One very important part of our game brainstorming process is to collect references of things we are actually fans of; this is crucial if we are going to work on a game for several months. To give you an idea of our inspirations for Project Phoenix, we made this… soup of themes and elements we like:
 

 
I guess now you might have an idea of Phoenix’s game genre. As soon we finish some registration processes, we will start talking deeper about the main character, levels, worlds and the graphic style; based on the images we showed you.

Thanks for reading!
Craythur

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine told me that “Obvious things are easy to perceive, but sometimes they are not easy to find out.”… Or something like that… The point is, that in this devblog we will give an example of how to design and reuse graphic assets for a cross-platform menu interface. It could be obvious for some people, but hopefully it will help others to take this idea into account.

In the last post we discussed that Project Phoenix will be targeted to mobile devices and personal computers: Android tablets, iPads, PC and Mac. This means that the player will interact with a touchscreen, a keyboard or a gamepad.
 
One important point, suggested by our graphic designer, is that the game should not look like a mainstream mobile game since it’s also going to run on a PC or Mac. Bearing this in mind, we made our first approach:

Ok… please ignore the graphics and colors; let’s just keep up with the functionality of the code.

Keyboard or gamepad: Since we need the player to identify the chosen option, the menu has a green moving arrow that highlights the player’s choice. Also, the selected options change to another color. In this case the option “Leaderboards” is selected. This interaction is made with the up and down arrow keys/ buttons.  To execute the option the player must press Enter or the A button in the gamepad.
 
Touchscreen device: There is no need to tell the player where he is pointing out, since the main interface input is the player’s own finger!! That means that to execute an option, the player simply needs to tap the screen on the desired option.
 
The menus have the same height and width; designed to use the same graphics assets, fonts and number of options as the PC and Mac versions. Also, the system modifies itself when it detects if the game is running on a touchscreen or not. This will help us give the game the same user experience and appearance in different devices.
 
That’s part of our progress in January. We hope these ideas help you on your next cross-platform game!
 
So, what’s the game about? Keep up with this devblog to find out!

Cheers,

Craythur

]]> http://greenlavastudios.com/2013/02/cross-platform-menu/feed/ 0 http://greenlavastudios.com/2012/12/hello-world/ http://greenlavastudios.com/2012/12/hello-world/#comments Mon, 31 Dec 2012 17:19:49 +0000 Craythur http://greenlavastudios.com/?p=789 Hello!

Happy New Year and welcome to our DevBlog!

The year 2012 was great and we were able to learn a lot from it. Winning the “Runner Up Award” at the Square Enix Latin America Game Contest 2012 was very encouraging for us. In addition, our game Dream Tale: The Golden Keys was the best commercial experience we could ever had. Currently we are polishing other games, but the main reason why we are making this DevBlog is because of our next game: Project Phoenix.

We want you to learn about this game’s development process and we will cover all the aspects that we can, starting with 2 basic things: final user and platform selection.

Project Phoenix is meant for the Y and Z generations and it is aimed mainly for hardcore gamers who can handle a midnight adrenaline rush. Why? It’s simple: we like to make difficult games.

So, about the development platform, with this final user description maybe you are thinking of a PS3 or Wii U console, but let’s be honest: that’s a little bit expensive for an indie studio. There are other options of course and that’s why we are hitting the PC and Mac environments. However, there are other popular platforms around: mobile devices.  Android and iOS are going big in games; we all should not ignore that. The problem is that most smarthphones have a small screen size… and our team has a clear position on this topic: we want to play our games in big screens. Our solution: focus on iPads and Android Tablets. Project Phoenix will look beautiful… on HD.

In a nutshell, our platform choice is: PC, Mac, iPads and Android Tablets. Ouya is also an option, but we should see in which direction the wind blows.

With these platforms in mind, we will design the game for different hardware interactions. Currently the game has full Xbox controller  and keyboard support, but how about the user experience in a flat multi-touch screen?

In the next DevBlog we are going to talk about menu design for cross platform hardware devices, stay tuned!

Cheers,

Craythur

It was an honor to receive this award at this contest.

This game tells the story of Woby, a little burning meteor. After having an accident while traveling through space, he and his girlfriend Layla crashed in an unknown planet. Now Woby has to rescue Layla and find a way back into space. But the task will not be easy, since primitive food-loving monsters inhabit this planet and they are looking for fire to cook their meals. Since the monsters can’t make fire on their own, they go after Woby. Therefore, Woby must avoid these creatures through 80 unique hand drawn levels with 4 different themes. Escape from the hungry monsters! Burn different elements to distract them!  Save the girl and collect ALL the gems! Woby needs you!

 

Thank you ALL for your support!

Please stay tuned!

Features

Game Trailer

Features

Game Trailer

]]> http://greenlavastudios.com/2011/01/agujeros/feed/ 0 http://greenlavastudios.com/2011/01/green-lava-tour-2/ http://greenlavastudios.com/2011/01/green-lava-tour-2/#comments Sat, 15 Jan 2011 20:03:30 +0000 greenlavaman http://greenlavastudios.com/?p=139 The best way to get to know us is by playing a video game. In this game you take a tour inside Green Lava Studio’s facilities. The tour starts as a guided visit to our studios until something unexpected happens to our director. You can be the hero of this story!

Game Trailer