Pingouin & Raptor 2 years anniversary

 

It's time to review the last 2 years of Pingouin & Raptor's existence!

Production: I started the game development early 2018 with the help of my friends from Tuesday Quest.
It took 2 years and a half to complete a free to play version with ads.
The game got released in June 2020 on Google Play and 2 months later on the App Store. I made a huge update with paying content in December 2020, and another one in September 2021. Then I added two new free to play levels for Halloween and Christmas 2021 (this one was delayed to January 2022).

Results: over 8k downloads and around 30$ revenue every month. It's not much, but it's not zero!

Hardships:
    Motivation... big ups and downs cause working as a solo developer, there's obviously no one else to make progress when I can't.

    Time: of course I have to prioritise what I'm working on and whatever's paid goes first! This is slowing down production even more (which is already very slow ^^").

    Stores: Lately it got harder to publish a game on mobile stores, I seriously don't have the knowledge, time and patience and all those guidelines keep changing every month. My game is very simple and cute but it's a free to play with ads, so I had to remove it from the Google Family program and even from the children category. It's very sad but I just can't keep up.

    Visibility: I don't have much reach over social medias and even if I did my best, I clearly lack time and ideas for marketing, and funds for acquisition. Soooooo, unsurprisingly downloads are insignificant and my game is slowly disappearing. Also, it was great to present the game to the public in gaming events during its production, but with the pandemic, I haven't yet attended an event where I could show my game now that it's available...

Benefits:
I finished a game! That's still a small miracle and a big achievement! :D
People play it and sometimes they leave a nice comment (yeah I know there's not enough levels...).

Future:
Earlier this year I started to work on new levels in the Castle of Pingouin & Raptor. This will be a big update, with beautiful music from Cadred! My goal is to publish it this year and then... I don't know... 
I'm very tired and so far 2022 is kicking my ass... ^^" 
So I'm planning a new project and... it's not a video game O.O

Stay tuned! ;)

2022 Goals

After a whole year of Dreamscape weekly challenge that exhausted me, and a January month full of work and unexpected commissions, I took the time to think things through and here there are!

My plans for 2022 \o/

    - First of all, Pingouin & Raptor. I still have ideas for that little game, more free levels of course, and I will add a new part on the map: a castle. 😀

Pingouin’s castle

Also I would like to work on a trailer for promoting the game better, something really cute and colorful, with all the little plushies having fun in the house. First step: the storyboard!

    - Next, new packages for the Asset Store:

This year I plan to release two new asset packs for the Spooky Town series, a game user interface pack and the much awaited second part of the original Spooky Town, with the cemetery and gothic buildings. 😁 

Spooky Town GUI research

I also work on an extension of the FOOD pack with pixel art sprites.

Veggies are ready, fruits incoming!

    - Last but not the least, my next game project! Pre-production is well advanced, now I need more place-holders to start prototyping. Hopefully I’ll make some progress by the end of the year. 😃

Aaaaaand… that’s it! Well that’s more than enough actually, we’ll see if I can make all of this happen. 😅

Dreamscape weekly challenge: DONE!

 Finally, after 50 artworks done each week, my dreamscape weekly challenge is complete!

(I kept the last 2 weeks as a joker, cause I wasn't sure I would be consistent, also they wouldn't fit in the final picture 😁)

Here's the result:

First semester was easy, I was very inspired, I knew what i wanted to create and I had old sketches to rework. Then it got a little tougher to deliver a new artwork every week. 

Mid-summer I was out of inspiration but I still managed to make a few pieces I like a lot. 

Autumn... that got too hard so I switched to pixel art, hoping it would be refreshing:

12 weeks of pixel art

Finished with a Gold Dragon cause why not? Turned out looking more or less like my parents' cat 😂

Same energy

Overall I had fun and it was an interesting journey, but I won't try another yearlong challenge anytime soon. I realized it clashes with my professional work, which is also a yearlong weekly production 😅. In the future I'll stick to my favorite challenges maysketchaday and pixtober (which I absolutely failed to complete this year 😬)!

What will I do now? I already have too many crazy ideas, like starting another game by myself while adding more content to Pingouin & Raptor... Stay tuned!

Dreamscape Update!

We're in July already and my Dreamscape weekly challenge is going well!

29 pictures done and counting 😄

Here's a sample:

And line art:

 

Arranging a room in the house of Pingouin & Raptor

While I'm working on new levels for Pingouin & Raptor: hidden object, let's review how I'm making those with the Hallway level as an example! 😀 

Background

First of all I gather a lot of references, here's a sample:

I choose one, or plus, main reference that I use for the lay-out of the level. Here, I liked the corner and the big window, and the set-up of the chair with its footstool:

Then I create the perspective grid that will help me to design other elements and furniture.
I draw a quick rough of everything...

...before drawing a clear line art:

For colors, I also have different references which help to create the right atmosphere. In this case, I went with a marine theme, and I really liked the contrast of the orange elements with the main blue colors in some of the pictures.

Objects and Level Design

The background's ready! It's time to design objects:

That's probably the longer task of my process. I usually need one full day of work to rough every object. Ideas don't always come easily, I need to be inspired!
There are 30 to 40 different objects in a level, they need to be different enough that the player cannot confuse them with one another, and when possible, a bit tricky to find 😁. Also, to make the game color-blind user friendly, I cannot use colors in the description of an object.

Final version of the objects takes another couple of days, then I have to integrate everything in Unity, and send the texts to the translators. And then a new level is finally ready!

The whole process takes 6-7 days that I usually spread over two weeks or more if I have client work.

I aim to craft each level carefully without rushing, to make them all special and as polished as I can.

I hope players can feel the time, dedication and love that went into this game! 😊

Dreamscape

This year I created my own weekly challenge to get a few images out of my head!
Every week I will post a new picture in a simple style, line + color, and sometimes I animate them!

Here's what I made so far:

Animated

Animated

This will also help me for my next game project! While I'm still working on Pingouin & Raptor Summer update, I'm starting to define the world where the next game will take place, and its game design, and gameplay.

I hope I'll be able to create all 52 pictures and post one every week 😀 I don't know what this will bring me, will I learn and make some progress? This far it's been really fun and inspiring!

Pingouin & Raptor: what's new?!

Happy New Year from Pingouin & Raptor!

What happened lately? Well I finally launched the first (paying) package of levels in December. 😄

I had no idea it would take 6 months to complete this update, including one whole month for publishing. 😱

But everything is now in place for more levels and hopefully the Summer 2021 update will be smoother!

I started to work on the cute little shops from the Village nearby Pingouin's mansion. 

So here's my roadmap:

    Spring: maybe new languages
    June/July: new levels

    After: ???

Last news: Pingouin & Raptor passed 5000 downloads 😎🎉
Not bad for a game I made by myself 😅