THEY BLEED PIXELS CRIMSON UPDATE OUT + NOW AVAILABLE FOR MAC AND LINUX!

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The long wait is over for Mac and Linux users, They Bleed Pixels is now available for your OS of choice! All three operating systems are also getting the brand new Crimson Update free! More levels, more polish, more blood!

As an extra bonus They Bleed Pixels is 75% off for the next week (June 3-10th)!

While the Crimson Update is free for everyone, its existence came at a terrible cost, documented in our new live action trailer, a collaboration with photographer Paul Hillier.

Crimson Update Features:

  • New engine rewritten in C for 60fps gameplay on netbooks and older computers.
  • Shorter and easier Novice Difficulty levels.
  • New bonus levels! Winter’s End and exp. 666.
  • Record, play and share your best runs on the leaderboards. Watch the top players to improve your runs!
  • Enhanced blood effects! Double the blood particles!
  • Support for both DirectInput and XInput controllers.
  • Lots of other little bits of polish, from save games to graphics options.

Top image illustration by friend of Spooky Squid Games Eric Kim. 

They Bleed Pixels

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If you've been following us on Twitter you've probably heard me mention "TBP" a collaboration we've been working on with musician Shaun Hatton (aka DJ Finish Him).  We've been keeping the actual title under wraps till we we were ready to show some video. Last week's Gamercamp festival seemed like a perfect opportunity to properly announce the game with this short teaser.  I suggest cranking your speakers, going full screen and HD so the pixels are huge and sharp.

So there you have it. "TBP" is They Bleed Pixels, a fast paced, gothic, low-fi pixel art, platforming beat'em up with a chiptune style  soundtrack coming out on Xbox Live Indies.

You'll notice this game looks very different then our other games.    Inspired by games like Niddhogg I wanted to experiment with a more abstract,  simple style that would let me really focus on smooth and stylish animation.

In terms of gameplay, all of our games are built with specific goals in mind:

  • Night of Cephalopods: Experimenting with Dynamic Narration.
  • Cephalopods: Co-op Cottage Defence: Creating co-op play that requires players to constantly talk and plan while they play.
  • The Night Balloonists:Make a one button party game that had the same pacing and skill vs chance balance of games like bomber man.
  • Guerrilla Gardening: Creating opportunities for creative puzzle solving through the interplay of dynamic systems and AI.  Exploring themes of public space and direct action. It's a bigger game so it gets to have more ambitious goals.

They Bleed Pixels is about game feel. The kinetic joy of moving and interacting with the game and creating beat'em up combat that isn't button mashy or button heavy.  We also wanted it to be a game that was radically different from our others so we could switch back and forth and keep our brains active.

Dj Finish Him instruments.
Dj Finish Him instruments.

This is also our first game collaborating with a musician.  We met Shaun in the summer when he interviewed us for Electric Playground, a month or so later I ran into him at a Hand Eye Society social and he handed me a postcard with a link to his chiptunes mentioning that he was interested in doing game music.  I saw a good fit between what he was doing and the look I had in mind for They Bleed Pixels and a few emails later and we were set.

We'll be posting more info on the game as it gets closer to completion.  Till then I suggest you head over to Shaun's DJ Finish Him site and download his awesome free albums!

The Night Balloonists - GAMMA4

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We've just released our entry for the GAMMA 4 One Button Games competition: The Night Balloonists. It's for 2-4 players so you'll need to grab a friend or three to play. While it wasn't one of the six winners we're pretty pleased with how it came out and have been booting it up to play a match whenever we have enough players for a three or four player match. Also Andrew's wife Maryna is thoroughly addicted and vicious with the ink shots. Download is here

This video gives a nice preview of a four player match and has the dubious bonus of including my annotated commentary discussing various aspects of the game.