Pixel Noir News

[h2]Hey everyone![/h2]

As we get to the end of another hot Summer, we're excited to close out several of our tasks! But, before we get to the progress we've made in these last few months, we wanted to announce that we're launching our very own SWDTech Games Discord server!



Over the last few months we've built a little home for our dev team on Discord and we are ready to open it up backers/fans/cactuars to provide a space for our community to grow. Over at our Discord server, you'll be able to communicate directly with the development team, get granular development updates, stay in the know when we're streaming development of Pixel Noir, catch the latest screenshots & gifs teasing the game until launch, connect with other backers *cough RPG nerds cough*, and more! So join our Discord server, claim your role, & post as many detective/RPG memes as you want!

Important note for backers: please follow the directions in the #choose-your-role channel so that we can add you as a Kickstarter backer! Once you're added, you'll have access to #backer-lounge where we'll drop specific announcements and answer generic backer inquiries!


If David Tennant can't convince you to join, probably nobody can

[h2]Progress [/h2]
While we are keeping a lid on an estimated release date until development is finished, we wanted to give you an update on the short list of tasks we laid out in the beginning of the year.

Since our last update, we've finished:

• Collectible Placement - Treasure boxes, bundles of cash and items found through using Investigation Mode are now all in the game!
  
• Shops, Traders, Grifters, & Black Markets - Yes, that's right folks you can buy, sell, and get ripped off now in the streets of Pinnacle City!
  
• Battle Encounter Placement - Now you'll find patrolling baddies that might jump you around town! We've also added mimic type enemies!

This is what we have left before we can ramp up on porting & localization!

• Bugs, bugs and more bugs - Yes, these still are popping up, but we are tracking less with every play test! This will be an ongoing task, even through patching but we want to make sure game play is as tight as possible.
  
• Battle / Skill / Stat Balancing - This is the longest, most tedious task in testing. We closed out our first (and longest) pass of balancing and are working through our second pass.
  
• Polish - We are continuing to fine-tune audio, cinematics, dialogue, and flesh out extra features such as CRDTech encounters. This will be an ongoing task until we launch.

Along with the many features we've been polishing and testing from the last update, we're working our way through implementing the visual effects for skills & items in battle. It's a much-neglected area that hasn't been updated since the Early Access release. Here's a sneak peek at some of the changes!

Woof swinging that chain so fast that it creates wind shear!
Is it fair to say that this thug has officially been mooned?
Slowing down is sometimes the best way to speed up. #showerthoughts
A little randomness never hurt anyone....maybe.
Who's ready for a cocktail party?

Here's what items now look like when used in battle!

[h2]Audio[/h2]
Here's a sample of the Fish Market BGM which will play in (you guessed it) the Fish Market! Here you'll be assailed by a number of colorful union teamsters and other fishy characters!

https://soundcloud.com/discover/sets/track-stations:1121178766

[h2]That's It For Now
[/h2]Before we sign off, there's a small issue we wanted to address. In recent weeks, our development progress tracker (the Roadmap) has been on the fritz. It's fixed now, but if you've noticed a slowdown in code pushes, know that we were chugging away--it's just that the code pushes weren't updating publicly. It should all be fixed with the correct data now. As it turns out several Google API's were updated causing the issue on our end.


Our next update will be out on Dec. 9th (exactly 3 months from this update). As always, follow our official Roadmap / Twitter bot. Also, don't forget to check in on Leo's Pixel Noir development streams on Twitch Monday and Thursday nights and now Len's NEW Development streams on Fridays to see the game's progression in real time!

//Team SWDTech

It’s been a busy couple of months here at SWDTech!! We’ve got a lot to share with you, so let’s jump right in!




We had a little controversy with the Vita news a couple of months ago where we thought Sony was going to shut down it's online store for Vita. Apparently some very vocal Vita fans spoke up with passion to this news which forced Sony to keep its digital marketplace online (meaning we all can still buy the games on the marketplace). However, this move leaves developers like us in the dust because Sony won't be allowing new digitally released games to populate it's online store for Vita. (Source 1: Official PS blog - Source 2 Playstationlifestyle.net's article). We may be able to homebrew it digitally, but we are still looking into figuring this option out. Obviously this news also means that there won't be a physical release of Pixel Noir on the Vita. That said, we've got a laundry list of porting to do, so we're going to have to consider our approach here. Hopefully, Sony rethinks this decision and allows game developers to add new titles in the future.

With that we're off to the development updates! We're continuing to progress through our list of open items from last update.

::continues scanning news from Sony::

Stat-balancing isn't the most exciting element in the development of an RPG, but it's absolutely essential to delivering a balanced gameplay experience. As of this update, all seven chapters now feature balanced allies, enemies, and gear. But we are going to do another pass or two to tweak difficulty as necessary but that will take far less time than this initial pass.



Along with balancing, we've also been adding semi-scripted random battles throughout the game. Watch your step in Pinnacle City, you never know when someone will try to mug you!

Run away!

All main plot lines and cases (side quests) have been loaded into the case manager! This means that you will now have clues for each case as well as highlighted map tiles indicating key locations for almost any selected case.

As a detective, it's up to you to figure out where your next clue lies within that highlighted tile...


Just for a small quality of life improvement, we added arrows that point to doors and teleports in the game world by activating the detective's investigation mode.

FF7 called... They want their teleport arrows back!


That's right folks, we are adding a battle arena into the game hosted by our very own cameo appearance of Shovel Knight! He runs a virtual arena in the Tronics shop Downtown where you can battle the game's various enemies for prizes!

Look into my eyes.... *poof* You're in battle land!


As you might recall, New Game + was a stretch goal. This feature will allow a player, upon completing the game, to start a new game with their experience, money, items and skills, but this time the player can make different choices, which could lead to different outcomes.

How many cigarettes can the you get the Detective to smoke in your *SECOND* playthrough?


From the beginning of the year to this point we've been play testing rigorously to eliminate any game/emersion breaking bugs as well as adding finishing touches throughout the game. For example, door sounds were added to every environment in the game. Check it out!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We've also added some cool flash and sprite coloring effects to our cinematics for more of a dramatic effect!

A bloody, dramatic *Color Flash*!

Background color filter test sample.

Off screen explosions!


Finally, here's a sample of the Uptown over world theme! Uptown is a nice part of town where Pinnacle City's more affluent citizens live. Here you can find the Apparel Mall, the Tronics Factory, and the Pinnacle City Gazette! Check it out:

https://soundcloud.com/pixeltonemusic/uptown-overworld-sample





Our next update will be out on Sep 9th. As always, follow our official Roadmap / Twitter bot. Also, don't forget to check in on Leo's Pixel Noir development streams on Twitch Monday and Thursday nights to see the game's progression in real time!

//Team SWDTech

Hey everybody,

This is Len Stuart, creative director behind Pixel Noir and co-founder of SWDTech Games. I decided to personally come out and give you a brief summary of how I see things at the moment to let you know what's happening at this stage of development.

You can't see it from this picture, but yes I am chained to my desk. :D

While implementation is complete, a lengthy polish/bug extermination phase has been underway in these last four months to increase stability. In parallel, we are continuously testing to make the game balanced via player/enemy character stat and gear tuning, while also factoring in collectables/skills. It's a large game for as small as it is... (if that makes sense? -may only make sense to me!)

Have a look at our funny but frustrating bug collection...

Surfs up..?

What are you doing Shade!? Why can't you climb a ladder like a normal sprite!?

Party poopers...

We even have our own version of that truck sliding down the street in Texas!

For those asking about a release date, although we are very close to finishing from a development standpoint, we‘re not yet ready to predict a release date. Its because this last leg of the journey is fraught with new bugs and balancing difficulty hurdles we are continuously jumping. We want to put out a nicely polished game upon release because Pixel Noir is a project that has always focused on the quality of our game instead of profit. Not only that, but for as long as we all have been working on this project (and all the time you all have waited), we firmly believe it's worth putting in the effort at this point to make sure we can all be proud of the game we brought to life--dev, backer, and fan alike.

Now more from the bug collection...

I think the clerk is in on it!

This band is horrible but I can't leave- the eternal struggle...

She... walks her own path.

...Don't ask...

With all that said, let me remind you of the things we are currently working on at the moment with Pixel Noir:

• Battle / Skill / Stat Balancing - This is the longest, most tedious with the battle testing and all that must be done over and over and over....
  
• Collectible Placement / Shop Stocking / Traders + Grifters + Black Markets - Items and gear need to be factored into balancing as there is some complexity in the later chapters of the game. We've done this for about 35% of the game as of this update.
  
• Battle Encounter Placement - Turn down a wrong alley in Pinnacle Ci--never mind you get the point. (25% finished)
  
• Bug, bugs and more bugs - Of course, we are still dealing with these... However we are tracking less with every play test!!
  
• Polish - Continuing to fine-tune audio, cinematics, dialogue, and flesh out extra features such as CRDTech encounters. This will be ongoing until we finish...

As outlined in Update #63, this phase is one of the longest parts of our development cycle outside of the environment implementation that we finished earlier last year. So just sit tight, stay tuned for more, and know that we’re still motivated to get this game out to everyone!!



Waiting like...

Your next update will be on June 3rd. As always, follow our official Roadmap / Twitter bot and don't forget to check follow Leo's Pixel Noir dev streams on Thursday nights to check in on progress in realtime!


//Len and the rest of Team SWDTech

🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲

2020 gave us a lot of... stuff: Covid-19. Murder Hornets (remember those?). The Cyberpunk 2077 launch...

Cyberpunk!!

But not all of it was bad! Pixel Noir grew by leaps and bounds this year! We started off the year with a battle system in need of a serious revamp, environments still needing to be implemented, and over half of the main story still not in the game. As we stated in our last update, we're in the process of polishing up and transitioning to post-production, so it's been quite a journey this year! But for now let's take a trip down memory lane!


All environments implemented!
As you might recall, this was definitely one of the things that took us the longest to implement due to the sheer volume of assets.

Yes this is all of them! The images are a bit small, but check out how big the game world is!

Added grifter & traders feature!

You can find grifters and traders throughout the game that will give you a quick offer for weapons/armor/items (they may have some rare wares)!

Your basic grifting grifter!

Got some junk to trade for better junk?

All NPC's implemented!

This was a huge undertaking, but every nook and cranny of Pinnacle City has been filled with quirky or informative NPC interactions!

Epic Sprite Party!

Maybe check out some of those knockoff suits in Lil' Shanghai!

Game Mechanics...

We made a number of battle updates including unveiling a new asynchronous turn-based battle system, skill system and other GUI updates!



OOOoooo!!! shiney new UI stuff!

All Backer Creation Tier Content Added!

Thanks again to all the creation tier backers who gave us some truly incredible characters, items, environments, and sidequests for the game! They fit in the world of Pixel Noir like a glove :)









Is Thaddeus an evil scientist or a Dr. Light fanboy? You'll have to find him to figure it out!

Tobias is probably the best DM in Pinnacle City

Finished implementing The Main Story & All Sidequests!

This year, the Pixel Noir story officially became playable from start to finish!















Finished & Implemented All Music!

7 cutscenes. 11 districts. 23 battle themes. 65 music tracks. 100's of hours of work. Pixel Noir is chock full of musical goodness!

Muzak's is in Downtown!

We finished creating all music & added the Muzak's shop where you can listen to some sweet, pixelly jams! Check out the audio sneak peeks that we've been gathering:

https://soundcloud.com/pixeltonemusic/sets/pixel-noir-samples


We also wanted to take a minute to talk about one of our team members, who left an indelible mark on Pixel Noir. Shane Stevens was part of our art team and was responsible for most of the character / monster sprites and misc. animations in the game. He passed in late September after a long battle with an aggressive abdominal cancer. Needless to say, without Shane's talent, Pixel Noir would be nowhere near as unique as it is.

This gif is from our Thank You video after Pixel Noir was successfully funded

Rest in peace, Shane. We're lucky to have worked with you and we'll miss you!



That wraps it up for us in 2020! In 2021, As always, follow our official Roadmap / Twitter bot, and don't forget to check out Leo's Pixel Noir dev stream to see coding updates happen in realtime! Our next update will be on March 4th!


From our 16-bit family to yours, we hope everybody has a great holiday and a safe and happy new year!


//The Pixel Noir Team

[h2]Hey everyone, guess what?
[/h2]

And unlike Doc Strange, we won't leave you hanging on the master plan

At this point, the core of Pixel Noir is officially playable from start to finish including all the main story, sidequests, features, and more! BUT, There are some things to do before we can call this turkey done and ready for public consumption!

Here's a list (in chronological order) of the things we have left to finish.

• Battle / Skill / Stat Balancing. This is the longest, most tedious, most important task we have left.
  
• Collectible Placement / Shop Stocking / Traders + Grifters + Black Markets. Items and gear need to be factored into balancing as there is some complexity in the later chapters of the game, so we'll need to be careful about how these are implemented to ensure we don't create loopholes/imbalances in the game.
  
• Battle Encounter Placement. Turn down a wrong alley in Pinnacle Ci--never mind you get the point.
  
• Bug, bugs and more bugs. Of course, we are still dealing with these... Thankfully, we have far fewer than what we had before Early Access, woohoo!!!
  
• Polish. Continuing to fine-tune audio, cinematics, dialogue, and flesh out extra features such as CRDTech encounters.

After these have been taken care of, we will work with our publisher to port, localize, & launch!

::micdrop::

[h2]Sneak Peeks[/h2]

WTF is this guy?
Marvel at the wonders of cheap technology!
Sooner or later you may have to stay at one of these places...

[h2]Audio[/h2]
Finally, as always, here's a sneak peek of brand-new Pixel Noir jammage!!!

https://soundcloud.com/pixeltonemusic/lab-overworld-sample

This is the Lab BGM. For this one, Hiroki Kikuta (composer, Secret of Mana) and Kunal worked collaboratively to create something dark, mysterious, and foreboding. When you enter the labs, you can tell some really "bad stuff"™️ went on here. Kind of makes you wonder what they were trying to do in these labs... We hope you enjoy!

[h2]See Ya Soon![/h2]
That wraps our November update! The next update will be on December 19! And as always, follow our official Roadmap / Twitter bot, and don't forget to check out Leo's Pixel Noir dev stream for some good music and some good, ol' fashioned gamedev!

//Team SWDTech