Pixel Noir - A Mystery Rpg (Vita +PS4) - Kickstarter

It looks interesting, but I'm really getting tired of these pixel games. I know, it makes me sound like a graphics whore, but let's be honest, I paid $300 for my PS Vita, and $400 for my PS4. Why would I want games that looked like they were made in the early 90's, 20 years ago?

I understand it's more cost-effective for developers, and it's now likely falling into the category of "trendy", but I juts cannot bring myself to support these games. Graphics/images are just as important to a game as the story and gameplay is. I especially don't understand why this couldn't have been a great looking HD 2.5D game?

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The backgrounds look alright, but the characters are hard to distinguish, as well as the text. If they're going to make the backgrounds look that good, go the extra step and do the same with the characters/overall game...

/rant

EDIT: good luck to them. I set this to be reminded. Maybe it will grow on me if they post more in-game shots and information. We'll see.

 
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I think the pixelated style isn't for everyone. Theres usually 2 camps, the type who play moatly current games, and the person who buys ps1 classics and nintendo eshop games etc..maybe its just the difference in age and how nastalgic of a person you happen to be.
 
Update 4

Cross Save

Summer vacations, holidays, and long weekends gave many of us growing up the chance to lose ourselves in our favorite video game worlds. Whether it was Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, or another title, long-form RPG’s require time and patience to unravel deep, often complicated stories. Many times they don’t have voice-over and require the player to read through heavy dialogue.

Growing up made it much harder to find the same time to dedicate to gaming as when we were younger. The worst part about this is that, as a player with little time to invest in an RPG, we lose a sense of immersion in the story and lore of the game.

It's not that we don't love RPG's as much. It's simply that our lifestyles have changed. 20 years ago, you would have one or multiple gaming-specific devices and then separate telephone devices. These days, people have two different types of gaming devices: computers/consoles and smartphones/tablets--and two very different types of games for either device.

Enter Cross Save. This handy feature allows you to play the game and switch between any of the supported platforms seamlessly, without skipping a beat in your game’s progress. It's a lifestyle feature. And it resonates deep within Pixel Noir's game design.

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Cross Save is the reason that when you pledge to our Kickstarter, you will receive the game on TWO platforms—a console/PC platform as well a mobile platform. And if you have a mobile lifestyle (which apparently 90+% of you do), this is great news for you.

This, of course, doesn’t mean that getting seamless cross-platform support will be easy with consoles. We will have our fair share of challenges implementing Cross Save between Sony and non-Sony devices. But if you don’t try, you sure as heck don’t succeed.

We want to kick off a trend where a person can purchase a game and play it on whatever they want with no shortcomings. No shoddy ports, no being forced to buy a game again just to start from the beginning, no excuses for poor design.

With Cross Save, leaving home doesn’t mean leaving your adventure behind.

...that said, we’re pretty sure this is how most of you will use it (don't worry, we will too) :D

 
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I think the pixelated style isn't for everyone. Theres usually 2 camps, the type who play moatly current games, and the person who buys ps1 classics and nintendo eshop games etc..maybe its just the difference in age and how nastalgic of a person you happen to be.
More the nostalgia than age I guess.

I'm 35 and started gaming on an Atari 5200 and really got into with NES. And I have little interest in pixelated games like that. 16bit level graphics I can handle, 8bit is just too much most of the time. Too many great looking and playing modern games I don't have time for to play old games, or retro looking games.
 
More the nostalgia than age I guess.

I'm 35 and started gaming on an Atari 5200 and really got into with NES. And I have little interest in pixelated games like that. 16bit level graphics I can handle, 8bit is just too much most of the time. Too many great looking and playing modern games I don't have time for to play old games, or retro looking games.
I'm 23. So my first systems were genesis and super nintendo. This just takes all my nastalgia of that and makes it current/better. It brings back the feeling of exploration in something like Final Fantasy 6, and amps it up.

 
Story & Pacing
 
For today’s update, we focus on something near and dear to our heart—the story of Pixel Noir. For us “story” is not simply the plot of the game. It’s bigger than that. It’s lore; it’s dynamic interactions; it’s design

The Tale of Pixel Noir 
You had it all, once: a job, respect, a chance to make a difference in the world. And as an up-and-coming detective in the Pinnacle City Police Department, you were well on your way to doing just that. But you got cocky – following a lead on a cold case that you were convinced you alone could solve. Instead, the only thing it led to was your undoing; taking the lives of innocent people, including your partner, Det. Cold, in the process. 

Ten years later, with detours in the nuthouse and a bottle of scotch, you’ve hung your hat in Pinnacle City. It’s no garden spot anymore, but it’s still home to a colorful population of washouts, dirtbags and big time crooks. Lucky for you, these sad sacks provide your private eye business with plenty of cases: mostly snapping pictures of cheating spouses and telling poor saps what they already know. Every now and again, a Mr. ‘Deuce’ pops up like a bad habit, paying too much for jobs that are too much trouble than they’re worth. No friends to speak of, unless you count the bartender at the local watering hole. And maybe the local wild man Woof, though he’s not so much of a friend as he is a cocker spaniel with fists. 


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Pinnacle City Skyline
It’s not a great life, but it’s uncomplicated and it’s yours. 

And then someone has to ruin it all by bringing up the past. You thought that cold case was dead and buried, but a new lead’s crossed your desk that may unearth everything. But as new evidence is brought to light, your sanity starts sinking into darkness. Without warning, people contort into gruesome monsters; alleyways melt into visceral mazes. How can you hope to uncover the truth, when your own senses betray you? 

Story as Design 
We’ve worked hard to test and optimize things like pacing of dialogue, pacing of story, and how conversations look and feel. 

From the get-go we knew that Pixel Noir needed to be told at the right pace, not only from a story perspective, but from a dialogue perspective as well. Everybody at one point or other has experienced a game that has had either too much or not enough dialogue—and we wanted to ensure this is paced right especially for mobile players who may not have the time to sit through 10 minutes of conversation. 

When we started building our pre-alpha demo for publishers, we thought about how to visually display conversations in Pixel Noir. We wanted to ensure that they were intuitive and easy to understand. At first, we thought about having conversation boxes appear near the character with differently colored boxes depicting who is talking. It worked, but didn’t really look great. 

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Our latest and greatest version of the conversation system has come a long way and features stylized portraits of the characters along with dedicated text space at the top and bottom of the screens. The font and text size has also been revamped to ensure that it reads great. 

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Developing the right graphical user interface for smartphone platforms was also challenging. As you can see from our pre-alpha screenshot, we, like so many other games, decided to have a big, friendly action button on the bottom right of the screen. 

Once we found that users on smartphone and tablet devices had trouble intuitively figuring out how the action button was used, we reconfigured our Graphical User Interface (GUI). There is currently no action button when exploring the world--and nothing to hamper player immersion. Pixel Noir's GUI also now includes intuitive mechanics to scroll through text faster for quick readers as well as to skip to the end of a block of text.

Of course we’ll continue to test and optimize every design mechanic—including GUI and conversations. There is always room to test and learn! 

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I think the game looks cool. I don't back kickstarter projects but I won't have a problem dropping $20 for this if it makes it to the Vita.
 
I think the game looks cool. I don't back kickstarter projects but I won't have a problem dropping $20 for this if it makes it to the Vita.
I understand that. Plenty of games I've had that stance on. Hard to put down 15 dollars now on something that may not come out for years and end up being garbage or extremely short. This game just hit all the right buttons for me like hyperlight drifter.
 
Looks cool. I'm in! Hopefully they make the goal, it seems pretty low right now but we'll see.
lots of games increase as the end draws near. I'm hoping this game is the same. It might have been better if they had put in stretch goals, but I think it'll make it.

 
I think the pixelated style isn't for everyone. Theres usually 2 camps, the type who play moatly current games, and the person who buys ps1 classics and nintendo eshop games etc..maybe its just the difference in age and how nastalgic of a person you happen to be.
Or theres camp 3 that plays any game as long as its fun and doesn't have time to whine about how the games look.

 
Or theres camp 3 that plays any game as long as its fun and doesn't have time to whine about how the games look.
You call it whining. I call it wanting to get the most out of my investment. If I wanted pixels, I would have stuck with my SNES. ;)

 
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You call it whining. I call it wanting to get the most out of my investment. If I wanted pixels, I would have stuck with my SNES. ;)
While I do agree with renique that games should be played for fun. That tottaly disregards syn's personal taste. Everyone on here has personal taste. Some peopke like rpgs, some like fps, some like sandbox, some like old some like new. Who cares. If graphics take away fun for syn than he shouldn't waste his gaming time and money on something he won't enjoy.

 
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For today’s update we thought we’d talk a bit about Pixel Noir’s battle system and explain how it works, feels, and plays. Having a robust battle system is absolutelycritical for classic RPG’s, so it should come as no surprise that we spent a fair amount of time designing and tweaking our battle system.

Fast-paced, yet strategic
Pixel Noir’s battle system goes at the speed that you prefer. It uses an Active Time Bar (ATB) to determine order of attack.

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The ATB clock temporarily freezes while the player is choosing an action for a character. This means that if you’re a strategic thinker, you can take time to plan out your attack.

Timed Hits & Other Mechanics

We don’t ever want players to feel like they are mindlessly clicking their way through fights. We want you excited, engaged, and invested in every shot fired.

That’s why we made the decision to have battle in Pixel Noir revolve around player interaction. Basic attacks and defense include a timed hit and a timed block where you tap the screen at the right time to do extra damage to an enemy or to block some/all of the damage done to your character.

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Special moves and skills require even more elaborate gestures or button combinations! For example, the Rapid Fire special requires you to tap as quickly as possible to do the maximum amount of damage.  

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This way you feel like you are not just tapping a menu and watching the action play out; you are directly interacting with what’s happening.

Combo attack is another fun element that we will be building into the game. Similar to dual and triple techs from Chrono Trigger, combo attacks consist of one character setting up an attack for one or more other party members to join in on. Never dive into a brawl without buddies who have your back!

Pixel Noir will also be able to use the Investigation mode to find and use environmental items and hazards to your advantage. If you see a pile of boxes, knock them over to damage your enemies! Find a can of cola on the ground? Grab it to either regain health or chuck it at the closest baddy!

Finally, we have a super-cool escape mechanic, which we are currently in the middle of prototyping. While you can escape from a battle in Pixel Noir, running away from a fistfight in real life is never easy. That’s why we’re implementing a timed escape mechanic, similar to a Shadow Hearts-style Judgment Ring. More to come on this subject later once we've built it out!

Optimizing the User Interface 
Our battle graphical user interface (GUI) has evolved quite a bit! We started off with a simple GUI that pulls from classic JRPG. 

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We quickly discovered that it wasn’t dynamic enough for touch devices. Additionally, the layout and feel of the actions menu was clunky.

In our pre-alpha prototype, we decided to make the buttons target-centric to simplify the user experience. 

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In the above screenshot, you click on either the enemy or the Detective to select from various action commands. This was a marked upgrade, but still did not capture the finesse we were looking to have. Also, this version of the battle GUI did not play as well on the PC.

In our latest incarnation of the battle GUI, we decided to combine the two approaches into a more streamlined and polished design featuring character portraits. 

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This design helps us bridge the gap between Console, PC, and Smart Device. While you can use buttons to navigate the battle menus, it is also optimized for touch. This design will continue to be tested and optimized through iterative development. We're excited to see where this goes next!

 
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The Usual
First off and as always, thank you guys so much for being apart of this.  I do a little fist pump every time I see an email from Kickstarter that tells me someone either backed us, left a comment, or sent us a message.  The support and love we've gotten from all of you really keeps us driving onward to deliver you this game!

Lighting in Pixel Noir
Something that has always been a backbone requirement of Pixel Noir is atmosphere. To achieve this, we decided to work on a new system of blending 2D and 3D elements together! This allows us to keep our 2D art style while having our graphics engine deliver dynamic lighting and atmospheric effects.

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This has been one of our largest challenges so far in creating Pixel Noir, but one we have made great strides in. The few different options we have been using are going to deliver a gameplay experience that is just as compelling as much as it is to play!

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 Currently, one of the processes we are doing has us taking the environments Len has made in 2D and rebuilding its objects in 3D.  After replacing the 2D assets over top of the 3D models it allows us to create a gorgeous 2D environment with full on 3D dynamic lighting!

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Len's concept of shadows on characters!
Level Building
Len has also been hard at work working on some new area concepts!  He set out to make a time lapse of his work on a new area set near the Docks of Pinnacle City!  Check it out!

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 PLAY
 

 
It sucks that the game did not end up getting funded. TFP, do you know if the devs are still going to try to pursue this via another method?

 
Everything indicates they're still going to pursue making it but I was really hoping they'd get funded! Maybe they can do a round 2 on KS. What are the rules on that?

 
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It sucks that the game did not end up getting funded. TFP, do you know if the devs are still going to try to pursue this via another method?
They're working on it still. Maybe reworking for another kickstarter pass with a lower goal (less content) and more post goals (to add that content back in). They've said it will come out by hell or high water, it just may not be the same game with the same features and such they were aiming for.

Everything indicates they're still going to pursue making it but I was really hoping they'd get funded! Maybe they can do a round 2 on KS. What are the rules on that?
I feel like thier may not be, I'm not sure. I know a few games have done second passes with reworked goals and such before.

 
Well the only selling point for me is the vita aspect, seeing as they did not reach their funding goal im sure round 2 will probably begin to eliminate specific platforms for one reason or another, maybe the vita will get nixed at initial launch and they will try a small free to play platform. Or maybe begin on a smaller console (give exclusivity to a platform, im sure amazon is cutting deals). Then expand later.

Whatever the case it looks like a good game, i think they need to find people that have a closer link to the art direction, because to me it looks like their attempting to combine Noir with an Advance Wars Style.

 
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