Liquid Crystal

There are three things I’m working on:

Dancing Lights will continue to receive a number of updates.  I want to keep it constantly evolving, changing with the times, and always representing my latest line of thought.  Expect further enhancements to the graphics along with a few additional levels.  I plan on submitting it to next year’s Independent Games Festival.

Movement is starting to receive a lot of attention from me.  It’s an iPhone project which will feature fluid controls and glowing pixels.  Currently, I’m focusing purely on how it controls.  Movement isn’t a huge project; I hope to have it out sometime this year.

Then there’s Communication, a project poised to be Liquid Crystal’s epic maneuver.  It exists only in bits and pieces at the moment, but someday it will all come together.

“Flowers” by Mark Coyle

Dancing Lights has been released for the iTunes store worldwide.  With its release comes the summary of what exactly I was trying to achieve:

Dancing Lights is a re-imagining of childhood discovery. Behind its abstract shapes and basic rules is a world of limitless depth, morphing into different forms based on your thoughts and mood. Will the experience be relaxing, tense, intriguing, or something completely different? Simply touch a light and see where it takes you.

February 2010
David Anton

App Store Link: iTunes | Dancing Lights

I’m proud to be able to finally announce Liquid Crystal’s first game.  Dancing Lights is a puzzle game coming to the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch.  It’s under review at the moment, and should be released before the end of February.  Now for a little history behind the project…

Back in 2005, Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, made a comment about, “a game that’s played by sound and touching light.” It was during a time where he demanded that the industry change and try to create new types of games. I thought about this for several weeks years and formed the basis of Dancing Lights, a game designed around the concept of discovery.

I challenged everything from the notion of score to the need for detailed instructions.  I wanted to create an experience which mimicked my first interactions with a videogame.  I had no instructions, nor did I care about a number.  Only two things mattered: the response I got from ‘touching’ the game and the sheer joy of discovery.  Soon you’ll be able to experience this for yourself.

Links
Dancing Lights

Game Development
The development of my avant-garde game of discovery for the iPhone is wrapping up nicely.  It should be submitted to Apple for App Store approval within a couple of weeks.  Expect details soon.

Analysis
Outside of game development, I have been analyzing a couple of famous game designs.  I’m in the process of turning these notes into a more digestible reading experience with entertaining highlights for all to enjoy.  The names of the games?  Well, they both come from different parts of Asia…

What’s next in terms of development?
A lot.  Really.  I have been brainstorming different types of art styles and the animation that goes with them.  It bugs me to see complicated art paired with shoddy (or total lack of) animation.  I’ve been studying and doing tests with “glowing” pixels, monochromatic design, positive & negative space, simulated paint, and 16-bit art styles.

In addition to this art style initiative,  I have a couple of “touch demos” I’d like to begin working on soon.  These won’t be much more complicated than one of those 5-10 second WarioWare minigames, but they will allow me to find the fun and match an art style with each demo.

In my life…
I’ve been enjoying New Super Mario Bros. Wii quite a bit.  The way multiplayer transforms the experience makes going through the game multiple times a treat.  Whether you play by yourself or with friends, the finely tuned difficulty keeps players going for “one more try.”

If you’re looking for some other new games to pick up, I recommend Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, Dead Space Extraction, NyxQuest, and Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story.

I’m currently reading The Elements of Style (Strunk/White) and The Glass Bead Game (Hesse).  I don’t have much to say on either at this point, but they will both undoubtedly influence my future work.

Links
Donkey Kong & Dig Dug paintings (Brock Davis)

A screenshot from a previous rendition of Dancing Lights

Creativity cannot be scheduled.  It can come from all the time in the world or from no time at all.  Some thrive in open environments, while others build from restriction.  I’ve never really formally announced a game since beginning this blog.  I threw a post up earlier this year which mentioned the game and its lofty goals, but since then I’ve silenced the wire.  Since development can change so quickly and frequently, I don’t see the point, but with a project finally nearly completion, it’s time to say something.  So let’s get started.

For the past six months, I’ve been working on a project tentatively named “discovery.”  The original goal was to create an abstract playing field with few, if any, preconceptions and ever evolving gameplay.  Each game would be a new discovery.  Players could find games or make their own based on all of the random elements at work.  Unfortunately, it was a concept which was too difficult for me.  The project later evolved into a design where players would decipher patterns, but it was too complex and lacked the intuitiveness I was looking for.

Then several things happened.  I purchased a MacBook and decided to turn the experience into an exercise in minimalistic computing.  I had also tried Drop7, a falling blocks puzzle game with numbers.  While it wasn’t an amazing experience, it was a thoughtful one.  It made me re-evaluate the use of random variables and score.  Normally, I love scores.  In Wii Fit, I continuously practiced and worked my way to a perfect “555″ score in the soccer game.  I was initially enticed by Drop7’s simplicity, but learned it was anything but.  With so many variables, it’s nigh impossible to develop a gradual build up of skill.  I haven’t given up on Drop7, I’m still working hard to decipher some kind of logic behind it.  If nothing else, it’s helped me build a foundation for Discovery.

With these lessons fresh in my mind, I set out to find the fun in Discovery.  I peeled off layer upon layer of complexity and made the code flexible so I could try new ideas at a fast pace.  On a late night, I had found the fun I was looking for.

With the prototype of Discovery nearing completion, the main hurdles ahead are balance and flow.  I hope to have a release candidate sent to Apple for evaluation by early summer.  Yes, it’s going to be for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

We’re a new indie game development team looking to push the concepts of exploration and creativity in interactive entertainment.  This blog will serve as a public document of our growth and development.  We’ll be sharing our tales of studying “the Nintendo difference,” art creation, and the finer points of game development along with specific game observations we discover.