castle cellars). Of course we also feel the negative side of things, but we try take it on the chin and if we can't convert them we at least respect their thoughts and move on.

As for what I did this past week, more books! Better written older books! Prettying and collisions!

Now what day/year is it?

Last week I had to find out what it sounds like when you deflect something made of glass with a sword. I also did some experimenting with combining actual recordings of sounds with the more abstract 8-bit depictions of those sounds we know from the 8-bit era of gaming. They sometimes combine surprisingly well! I think Kynseed is in a remarkable grey area between an 8-bit experience and a more audio/visually rich one and I'm trying to walk that fine line between them.

Meanwhile, now that I have rough versions of all the music tracks we'll be adding to the Early Access release (lest more are added), the prettying of these tracks has begun. This is a time of a million small adjustments. A wee bit more volume here, a smoother note transition there - really small things. But a lot of them. And you need to listen with a much more critical ear to find them.

When I first start to compose something, I don't want to be critical, because nothing would get done. But as I do more polishing on it, I have to become increasingly critical. And sometimes I feel I'm not pushing it far enough. Then feedback from someone like Matt becomes increasingly valuable. I can rely on him to hold nothing back, and that's priceless for any artistic endeavor. Of course that doesn't mean you should be scornful of things you dislike, but that's not what I mean. Just to not leave anything unmentioned (kindly), so that we can make the best game possible.

By the time this 'nitpicking' stage begins, the track has already been approved and I know I generally made the right track. So the basis isn't 'if you don't fix this little thing, the track is bad', but rather 'if you fix this little thing, it'll be even better than it was'. And that's a motivating experience. I do reckon I need to become better at doing my own nitpicking though.

For a game that heavily features travelling through the countryside, we indie devs seldom seem to leave our desks. So this last weekend, I set out to remedy that.

Don't get me wrong, I keep pretty active by default. I live in a very walkable city, so I end up doing almost everything by foot. Tack on a few gym visits a week and I like to think I'm not too sedentary for someone who occasionally spends 16 hour days behind a computer. But being active and being in nature aren't the same thing.

So let's rewind to last week. I was barely keeping my head above water with everything that needed doing and new tasks were piling up. There were announcements to prep, a new trailer, screenshots, production spreadsheets, numerous team calls, and so on. Something I often struggle with is an incurable obsession with chasing perfection in my work, but combine that with having very little time to complete said work and concessions will invariably have to be made. I die a little inside every time I have to cut a corner.

I'm being dramatic of course, but things like that are an ever-present reminder of how workload and deadlines create a constant internal war in game dev. But to mirror some of Neal's observations in his above update, sometimes the easiest way to solve this problem is to shift perspective and find a new approach.

That's why people tend to have their best ideas in the shower. It's because during such moments, the mind goes into what scientists refer to as an incubation period. Disengaging from distractions allows the mind to wander, and when that happens your subconscious problem solving abilities can surface and plant ideas into your conscious mind. But this last week, I was finding it hard for my mind to disengage at all - as if I'd gotten permanently stuck in fifth gear. This was all due to mounting workload and approaching deadlines (some of which are huge). To me, deadlines often feel a bit like the horror movie It Follows (which has a stellar soundtrack by Disasterpeace, by the way). It doesn't matter where you are or whether you're ready - deadlines will eventually catch up with you.

This last week I'd also been uncharacteristically silent on our Discord as a way to help ensure focus and reduce distractions. But ultimately, I decided that what I really needed was to get out of the city for the weekend. So I grabbed a backpack and did just that.

I drove north out of downtown Los Angeles to a trailhead at the base of the Santa Monica Mountains, which is nestled just west of the (much colder) San Gabriel Mountains. My objective was to hike 12.5 miles (20 km) while climbing 1,600 feet (500 m) to the highest mountain summit. If you've ever played GTA 5, the areas I hiked are what that game's mountain trails are based on. Except, you know...life size.

The neat thing about this hike was that on the right side of the mountain was beautiful natural forest and on the left side was sprawling cityscape - both as far as the eye could see. I've always found both types of landscapes beautiful, so I really enjoyed this dichotomy. Untamed wild nature on one side, the peak of human civilization on the other.

After a grueling hike, I reached the summit. It was an unusually clear day without a cloud in sight and visibility was a little over 10 miles. Exhausted, I sat down on a small rock and took it all in. Behind me was the Angeles National Forest stretching off into the skyline. In front of me was the entirety of Los Angeles county with downtown looking very distant and small. To the right of that I could just make out the Pacific Ocean shimmering in the sunlight.

It was just the sort of tranquil moment I needed and I couldn't help ascribing some pretty cliched parallels between climbing to a summit and making a video game. But as heavy-handed as the metaphor is, it's still a hard one to shake. Though for now, the game's final summit is still a long distance away. But...we are beginning to approach our final ascent to a major mid-journey base camp. Though more on that later...

I returned from this excursion exhausted but satisfied. I have blisters on my feet, sunburns despite my best attempts, and more sore muscles than I care to count. I'm now back behind my computer once again, here in the heart of downtown. My windows are open, there's a light fall breeze, and the distant baritone hum of the city is interrupted only by the staccato sound of me tapping away at my keyboard as I write this update.

Yet no sooner had I written the above paragraph was there a knock on my door. I opened it to find a stranger on the other side who said, "Matt?" I replied with a slow "...yes." They said, "Sorry for the wait." I told them it was no problem (which was true, as I didn't even know I'd been kept waiting.) Then they handed me a cup and walked off. It was a cup of nitro cold brew coffee, something that I've developed a bit of a reputation for liking over in our Discord. How curious.

I sipped on this drink, confident (perhaps naively so) that nothing nefarious had been done to it, and figured I'd look into who the mysterious coffee faery was just as soon as I finished proofreading my unnecessarily wordy Post update. But before managing to finish, there was another knock on the door with another stranger asking if I was Matt. I was still Matt and, as a result, I was handed something yet again. This time it was a small paper bag. I opened it to find a Philly cheesesteak from a nearby restaurant, still piping hot.

At this point my curiosity became too much to continue working, so I took a break from my proofreading and did a bit of sleuthing. What I discovered was that a few members of the Kynseed community had decided to send me treats by coordinating with a certain sneaky composer who knew my address. Perhaps due to me having been unusually absent this last week, they had taken me for dead and this was their method to see if a corpse had taken up residence in my home. Thankfully, it had not.

So as I sit here sipping on my coffee and munching on a sandwich, I can't help but echo some of the things Charlie mentioned up above. Indie development is stressful, expensive, high risk, and it does a real number to one's health and social life. But each time those things get difficult to manage, there's always a community of people excited to see where this journey of ours goes. I know we mention it in almost every update, but that sorta thing does so much to propel us forward each day - more than you know.

I sometimes worry that all we do in our Post updates is wax poetic about game development and that we never really give direct progress reports on things. (Bless Neal and Matthijs for actually doing so this issue.) But if we're to place games on the same podium as other art forms, then it stands to reason that the act of creating games cannot be divorced from the psychological element necessary for creating art. Those sorts of things are just as important to the development of a game as the code itself.

But as far as progress reports go, you lot can expect some very big announcements from us in the coming weeks. Maybe even a particularly big one in the next 48 hours...

Currently the team is reaching new levels of excited anticipation and, as I'm fond of saying, things are very much afoot. Thankfully, my weekend excursion (along with the community's support and generosity) has had a very motivating effect. So as bonkers as the next few weeks are going to be, I'm looking forward to seeing it all through.

P.S. Just as I finished with this update, there was a third knock on my door, this time with a couple of Red Bulls. I love you goobers.

Sep 28, 2018

The PixelCount Post - Issue #38

Kynseed - Matt Allen 🦇

Welcome to Issue #38 of The PixelCount Post, a periodically released update from Kynseed's team. In today's issue: Neal discusses how to keep momentum, Charlie shares level design tactics, Matthijs takes a stab at sword audio, and Matt gets contagious.
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ

These past two weeks have seen the subdued rollout of Backer Build 10. It took a bit longer than expected to reach that point. Being honest about it, on my side I feel like I have twiddled thumbs on it and given myself excuses around not getting it done quicker. I don't say this to unduly get glum about the situation but to keep it in my mind.

Often with these posts I'm talking about my motivation, focus, and current aims - the reason for that is to try and note down lessons to help me for the future. Sometimes this works for a while too, but other times it doesn't help that much because I get trapped in cycles where it feels difficult to get past a specific obstacle (mostly that excitement fades with routine and life and worries which can't be ignored).

This last few days I've found another source of inspiration and focus which feels like a return of old strong feelings. Mostly that is a mix of passion and excitement that I am purposefully stirring for the push towards Early Access. And more broadly I am trying to feel more disciplined in my approach, be more aware of my self-imposed limitations, and take steps to embed habits that allow me to avoid the downward cycles.

I've read a fair few books and watched videos on the subject of improvement. Often it's easy to dismiss them individually because their situation doesn't match mine and the range of starting points for trying to change are very broad, so suggestions could be too easy/hard or just incompatible. The thing that was the tipping point in this case I think was reading about the four areas of well-being that we can look to improve (sleeping, eating, movement, mindfulness) and looking at small steps I could take from that to start to regain a sense of awareness of my situation and why I am in it. Additionally, to look at what narratives I have told myself that maybe contributed to it and see how they could be looked at in other more positive/hopeful ways.

I've also taken to writing personal notes to myself when I do feel the onset of bad habits and I think this helps with the awareness and realisation of how to deal with them before they take over. It's not been easy so far but I think I'm okay with that - I like a challenge and in order to reach my goals I need to call on my determination.

Finally got some momentum, and a ton of new prettying assets in the build, so the past week or so has been full on prettying the Summerdown region.

This is the time when I summon up the spirit of Bob Ross and start obsessively placing tufts of grass and flowers everywhere. The new brush really helps cover the blanker spaces with bits of detail to break up the space, but I still prefer the single asset at a time detailing.

With Summerdown, we want it to look different enough from the Vale, so there are new tree types, grasses, and flowers. Plus, the main ground is less busy and has a bit more in common with its neighbouring hub, Rivermoor. It's been nice to start developing the little nooks and crannies too as well as getting the house furniture in as it really starts to make the levels look more complete.

When designing a level, a lot of it is just made on instinct and feel. I know how many exits are needed and where they go. The rest is just playing with shapes and routes. Then the prettying is a case of making it seem a plausible place, and varied, while maintaining good navigation - so hints of paths when wandering to the sides, lighting, plus environmental places of interest to reward and intrigue the explorer.

Soon it will be bugs, collisions, and markers, followed by filling the levels with collectibles. And then, you all get to play them...and that's the best part for me.

There are a few tracks from the Vale that, in a new form, will be returning when you reach Poppyhill. Like Candlewych, Poppyhill will feature its own shops. And when you enter these I'd like to show you familiar shop tunes, but brought to you with the flavour of the town the shop is in. So just from the sound of the music you'll know what type of shop you entered.

Yet it won't be the exact same track over and over for each town. Once I have initial versions of each new shop music for Poppyhill, I'll have all the music files ready to be imported into the internal build of the game. After that I can still alter them, as I'll just need to replace the current version of a track with a newer one of the same name. This means I can keep on perfecting them even after the content lock will be in place.

Meanwhile, I'm still trying to create the perfect sound effects for combat. It's quite tricky to get this just right. The sound of swinging your weapon and hitting your opponent can be done in a bajillion different ways but they have to match the 'tone' of the game perfectly but also feel satisfying. I've gone through quite a few versions by now. Many don't even make it past the experimentation stage. Too real, too fake, too comical, too scary, too shrill, too bass-y. I'll be quite relieved once I finally get it just right.

I suspect a few more sound effects will be added to my to-do list as we play through the new areas and find new things that need to have a sound. You don't always think of everything right away. This makes development very fluid and hard to predict. But I'm confident you're going to love the new additions we'll put in the Early Access build! Seeing all the art assets come in has been wonderfully motivating as well. Some amazing work is being done! I can't wait to see your reactions to it.

In recent weeks my work has begun to span some wide and diverse categories. One day I'll be storyboarding a trailer, the next I'll be making production schedules. Then after that I'll do a logo treatment in Photoshop, followed by scheduling screenshot tweets in TweetDeck. A day later I'll be knee-deep in site analytics, and then afterwards I'll write an article for The PixelCount Post - literally this one, which you're reading right this very moment. All whilst having the good folks in our community Discord to keep me company with their conversation, their good spirits, and their questionable taste in GIF's.

In addition to these tasks, I've also been recently absorbed in conversation with my teammates about staying motivated during these long stretches of development. It's sometimes surprising how anything can become routine if you do it long enough and we were noticing in ourselves that we had fallen into a sort of daily grind mentality where we were just going through the motions of getting our work done. We'd hole ourselves away in our respective work bubbles and just tend to our tasks.

It's somewhat natural to get into that sort of rhythm without meaning to, especially when it's one of those periods of development when the work is important but otherwise unexciting. Thankfully, after a few weeks of this, we started to notice it happening and we began talking with each other to snap ourselves out of it.

It just goes to show the importance of the team dynamic when working on projects like these. Excitement and passion are contagious and it's important we keep each other engaged and excited about our work - even when the work isn't particularly glamorous. At the end of the day, we're still working on a wild and crazy idea that we believe in and if we're passionate about it then that passion will get smuggled into the game and will surely be all the better for it.

Sep 6, 2018

The PixelCount Post - Issue #37

Kynseed - Matt Allen 🦇

Welcome to Issue #37 of The PixelCount Post, a periodically released update from Kynseed's team. In today's issue: Matt runs a giveaway while sorting deadlines, Matthijs ponders fictional cultures, Neal balances optimism with realism, and Charlie gouges his eye out.
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ

Hello, and welcome to another issue of The PixelCount Post, the periodically periodical. In the last couple of weeks the team has had their hands full with juggling tasks, stoking fires, and spinning plates. In fact, hands have been so full that it was difficult finding time to put this issue of The Post together! Hence it's merely lukewarm (rather than hot) off the presses.

Much of the distractions were for good reason though, which I'll ramble a bit about in this article. The first item of note is that we recently shared one of our larger and more formal development updates which highlighted our progress on Kynseed's combat! Give that update a look if you want to see a GIF of how combat's shaping up. Another item of note is that I recently launched a Kynseed Concept Art Giveaway where you can win a physical print of some really nice art made by Sarah, our talented concept artist. There's a few ways to enter, all of them pretty easy, so give that giveaway link a click if you want to nab that art print. (There's only a few days left!)

But perhaps the most significant item of note is that the team's had numerous in-depth talks this week in which we've been coming to terms with the sobering reality that launching on Early Access is increasingly imminent. And all our recent team meetings aimed to figure out exactly how imminent that actually is.

In some ways it already feels a bit like we've been doing a sort of 'Early' Early Access, since the backer build of the game has effectively served as a very helpful test run for the sort of open development we want to do. (And yes, for the sake of shameless promotion, you can still back the game and get an instant download of the backer build if you head to our Piggy Backer page.)

Yet where as the backer build was merely dipping our toes in the pool, the Early Access launch will be more akin to making a cannonball splash. We're very keen to be as ready as we reasonably can be and, more to the point, to get the game as ready as reasonably can be.

And although it's a huge (and somewhat daunting) milestone for our small team of plucky devs, it is in many ways just the very beginning for the project. Everything that came before (from the initial game idea, to the Kickstarter, to the backer build) were all stepping stones on the path to Steam Early Access. So much will depend on that important day and it could very well dictate the future of the entire project. No pressure!

But despite its immense importance, we're excited and optimistic about it all. In many ways, I've found that the team has an amazing way of doing some of their best work when the pressure is on. There's a sort of magic that happens during those moments on the team - everyone feeding off each other's energy, each person working towards a common goal. I know that I can't possibly predict how intensely busy and hectic those final week(s) before Early Access will be, but part of me almost looks forward to the manic frenzy of it all. (Though I'll probably be whistling a different tune when it's caused me to go a few days without sleep!)

So we now have a full launch schedule in place that we'll be strictly following. One of the facets of my job is helping to manage those schedules and make sure that the cogs of our development machine are staying well lubricated. It'll no doubt be a challenge to keep things as on track as possible, but I can already tell that the entire team is feeling better just from the existence of a schedule alone. Beforehand we had very general and broad ideas on what sort of release window we were shooting for, but it was all hunches and predictions. In a strange way, this was a mild point of anxiety because we knew that there was a hypothetical countdown floating around us but none of us knew what the exact numbers were. Now that we've nailed down the schedule's specifics, it no longer feels like there's a mysterious entity looming.

That said, game development is littered with the corpses of missed deadlines. So I imagine things will go wrong. Not because I doubt my teammates or the efficiency of our work, but because part of good planning is planning for things that can't be planned for. So some elements of our schedule will slip and we'll have to make up time in other areas as best we can. Inevitably, unforeseen challenges will rear their heads. It's all part of the wild west of game development - particularly for us indies.

But it feels good to have an attack plan in place. Unsurprisingly, we don't have any dates or predictions to share with you just yet, but the time for such things is growing ever nearer. It goes without saying that we have a lot of hard work ahead. And what's crazy is that Early Access won't be when that hard work stops. That'll be when it gets even harder.

Yet the one thing that keeps this team going is seeing the support and enthusiasm all of you have had for this game over the many months. Excitement and encouragement is what fuels the PixelCount team. Seriously. Anytime we see kind words from a player it's a guarantee that we'll be in high spirits for the day (which tends to lead to a more productive workday altogether). So if you see your friendly neighborhood dev around the forums or Discord or Twitter, give them a high five for me. They're doing amazing things and I'm so damn proud to be working with those nutters.

For now, it's time to go full steam ahead towards Early Access! In the immortal words of The Doors: "The time to hesitate is through."

So two weeks ago I made it back from my trip to the Baltic states and I immediately got back to work. I missed it! There were a new list of sound effects that needed to be made and after consulting Charlie I now know which new regions of the game's world I need to write music for next. There's a cluster of regions connected to one another that form a larger whole and I want that to be reflected in the music. So in a sense, I want to create a musical 'culture' for that region.

This is done not just with melodies, but also instrumentation. These regions use instruments not found in The Vale, except with people who travel to The Vale but come from outside it. The accordion plays a major role in these places and in The Vale the accordion is only heard when the Mummers play in the Tavern. This tells us that the Mummers don't originate from The Vale. It's this level of detail I want to imbue the soundtrack with. I hope that the music for each region can tell you something about the people that live there.

Charlie wrote what the various cultures in the game are like and all the aspects of a game need to work together to show it to the player. Perhaps it's providence that so much of the lectures I witnessed in Estonia on my trip had to do with other cultures and the way they define their musical identity. I often asked the question 'what exactly makes this music belong to this culture'. I got different answers. Sometimes the only answer was 'it was made by a person from this culture, therefore it is music of this culture'.

For a fictional culture this would be impossible, as nobody is from that culture. And yet I have to make the music feel like it does have a cultural identity. I hope I succeed. I hope you'll be able to infer how these cultures in Kynseed are, based on what you see and hear even in the most subtle ways that don't spell it out. Much of the game is about letting the world speak for itself. And the art and world building does this beautifully in my humble opinion. So I better step up my game!

At the same time as I'm working on these new tracks, I'm also adding more ambient sound files. Some of them I already had ready and waiting to be implemented and another I built last week. We don't want you to hear the same bird and wind sounds in every region. And in one of the new regions that isn't in the public build just yet, I've made an ambient track with a howling wind and very few animal sounds. The howling wind was Charlie's idea and I think it works beautifully to illustrate a more open space.

It's also sufficiently different from the sounds you hear in The Vale that you'll not feel quite as 'at home' as you once did. Not that it's a bad place per se - it's just not where you grew up, and every sound and sight will remind you of that. Even the grass has a different color. I can't wait to see players exploring these new places (and streaming their experience!). For now it's back to work for me, as there's so much more left to do!

These past few weeks I've been progressing work on setting up seasons, getting the build out with the pig auction, and a dash of work on combat! In what should hopefully be a quick revamp I've also been working on the blacksmith minigame with Charlie to adjust its setup to have a clearer path of how each step is rated, what it does, and how the overall rating of the produced weapon results.

Things are gearing up as we enter into the start of September. There's still much to do and honestly it's been slow going at times. I think there's a paralyzing effect to have such a looming amount of stuff. We (or rather I'd) intended to have a first playable build ready at the end of August but that has been delayed a little further to pull the pieces together.

I think maybe there's a tendency to have grandiose plans for these bigger milestones and that without regular assessment of progress and probably the decision to cut back on the to-do list (or I guess be more realistic) then it's hard for them to come together. The reasons for that are many, but the biggest one is usually that the future from any point in time is unpredictable and so schedules are 99% of the time too optimistic. Lessons hopefully learned this time.

Well not the best of weeks really! Prettying and layouts for Summerdown gathered apace and they are surely taking shape now. It can be a little overwhelming or disheartening when a level is blank or ugly - it's only after piling in assets that the fog lifts and the motivation ramps up. Sadly, my week has been hindered by a large stye high under my upper eyelid that is near impossible to get ointment to so it has been an era of pain, soreness, discomfort, and annoyance.

I did win another Victory Royale in Fortnite solo though, through my usual tactic of run and hide. I fire one shot to kill an AFK player who stood in the middle of the open, but other than that my trigger finger was lazy. Victory came as I hid and watched 2 players slug it out, only to be killed by the storm!

In other happenings, we had discussions about the combat zones and the use of 'lairs' within these, plus the structure of the regions so that there is incentive to return and see new things. It was also a week where Graveyard Keeper was recently released. Along with Moonlighter, it was a game we seem to get mentioned alongside often, so it was of interest to us. Seeing the mixed reviews gave food for thought and reading the feedback is incredibly helpful in aiding us in avoiding the same pitfalls.

Next up is the release of Two Point Hospital, by our friends at Two Point Studios. We will be hoping for their continued success - even if they did steal some of the talent we wanted here at PixelCount, those dreadful, horrible Lion-headed monsters. *sob*

Now, where is my eye gouger...

Aug 19, 2018

Dev Update: Our Combat's Looking Sharp

Kynseed - Matt Allen 🦇

Welcome! Nice to have you back. Summer has been so incredibly hot here at Castle PixelCount that we’ll take any fan we can get.

The last time you visited us we were still basking in Spring and spending our days collecting bugs. Since then, the days have grown long and the weather has turned warm. All this additional daylight seems to have given us a motivating effect and has allowed us to slowly restock our reserves of midnight oil.

Temperatures are high and so are our spirits, but heads are low as we work hard on a veritable smorgasbord of treats for your delectation. Though the chief disadvantage to working in all this heat is that we're working up a sweat while working up a game. We recently asked our castle scientists if they could devise a way to keep the castle cool and they happily replied, "No sweat." That scientist has been thrown into the dungeon.

(You wouldn't happen to know a good Dungeon Keeper would you? We sure need one.)

It's become so hot that we could've sworn we detected the faint smell of bacon rising from the pigs. Even the chickens are laying hard-boiled eggs. We also reached out to our friends and allies at Valve to request additional water but they just keep sending us Steam.

But at least we still have our sense of humour. We've been telling hot weather jokes since before it was cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-jruoNeJU8

YE OL' UPDATES

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time." At least, that's according to our good friend John over at Kingsgate Castle.

But here at our castle, there's been very little idleness indeed. Neal has been busy putting together systems for some of the big features to come. Matt has been surfing the waves of the internet while avoiding the heatwaves of California, making ample content for the patronages of our community channels. And Charlie has been busy building (by hand) the vast and expansive world beyond the gates of The Vale. One can't help but wonder, what is it that these gates are keeping out? Glad you asked! Because that's what we're here to talk about.

One of the challenging things to balance between is refining existing game systems versus adding new ones. For those of you playing the backer build of the game, there are many of the engine's cogs in place that still need further refinement. Yet we must also be careful to not refine too much, as other cogs need to be put in first.

In the last couple of months we've been very mindful of that balance. After we opened the gates to our backer build in April, our primary focus was on sorting bugs that you'd all alerted us of. After that initial round of fixes, we began to slowly add smaller new features here and there - tavern entertainment, quick travel, a lemonade stand, cooking mechanics (not to be confused with culinary car repair persons), among other additions.

Yet one thing that some of you may have noticed in our recent change logs is that there's been a gradually increasing use of the phrase 'behind the scenes'. That's because we're now moving to the other side of that aforementioned balance and the time has come for us to turn our attention to one of the larger cogs ahead: combat!

COMBAT IN KYNSEED

Up until now, combat preparations have been largely invisible to outside appearances, but things are now approaching the point in which we have something to show - a prospect that hopefully excites each of you as much as it excites us. Combat is one of the most challenging elements to add to any game, often depending entirely on 'feeling'. Which is to say that to most players, a game's combat either feels right or it doesn't. There's so many subtle nuances that go into it, ranging from controls to timing animations to audio feedback.

We recently challenged our character animator to a duel and asked him to draw his sword, but all he did was send us sword drawings. We figured we might as well use them and so we've been slowly but surely piecing together combat art and animations. The game's sword attacks aren't yet cutting edge, but each day we get closer to having something ready for you to play.

We've also been looking at various other games and their combat systems (research, ahem, not playing them for leisure). In general we're aiming (ho ho!) to have a meaty combat system that starts off simple - you are a simple farm kid after all. We'll then expand your skillset so you become a monster slaying blur of blades over time. Battling needs to be responsive and fun and impactful, not a repetitive grindfest. We also have a range of diverse monster types whose attacks will keep you on your toes, all beautifully crafted by Gary, the pixel whisperer.

WANT TO HELP TEST COMBAT EARLY?

Combat is one of those things that relies heavily on playtesting, which is why we're keen to put together a small group of testers to give us focused feedback so that we can work out all the initial kinks before updating the backer build for everyone else to have a go. So any of you who are Dev Access backers (Land Shaper tiers and higher) will soon be given an extremely early build of our very first combat tests.

This will actually come in the form of a separate download altogether and will be focused on combat alone - it'll basically consist of testbed regions that we've made just for playtesting combat systems. It's in these test regions that you'll go up against the first type of folklore monsters that roam Kynseed's wild countryside. During this time we'll be working with each of you closely so that we can extract your delicious feedback to help fuel the development machine.

Be sure to keep an eye on your backer emails as well as the Dev Pub on our official forums for updates on when this combat testing ground will become available. And if you're not at the Land Shaper or higher tier but still want to try out these early combat tests, you can hop on over to the Kynseed crowdfunding page and select any 'upgrade to this tier' link to upgrade your backer tier to one of your choosing.

NEW BACKER BUILD UPDATES

But just because combat's been our recent focus doesn't mean there hasn't been progress made on other neat things as well. Below is a quick look at some of the additions that have been made to the backer build of the game since last we spoke. In fact, if you've not played the latest backer build in a while you can update your game right this instant and see all these changes for yourself!

Recent Backer Build Additions:

Visiting entertainers now appear in the tavern
A few region's layouts have changed (dramatically in some cases!)
A 'lemonade stand' to sell goods to villagers for a profit
New cooking and baking mechanics (some recipes now have consequences too...)
New art here and there, such as new fish sprites and idle animations for wandering villagers
Work done on NPC's so they act more intelligently (with new debug tools to better find NPC issues)
Blacksmith minigame improvements in both look and design
Continued refinements to controls and UI
Animation system refinements to anchor objects on frames for more accurate animation placement
And more polish and bug fixes than you can shake a stick at! (please stop shaking sticks)

In addition to the above, we've also been working on adding a number of first passes at upcoming features. It's all very rough and unrefined at the moment (and will continue to be for some time), but below is a small peek at some things we're working on for future updates.

Behind the Scenes Work:

Basic player customisation
Work on all four seasons (not the popular hotel chain)
New regions beyond The Vale
Editor brush system refinements to aid level design
Oh, and as already mentioned, combat!

UPCOMING GIVEAWAY

Almost everything we do on this project, ranging from backer rewards to the game itself, has been purely digital in nature. But if you're the sort of person who'd like to get your hands on an actual physical piece of the game's development then you'll be most interested to know that we've got a special giveaway coming sometime in the near future. (Ah, the near future. The magical land where all game developer dreams come true.)

To make sure you don't miss it, you'll want to give us a hearty follow over on Kynseed's Twitter as that's where we'll be sharing it first. But for good measure, also feel free to join the PixelCount Discord and join the PixelCount Community Forums, as we'll be announcing it there as well.

And while you're in a following sort of mood, you might as well subscribe to PixelCount's YouTube. We're going to be sharing some choice selections from the Kynseed soundtrack over the next few weeks and we'll be putting it all together in a handy YouTube playlist for all of you to enjoy, starting with the video featured at the very top of this update!

In late September we'll wander through the fallen leaves of Summer's ghosts, serving as a reminder of new seasons yet to come in The Vale. At this very moment, our artists are painting leaves and whitening snow in preparation for year round visitors.

Some not-so-distant day from now, we'll open the big gates to Kynseed so that everyone can visit. While we still don't know when this magical date will be, we do know that it's never too late to start preparing - especially given how humbled and surprised we were when so many of you showed up for an early look back in April.

It's important that we're ready and prepared for that grand day, so we've been busy putting plans together, plotting out ideas, and marking down calendars. We've even been rearranging things here at the castle so that we can accommodate as many guests as possible. Previously, our meat storage was kept on ground level but to make room we've moved it up to the castle tower. So the steaks are high.

Love,
PixelCount

Aug 13, 2018

The PixelCount Post - Issue #36

Kynseed - Matt Allen 🦇

Welcome to Issue #36 of The PixelCount Post, a periodically released update from Kynseed's team. In today's issue: Matt shares combat updates while parrying with puns, Charlie orders off the menu, Neal brushes up on brushing up, and Matthijs has fun without us.
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ

Here at PixelCount, interesting things are afoot and coming to a head with exciting announcements a mere arm's length away. We've been keeping our artists on their toes and they've been making more combat assets than you can shake a leg at. Their work has been amazing and we've really gotta hand it to them. Thus far, we've been keeping combat images pretty close to the chest, but this week that all changes! We'll also soon be talking about which neck of the woods some of this sword parrying will take place. All that to say, you'll want to keep an eye out for upcoming combat news.

Our current plan is to put together one of our larger development/backer updates later this week. In it we're going to give a very tentative first look at how combat animation is coming along as well as discuss a few details on how we envision combat's design to be implemented. We'll also be sharing a few morsels of info on when you fine people will get a chance to try out some of the very early versions of the combat systems in the future.

In other news, things have also been progressing nicely in new and existing areas of development. We've actually had our hands surprisingly full these past few weeks which has also been coupled with team member schedules being a bit all over the place. (For example, our dear composer has been away for a few weeks travelling around Estonia playing with other musicians! I'm personally looking forward to seeing what creative inspiration his trip has stirred within him, especially considering Estonia's amazing history.) This meant we didn't have a chance to put together a new issue of The Post until just now, but thankfully it's all for good reason due to getting some new content and announcements ready for your delectation.

So if you fancy learning a bit more about combat (which is the next big chunk of the game that we'll be adding), be sure to follow us in all the usual places. See you again later this week!

A very difficult week on a personal level with various happenings going on at home, but as the week closed out the problems were gone and I felt inspired and energised. Neal had the levels on lockout as he conjured up some new brush and tool magic to aid with level creation. That meant I could do a playthrough and note down everything we need for Early Access - there's a lot to do and not much time to do it!

I found playing to be very relaxing and enjoyable, although all the missing and broken bits make me shudder. But I know that they will be sorted, and looking beyond all that I could see a very special title; we just need to ensure we stay honest and stick to our path. Having great comments from our community is a huge part of that. We find that when we get positivity we get bursts of extra energy.

I also got to look at the Left D-Pad function. The controls will be moved to a section in the Options and replaced with a screen that has three tabs: Skills, Kynseed, and Status. These show a lot of info, so they'll need to be clean and consistent with other menus. I will post the mock ups in the Dev Pub in the near future. (I use Visio for them as it is easy for my technically limited brain and pap art skills.)

So then, onwards and upwards. So many exciting things happening (the monsters are incredible, combat looking potentially very cool, and so on). Glad you are all with us for the ride!

In the last few weeks, we've released a build (yay!) and have been working towards a planned build around the end of August. The attrition process I've been working with (slowly getting new features in step by step each day) has been mostly working out. Although there does come a time where it becomes necessary to focus more intensely on a particular area to get it usable and be able to move on.

Most recently that's been about setting up the brush mode to have saveable templates and make it possible to paint down multiple sprites in the same brush. These small, but important, additions should make it much easier to fill out the landscapes (though a further few pieces I need to work on is the spacing of sprites and the ability to replace anything already in that area so that areas can have a consistent density and be instantly reimagined).

Along with this tools work, I've also been looking at improving some systems like animations to have anchor points within their frames. This allows more accurate placing of objects per frame such as the fishing line and will also be used for holding objects and potentially paired anims at a later point. After a small experiment at getting the pixel color of a given point on a texture I've also been able to setup something which may well be the key to doing some basic character customisation which will be expanded on soon.

I've also been starting to have some thoughts on polish and ways to improve the UI which has honestly been a bit of a nightmare setting up (each screen is custom hand created and it makes iteration work really quite time consuming). This should tie in nicely with an interesting new UI screen that has been mocked up. There's also playthrough feedback and plans that have to get underway too. So much to do, so time to get back to it!

Note from the Editor: Our good friend and musician has been spending these past few weeks all across the beautiful regions of Estonia alongside a merry traveling band. The following two entries were sent about a week apart as he found time to write in from his travels. - Matt

I find myself far away from home today. I have left the safety of the Vale and entered strange lands where I don't speak the language. Even though the landscape looks largely the same here in Estonia, it's also different. My trip through Latvia on the way here especially reminded me of landscapes from The Witcher or Operation Flashpoint. I'd imagine it's not unlike how the player character might feel once they can leave the Vale.

In these countries they have strong traditions of music, especially singing. They can even manage to get a few tens of thousands of people together to sing important folk songs that celebrate their independence. You'd not go through that without being moved should you have the opportunity to hear it. It's also that strong tradition of music why I am here. Each year choirs from all over Europe come together to sing and learn through courses and ateliers. I will be taking part, and return home with what I've learnt. No doubt inspiration from this will find it's way into Kynseed...

I find myself near Vilnius today, about to leave the Baltic states. My journey home isn't over yet. I still have to cross Poland and Germany. My week in Tallinn at Europa Cantat was an extraordinary learning experience. So many ways of making music from all over the world gather there. So much to see, absorb, and make my own. Music has always been rife with foreign influence, and for Kynseed I frequently have to dive into cultures of music I was previously unfamiliar with. Learning how composers the world over adopt aspects of music from other places and make it their own has been great! You may not realize it, but even the modern orchestra would not exist without constant adopting of instruments from elsewhere.

I also witnessed top-notch performances from absolutely amazing groups, such as the Swingles, the Estonian national male choir, the Hong Kong youth choir, Collegium Musicale, and many more. When surrounded by so much excellence in music, you can't help but to learn things! All the more appropriate that the lectures I witnessed were in the University buildings. It was literally 'back to school' for me. Tallinn is also filled to the brim with amazing concert halls with stunning architecture.

This too inspires greatly, and reiterated to me just how important it is to surround yourself with the right things. You are constantly influenced by everything around you, even when it's not actively trying to influence you. Take control over your environment and you greatly increase your chances for a brighter future...

Jul 24, 2018

The PixelCount Post - Issue #35

Kynseed - Matt Allen 🦇

Welcome to Issue #35 of The PixelCount Post, a periodically released update from Kynseed's team. In today's issue: Charlie adds a new addiction to his collection, Neal organizes tasks, Matthijs shares a 20 second snippet, and Matt enters into a new season.
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ

I have a new addiction to add to my addiction to cheese, yoghurts, Rocket League, and bubble baths. We received a bunch of assets for the first hub area, Rivermoor, and the next haven of Summerdown. At first I looked at the bewildering array of tiles and multiple variants of grass and foliage, and felt lost. These sprite sheets are like jigsaw puzzles, and for a newbie to 2D art like me, they can be mind boggling. However, once I started to use the scree and pieced together a few streams and ponds, it all clicked.

There is just something so relaxing yet energising about creating beautiful places, and you get lost in the process. Every blade of grass and sprig of heather is thought about. Every reed and lily pad is placed with all sorts of thoughts in mind. Is it easy to see? Does it make it too busy? Would this go here? Why is this here? Having an empty level is daunting but once a few things have been marked out and it starts to come together it is very enjoyable.

This used to be the case on Fable...I just wanted to get to the prettying stage. Having detail in your levels is a way of showing the players that you really poured a lot of love into it. I am no artist, and so anything I ever made look good is a testament to the artists and tools that allow me to slap stuff down and somehow get away with it.

I feel that is what made Fable so great and different - regions were a bit slapdash and higgeldy piggeldy. We want that same thing here. No RPGMaker tiled clones. Just organic, messy areas, full of life and nooks to explore.

For me, the world is what makes the game as much as story and characters and mechanics. We hope that Quill gives you as much satisfaction and adventure as the cherished land of Albion.

The week has gone by pretty fast, perhaps a consequence of a renewed focus with cogs turning and new exciting work under way! I think also three other things helped for me. 1) I did stop to reflect about what I was worried about at the moment and figure out what I could do to or what I should acknowledge as something out of my control (comparisons to past and an unknowable future). 2) I started streaming internally my work. 3) Putting together a task list to complete per day.

I think between them it helped me a lot to get more into a state of flow and be more conscientious in my work, realising how I could better it. The task list also showed how splitting up the larger tasks into less intimidating steps per day, combined with smaller ones, helped avoid the fatigue of working on the same thing too long.

It's interesting how I feel like this continues a cycle of rediscovering productive ways to work. In another few weeks/months I'll probably have forgotten these steps or find that once they became routine it no longer helps. There seems to be a constant requirement of either evolving or perhaps more importantly reminding oneself the actions that work best (as I do feel like my mind is very chaotic in flitting from one area to the next). Anyway, self-analysing aside, work has continued on the selling via 'stall feature' along with a few other improvements to the build as I go through bug reports and backlogs of work and art to import. I feel like I say it a lot, but it's still exciting to see the game shape up and slowly gain ground towards the intended vision!

In the further week since this was written, I had a few days off as a mini-break and have since then been reassembling myself again. I realised I'd gotten a bit stale in my habits outside work and that a shakeup was needed. I can already feel the benefit of doing so with new thoughts floating around and an improved drive around what needs doing. Aside from the usual build updates, I've been putting in a little time into some editor additions/improvements for Charlie. It's been a while since I've last worked on this but it has become sorely needed as the number of levels, and pieces to assemble them, increases. Getting that workflow faster will be a great help to keep the momentum going and leave time for iteration and all the other work to up the size and quality of this game.

Very recently (last night from when I'm writing this), we got to do something I think is really cool: make a little 20 second preview of an upcoming region and then post it on Twitter. It had the region's new assets, including music being shown off for the first time.

It was so early in development that I'm actually still working on that music now. But it also meant that I could see feedback really early on, accompanied by graphics from the location in the game it was written for. Since I am still working on the track, I can make use of that feedback immediately. It's a really cool way of engaging the community that I'd love to try more often!

The track has a bit of history by now actually. This is the fourth attempt at this track! Luckily that doesn't always happen to me, or I'd go slightly more insane than I already am. I'd love to brag that I have a perfect hit-rate in music, buuuut I don't. The thing that finally helped me get it right was Charlie telling me what real-life moor this region in the game is based on. It meant I could look up local folk music to that area and see what instruments were used. In addition to that, a video of folk music he shared solidified my ideas of what to try next. The result is what you hear previewed in that tweet.

Well, by now the track is at 2:20 minutes as of writing this. By the time you read this I hope to have it completed already. However, for the next couple of weeks I'm not going to be around! I'm going to Estonia to take a week long course on composing and conducting. But since I'm travelling by trailer, the journey there and back again will take a while also. It meant I had to try and anticipate on what music and sound assets would be needed in the next few weeks and deliver those as best I could before I go. Predicting things weeks in advance in games development is impossible though, so it's a guess at best. I hope that despite my absence nobody in the team will be waiting on assets from me.

It seems that everything comes and goes in seasons. The spring gives way to summer. A new hobby this week becomes next week's boredom. Life's happiness will be punctuated by sorrow. Today's good habits will trade places with tomorrow's old vices.

Here on the team, it seems that creative projects are no exception to that ebb and flow. At times, this project provides an ever present reminder that game development is occasionally unexciting. Usually this is due to working on necessary but relatively mundane tasks. A spreadsheet here, a bug fix there, a team call to attend, an email to write. But then suddenly the excitement sneaks up on us again, jumps out from behind a bush, and gives us a good slap. Such is the season we find ourselves in presently, because a lot of those mundane tasks have finally begun to culminate to an integral step in the game's development. In this case, that next step is adding monsters, attack animations, enemy AI, hit boxes, and brand new regions.

Combat is something that we've had planned since the very inception of the game's concept, long before we knew what to name the project or even ourselves. So the team has been anticipating this stage of development for quite some time. It all still has a long ways to go, but we're finally able to see visual evidence of combat manifesting itself within the game engine. It's just basic mechanics at the moment, but the combat systems will get refined and adjusted and mulled over many times. So much of a game's combat is in many ways intangible - it's more a feeling than anything. Either the combat exists in that sweet spot or it doesn't. So getting it just right will be an ongoing process, but the important thing is that this process has formally begun.

So now that we find ourselves in a period of exciting new content being developed, I get to start doing one of my favorite things: sharing it all. You've likely read about us talking about combat in prior issues of The Post, oftentimes with a certain level of vagueness, but we are now at the stage of things where we'll be able to start showing much of this new content in the weeks (and perhaps even days) ahead. Keep an eye towards Twitter, our forums, and possibly even Discord, where we'll be gradually revealing all manner of wild beasts and overgrown wilderness.

Jul 11, 2018

The PixelCount Post - Issue #34

Kynseed - Matt Allen 🦇

Welcome to Issue #34 of The PixelCount Post, a periodically released update from Kynseed's team. In today's issue: Charlie does world building, Neal goes running with swords, Matthijs is off drumming, and Matt makes feature highlight videos. Plus, Punch's puns!
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ

Well after last week's bump on the head (login problems and forgetfulness), I have finally got around to writing an update. I have been getting on with various design docs like the food and stamina system, combat and monster stuff, plus tidying up some older docs such as the world map.

Speaking of which, work has begun on the regions outside The Vale. The editor map now shows 3 havens and 3 hubs with 1 combat zone. That's pretty much half the world, although roughing out is only going to be done on the first hub and the Summerdown region initially. My favourite part of world building is actually naming places (and people). Used to love doing that on Fable. *sigh*

Sadly, this week has been hampered by the appalling heat. Being a pasty northerner, anything above 20 degrees melts me like an ice lolly up a dragons bum. I have no idea how that got up there. Perhaps he fell off a ladder onto it.

I feel the cogs are starting to fully turn again now and that the energy is returning to the team after the E3 lull. I have been getting in to Shadow of War, which was a tenner in Tesco on PS4, and am really enjoying it. It is definitely inspiring some ideas. So onwards and upwards!

Combat developed a bit further this week. There's a lot of bits still to pick away at. I mostly concentrated on the presentation stuff first so still have work to do to make it all editable ingame/editor. While setting up some 'run with swords' animations I did realise the setup for animations is a little clumsy right now. There's a lot of animations that have representations in 4 directions and each of them is set up independently. I could look at pushing them together into a bundle so that they can have some common properties and dial back a little on the manual setup that they require. On the other hand though, after doing that work (which I'd reckon to take at least a few hours), the difference noticeable ingame will ideally be none. It'll just be a little faster for setup and editing.

It's one of a few dilemmas I have when coding to expand or repeat actions previously taken. Which I guess comes down to: is it worth the effort? In this case, 'not worth the effort' is winning currently but perhaps I'll change my tune on the next new set that needs adding!

Other progress was made this week in getting up to date on art assets. There's still a fair few left but the basic pieces for the next set of levels has been imported, which will start our push out into new areas of the game (though it'll be a while before any of these is playable in the build). I've also started work on the player's ability to sell via a stall which should feature in the next build.

We've also been planning out the next few months work. There's a tricky balance at the moment in terms of what we can do to improve the current build vs pave the way to future releases (including eventually the full release build!) and it's been good to get it on paper and see the exciting stuff coming.

I'm not actually here. As I talked about last week, I'm abroad this week. Well, technically I'm writing this from the past when I'm still at home, just to make things more confusing.

Just before leaving I had some discussions on sword fighting sound effects that I'll be working on some more when I get back. For now I'm in Poland, doing some drumming! I'll predicatively say that Poland is amazing, but I look forward to seeing y'all again! You're such an awesome community that I can't but preemptively miss you. See you again soon!

My article this week will be short and sweet, like a tiny dog. The main reason for this is that I've found myself surprisingly swamped with a ton of tasks, but all of them ones I'm finding fun to work on.

One such example is that I'm making feature highlight videos. This involves playing the game and focusing specifically on a feature while capturing footage. The idea is to play the feature to its fullest conclusion - basically, go through everything that you can do for a feature in the current build. I then edit this together into a summarized 'highlight' video which will serve as a condensed video to show off the full gameplay journey of that feature.

However, these videos will be a bit different in that they're not being made to share publicly. They're for us to moll over and take notes on. The reason for this is that there's a surprising amount of little things you don't notice when actively playing the game, but when watching video of the game you suddenly find yourself noticing all sorts of little areas that need fixing.

That's just one of the things I'm working on this week. That said, I'm sure you're all due for one of my signature ramble-heavy articles sometime soon, so I'll endeavor to regale you with development tales in next week's issue.

This week, our friendly neighbourhood Fool, Punch, shares some of his best quips with us. So strap on your codpiece, grab your balls, and get ready to juggle your funny bone with these creamy crackers...

ᅠᅠᅠThey say a good invisible man is hard to find.

ᅠᅠᅠAfter my sword practice against straw dummies I hit the hay.

ᅠᅠᅠI had a hobby-horse.
ᅠᅠᅠHe loved board games, sewing and collecting butterflies.

ᅠᅠᅠThe best quality gunpowder you can’t hold a candle to.

ᅠᅠᅠI was going to open the world’s smallest tavern.
ᅠᅠᅠWell that was my inn-tent.

ᅠᅠᅠMy wife had a face that launched a thousand ships.
ᅠᅠᅠIt is shaped like a bottle.

ᅠᅠᅠAt the new pet protection home there isn’t room to swing a cat.

ᅠᅠᅠWhy do princesses sleep well?
ᅠᅠᅠBecause they always have a good knight in bed.

ᅠᅠᅠWhat do you call a wandering herb trader?
ᅠᅠᅠA thyme traveller.

ᅠᅠᅠWhat is a banshees favourite dessert?
ᅠᅠᅠIce cream.