Pixel Noir News

Hey Everybody!
As you can probably tell from each successive Kickstarter update, we've been posting fewer update content. That's because we're in the process of finally closing out our development cycle! While you'll continue to see polish and bug fixes up through release, we'll be transitioning from development to porting and localization over the next few months. Let's jump into the rest of the update!



Although we are still locking down timing, we plan to launch on Steam first and subsequently on consoles. We were hoping to have more details around release times for you by this update, but we're still in planning discussions with our publisher. Currently, the team is in the middle of heavy testing, so the amount of time needed to find/fix bugs and the defects with the porting/compliance issues that are sure to rise up will greatly influence exactly when we can target a launch date. We know launch times are important to you backers and fans, so we are working to get you this information as soon as we can.


We implemented Shade's Summon skills a couple of months ago, which means this mysterious character is ready for battle with sword in hand.





We've added in and polished up the enemy skills for every enemy in the game! Some of these attacks will challenge you and have you rethinking your strategy.



In addition to adding many enemy skills, we are currently on our fourth pass of balancing for the game. We've fine-tuned enemy encounters during this run and ensured that enemies have appropriate item drops. Battles were already feeling pretty good, but now they feel rewarding too!



We're excited to showcase card-slinging NPCs. These characters will be happy to play a game or three of CRDTech with you. And happy to take your hard-earned cash while they're at it.



Finally, we've made several enhancements, including updating and adding a ton more player interactions.



We Added text highlighting to item, skill, & case descriptions.



And lots of optimization to pathfinding to help decrease load times!



Finally, on the audio front, last year composers Hiroki Kikuta and Kunal Majmudar finished out a pretty spectacular boss theme. Does it feature a turbo intense orchestra? Check. Is it full of bloops and bleeps? Double-check. Does it feature Slavic women wailing? Ja! Feast your earbuds on this!



If you're pumped about Pixel Noir, here are three steps you can take to make sure you're in the know:

1. Wishlist Pixel Noir on Steam!

2. Join our SWDTech Games Discord server for a constant stream of screenshots, granular development updates, sprint summaries, and chat with the development team!

3. Check in on development by dropping by Leo's Pixel Noir development streams on Twitch Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights. Also, remember you can follow our progress on our official Roadmap / Twitter bot.


Our next update will be out on August 11th! See you then!

[h2]Hello, 2022!
[/h2]Happy new year!!! Hopefully you had a fantastic holiday! We ended the year strong with a lot of great wins (see more details in update #68). For this update, we wanted to recap all the development achievements we made this past year, so let's kick this thing off!

For the love of Pete, *punch back* 2022!


[h2]Ally/Enemy Skills & Party Combos
[/h2]Over the past year, we’ve added various in-battle cinematics, meticulously working to add visual and audio flair to every battle. We’re now up to 180+ ally/enemy skills, attack combos and in-battle item cinematics!

Keep your eye on the ATB... Where the characters stop, you'll never know!
Talk about passing wind... #dadjoke2022
::Insert 80's action movie montage::
Clearly the Detective had a printer jam right before this battle.
Hot enough for ya?
This gif is a bit of a shocker.
Sometimes you need a cocktail to take the edge off... A Molotov Cocktail that is!
Here's an example of how items now look when you use them in battle
Combos got a major facelift this past year too!
Shade's blade slices through enemies like butter.


[h2]Random Encounters & A New Way To Escape Battles [/h2]
While exploring the world of Pixel Noir, you never know when someone will try to mug you. Throughout Pinnacle City, baddies will jump out, sometimes alone and sometimes along with more bad dudes. Many enemies will just be hanging out in plain sight, while other enemies might be patrolling or disguise themselves as an inanimate object (like a trash can)! We've even overhauled our "run" mechanic. Previously, as seen in Early Access, you'd select run and the enemy just sort of went "poof" and disappeared. Now, when you select run, a mini game will determine if you can run from a battle.

What a nice evening for an ambush.
If you're fast, you might be able to escape a potential enemy encounter!
Pinnacle City has a few different types of mimics, so be careful out there!
Put those fingers to work if you want to run from a battle!


[h2]Visual Effects
[/h2]We've added many visual effects creating much needed polish to the dramatic parts of the game. You'll see flashes of color, new animations for skills, and even heavier use of screen shakes and other camera tricks!

You want dramatic effects? We've got em'!
Whoa, trippy!
That flash of red really adds a nice "oomph" to Deuce's execution.


[h2]The Battle Arena, Hosted By Shovel Knight!
[/h2]We've added a battle arena that you can access later in the game! 14 rounds with one-time prizes for finishing each round, featuring a cameo by none other than Shovel Knight! We can't tell you what the final round's prize is, but trust us, you'll want it!

That's a hell of a power, Shovel Knight!


[h2]Quality Of Life Enhancements
[/h2]For starters, we’ve been iterating on the menu's user interface to improve intuitiveness as well as display more useful information. We've also added arrows that point to doors and teleports in the game world. You can see them by activating the detective's investigation mode. All main plot lines and cases (side-quests) have been loaded into the Case Manager! This means that you now have clues for each case as well as highlighted map tiles indicating key locations for both main quests and side-quests.

A peek of the latest menu UI!
You can see doorway & teleport indicators now!
It'll be much easier to keep cases moving along even if you step away from the game for a bit.


[h2]Items Discovery: Treasures, Traders, Grifters, Black Markets, & Battle Rewards.
[/h2]Treasure boxes, bundles of cash, and items found through using Investigation Mode are now all in the game. You can also now buy, sell, and get ripped off in the streets of Pinnacle City with the different ways to acquire items and gear off NPCs!

The NPC that owns this garage probably didn't need it anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Investigation Mode can show hidden items all over town!
Think carefully before making a trade, no backsies now!
So is the "fork" really a fork? Or could it something awesome??? ....or maybe it really is just a $1000 fork?
Keep a generous amount of cash on hand for these Black Market dudes... They charge premium prices, but they also have primo wares!
And of course, what RPG is complete without enemy item drops!


[h2]New Game +
[/h2]We also rolled out this feature that was funded thanks to a stretch goal! Upon completing the game, New Game + will allow a player to start a new game with their current experience, money, items and skills. This time, however, the player can make different choices, which could lead to different outcomes.

New Game + is officially in the game. Thanks to the Kickstarter backers for bringing this one to life!


[h2]Audio [/h2]
We've added 3D sound effects to scenes and moving objects. You can really hear the city come to life as cars drive by, neon signs buzz, trash blows around, waves crash against the beach and more. Additionally doorways with doors now play creeks or other SFX when you transition between rooms.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Stat Balancing
[/h2]Testing 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. All seven chapters now feature semi-balanced battle scenarios and gear. And, of course, we'll continue to play-test and tweak difficulty up until launch.



[h2]Peace out, 2021!
[/h2]To give you an idea of what's to come in 2022, our efforts will be heavily focused around...

• Polish & Bugs: Implementing the last little bit of polish & stat balancing to get us into post production territory! We also have a handful of small tasks on the coding side, including save/load optimization, several GUI updates, and adding in trophies. Oh, and of course, zapping the bugs that we keep finding and fixing on a daily basis.
  
• Porting, Localization, & Compliance: As mentioned in previous updates, the good folks over at Badland Publishing will be helping us with these tasks. We'll have a better idea of the porting roadmap and release plans later THIS year after we've finished with development.
  

Well, that's a wrap for our 2021 year end review update! If you're pumped about Pixel Noir, here are three steps you can take to make sure you're in the know:

1. Wishlist Pixel Noir on Steam!
2. Join our SWDTech Games Discord server for a constant stream of screenshots, granular development updates, sprint summaries, and to chat with the development team!
   
3. Check in on development by dropping by Leo's Pixel Noir development streams on Twitch Monday and Thursday nights. Also remember you can follow our progress on our official Roadmap / Twitter bot.
   

Our next update will be out on March 24th! See you then!

//Team SWDTech

We got another fully stocked update to get those gaming fingers salivating (fingers salivate right?). If you haven't already noticed, we've been more active on social media lately. That's because Pixel Noir will finish it's development cycle within the 2nd quarter of 2022 (if not earlier)!

#HYPETRAIN

Just to be clear, development will be complete, however there will be several other tasks that need to happen leading up to launch like porting, localization, compliance/QA testing, and just some general marketing planning. We also would like to remind everybody that we plan to address backer rewards closer to launch so that our team can stay focused on all the pre-launch work and bug crushing.

In the meantime, if you have still have any questions or would like to switch platforms, feel free to DM us here or on any social media platform that we're on (Discord, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram) and we'll get you squared away!



All of the ally and enemy skills are now in the game! We had a blast creating these and of course, they will continue to get polish treatments as time permits prior to launch.

This skill was a total *shocker*

Screenshake FTW!

Flamethrower packs a punch!

We started implementation of party member combos a few weeks ago and we're looking to be finished with constructing these sometime this month!

Use combos to wreck your enemies in style!

Even a single change in your party lineup can change the attributes of the combo attack!

For atmosphere, we added 3D sound effects to scenes and moving objects. You can really hear the city come to life as cars drive by, neon signs buzz, trash blows around, waves crash against the beach, and more! Check out a little preview.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We've overhauled our run-from-battle mechanic. Previously, as demo'd in the Early Access, you'd select run and the enemy just, sort of went "poof" and disappeared. Now, when you select run, a mini game will determine if you can run from a battle.

Escape depends on the levels of your party members in comparison to the enemies' level....and some quick finger work.

We also added a battle arena that you can access later in the game! 14 rounds with one-time prizes for finishing each round, hosted by none other than Shovel Knight!

Thanks to our pals at Yacht Club Games! We're excited to see Shovel Knight make an appearance!

We finished implementing and distributing all learnable party member skills AND collectable CRDTech cards throughout the various story events and game world. Keep an eye out, you can find skills and cards almost anywhere!

Gotta collect 'em all!

You can find skills just about anywhere- story events, case rewards, shops and of course your humble treasure box.

Last but not least, we made a few UI updates. Skill level indicators and skill level descriptions are now in all the necessary menus.

Sometimes it's the little touches that matter most.

• This & That - Miscellaneous stuff mostly covered in the section above: Ally combos. Enemy level implementation. 3D audio. Mini-map environment mapping (making sure that mini-map is accurate). We're pretty close to being finished with this bucket of work!
  
• Bugs, bugs and more bugs - Yes, these still are popping up, but we are tracking less every week (We expect this to be a constant up until and after we release on steam.)
  
• Battle Difficulty Balancing - We just finished our 3rd pass of this most tedious task in testing!
  
• 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
  

Of course we'll be crunching through the holidays!


If you're excited about this project, join the SWDTech Games Discord server or follow us on any number of social platforms! We're going to be putting out more and more content and teasers up until the release, so keep an eye out!

Be sure 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! Also, don't forget to follow our official Roadmap / Twitter bot.

Our next update will be out some time in January to recap the progress we made in 2021. Then the next official update after that will be out on March 24th! Until then have a safe & happy holiday season!

//Team SWDTech

[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