Saved Game Progress

Hello everyone! It's been almost a months since I last wrote here. But there's been a busy January. Today though, I'll focus on the entry we made for the Global Game Jam 2016 in Barcelona.

Hello everyone! I feel every time I write I need to acknowledge how much time it's been since the last post, but for this new year I'll try to write on a weekly basis. Today I want to talk about the need to reinvent yourself in every project. I always felt this was a huge challenge for me until I tried to look at it in a different way: Inventions are mostly evolutive and incremental. It's like the discovery of the gunpowder, an iterative process. Just like game development, the way that worked for me is to look at this challenge as an iterative process and start working on it everyday until I found a new basis upon which I could develop my skills. Recently I've been able to contrast how much my texturing pipeline has changed. From using a lot of layers (although they were well organised) to using just a few with smarter techniques that led to a better use of time and overall quality of the colours. In short I started looking at myself as a game artist from different

Hello everyone! It's been almost a year since I started writing my thoughts here. And as the end of the year was getting closer, I started to think about what happened to me in the last 12 months.  So I revisited my portfolios and discovered the most updated one is not even a year old. Most of the works I published at Artstation are only 9 or 10 months old. Most of them are from projects that never came to be and limited to 2D Digital Art.  After that I decided to make a list of games I've been participating outside of work.  As a part of Burnt Tongue I made the art for Let Me Play, Hot Dog Heroes and Invaders in the earth . Then there are also the Jam games. There's been basically two: Who killed the Coffee Pot? for the 1st King Game Jam and Dandelion for the 34th Ludum Dare.  You can download all of them in my personal itch.io space. Besides that, there are several projects I can talk about in my work production. I've been part of the same company for mo

Hello everyone! This post is going to be really short. For the last year (or almost a year) I've been working in a project that we launched in greenlight at the beginning of this month. And we're arlready greenlit! You can take a look at the game trailer here -> It's basically a youtuber simulator with a little bit of life management in it to spice things up. So you create your own self, start a channel and create lots of videos for it. Eventually you'll get enough views to make a living out of it. Change your house, your routine, upgrade your equipment and get a chance to be the next vlogger star! For this project I've been doing environment art, UI design, 2D art and lately character assets as well as art documentation. So I've been doing all sorts for things. Since I've been working a lot of time on this project, long time readers may find in this the reason for some of my posts. And they might be right to think that. Anyway, launching a

Hello everyone! Sorry for being in such a long hiatus lately. There's been a lot to do and to process these few weeks. To start with main topic, I've been taking part in a few jams lately. The most important one being the first Barcelona King game Jam (7-8th of November). I have to say that this was my first 48h game jam. And it was a blast. The organisation was very clear with every step of the process and the venue was perfect. With IT in case we might need it and a ton of food and coffee for the coming hours of work. We were a lot of people too. 12 groups of 5 members if I remember correctly. But there weren't many opportunities to talk and connect with other people, since everyone was so invested working in their project.  The ambient was fine though. Every once in a while someone was laughing or joking with their team members. Everything went pretty smoothly until there was a general blackout in the street (the Jam building included). We had to abandon the

Hello everyone! Recently I've been reading a lot about game design. Specially interviews with iconic developers. And one thing that all of them covered in every interview was what they described as "the Core" of their game. Warren Spector, for example, defines it like the most basic experience of the game. For a long time this element has been "the Unbreakable" for me. It was what was left after I couldn't break anything else out from the game. It was a little bit like sculpting in this sense. After I took the master I began to use "Minimum Viable Product" in relation to that terminology. Mostly because it implied a major level of completion or polish. But for a few days I've been reusing this term because I felt that using it communicated the intention better with my coworkers. I mean, the idea that something is bulletproof even in a very primitive state is easy to understand through common metaphors. And when I realised this I knew I

Hello everyone! As the title suggests, I've been playing a lot of Mario Maker since it's release. And I have to say it's a masterful effort. It's the only example I can think of where they successfully paced a create-your-level-game. And I don't ONLY mean that 9-day thing where you end up unlocking more tools every 24 hours.  But just to get this of the way, let me start with it.  I think that way of scheduling your unlocks is fantastic for this type of game. Yeah, it's not the bread and butter of game unlock logic, but it still rewards the player for the time they invest in creating levels for the game.  It also does not overwhelm them, and most people throw that as the main reason why it's great. But I think that the best thing this causes is the need to return later . Retention in a console game where the community is always growing and the levels are an infinite catalogue of Mario level nightmares and good intentions.  But the

Hello everyone! Finally, my life's stable enough so that I don't need to come here to empty my bag of complaints. Today I want to write about something I've had in my head for a long time now. It's a card game focused on strategic positioning and object control. This all started because my boss asked me to make a Design Brief for a card game. I was really interested in this kind of games by the time, so I accepted. But since the time for this was so limited I ended up relying too much in genre conventions. Because of this, I felt the context couldn't contain the kind of combat I decided to use in the brief. There was a huge disconnect. And this has been coming and going from my mind since then. So I decided to put an end to this and start working on a design that could solve this. Hence the focus on positioning and object control. There's another ingredient in the mix but it's quite difficult to explain and has a lot to do with a system that I'm

Hello everyone! Tomorrow I go back to work. And a few days ago I lost my pet. My cat was almost 15 years old. This was a really bad summer for him and he just couldn't keep it up anymore. I've spent half of my life with him. I raised him and care about him with all my heart. I knew it was coming. Even before summer started. So it's been a long wait. And I though I was going to cope with it well. But I think I was wrong. The last day we spent together he came by my side again and sit on my lap like always. Just this time he only looked at me once. He died that night. He knew too. And I miss him. So much. That day I knew it would take me sometime to acknowledge he was gone. I was right. This weekend I've been at my parent's house and it wasn't the same. Everything about him was lacking. And it hit me. So many things have happened this summer. And I've been thinking about so much stuff: my parents, my cat, love, my work, the place I'm staying..