Needs no introduction, No Mans Sky is every explorer's "dream-come-true" game ! Its one game where it does not matter what happens in there, it does not matter what check-boxes it ticks, all that matters is you, in your little ship and .....the Universe out there !
......... open to you, all encompassing, unimaginably big but yet, for the first time ever, within your reach....in your grasp ! You can, for the first time, just get in your ship and aim for anywhere! Anywhere !
...and live the adventures that happen along the way. For once it is literally not about the goal, its all.......I repeat, all about your journey :)......to wherever you want, for however long you want. Whatever "life" you want in this space !
In a way its a journey into your own mind. It asks a question so beautiful :
"What is it that you would do if you could explore the whole Universe ?"
that how can one not be excited about it :^) !!!!
Here is the latest video shedding light on the small team going about making this masterpiece. I cannot imagine the leap they have taken going from making the little levels of (the very fun game) Joe Danger to a galaxy so massive that it might not ever be possible to visit every planet in it !
They seriously need to announce a release date asap ! Explorers, Scientists,Space miners, Pirates, rogues, adventurers.....all aboard, Ahoy :^) !
Christmas Magic + , our little baby on the Appstore, is climbing strongly on the ladders of the AppStore ! We are getting steady downloads of around 500 per day (ain't that su-weet !) and steadily climbing. Also, its interesting to see the game performing equally well in non-english speaknig countries too, eg. China seems to like our game as much as the US, which is a surprise to us considering that a major chunk of the game is a storybook in English !
Add to that we have been recieving encouraging reviews and fan mails too.With the festive season in the air and Christmas cheer all around, we are getting messages from fans proclaiming the game as
"The Best Christmas Gift !"
Needless to say, we are feeling very proud of our game these days :) ! Hoping and praying it conquers more milestones as each day passes.More news and surprises will be out soon before the new year arrives !
Christmas Magic + has been featured on the front page of the "kids" section of the Appstore !!!
That is a massive achievement :^) ! We, at P.L.A.Y.-Games, are overjoyed and humbled by this special treatment from Apple ! It feels ecstatic to see our charming little game performing well and winning hearts all over !
Don't miss out on what everyone is talking about, download the game now ! its free to play and wins over everybody's hearts in a jiffy ! Let the magic spread around this christmas !
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. IS BACKK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES ! ITS TRUE AND TRUEST
EVER ! :D (jumps all over his house, his garden and limps back after hurting his foot !)
yes, yes, yes .......oh ! the glee and the smug feeling and the ouch in my foot :) !
But that will come later, this post is first and foremost about
indie devs ruling the world and as true as the above statement might be,
it will have to wait. So, lets start again !
Hiya guys,
I know I promised something awesome from my drawing table, but thats not ready yet as I was busy with Christmas Magic's promotion, or shall we say trying to promote it ! Basically, I am being ingenius and trying everything I can to get it talked about on the internet!
Yes, but all that work does not stop me from checking around gaming sites, discussing on B3D forums and watching videos ! Like all internet denizens, somethings need to be done even during crunch times, that includes checking your Facebook and Twitter too, consiudering how important the have become for online promotions these days.
So, here I present to you, my mates and fellas, my unknown readers, and known firneds who never put a comment under my posts :P, the latest gaming news from around the net !
To start with , I present an awesome tech demo/trailer by an indie group who have created such magnificent wizardry with their keyboards and mice that my programming partner can't stop eating his nails out of his fingers and his fingers out if his hands and his hands out of his arms.........until he just regrows them all and can create this himself for our next game !
The trailer for RESET, a co-op puzzle game, it says, but I can't see any of that here, all I see is unbelievable realtime shaders and a cool art style for the robot and the car :
Big evil corporations gotta watch out cos new indie groups are moving ahead of them, even with their miniscule budgets! Human spirit, I say, can achieve anything with any kind of budget ! Love the tech shown here , lets hope these guys make it big and lets hope I make it big too, someday !
Second up is this total conversion mod for Crysis 2 ! Yes, I know Crytek has announced Crysis 3 recently, but frankly speaking, the trailer did not get me that excited for it. It shows small, constrained spaces and (seemingly)linear fights with thoe same stupid looking mechs and squids we had to drudge through in Crysis 2 ! Don't get me wrong here, I loved Crysis 1 and still play it sometimes, cos the game is just superb in its gunplay and freedom it provides in tackling a situation means unlimited replays are still fun. But Crysis 2 didn't match up to Crysis 1 in any way. It had worse art direction and limited gameplay areas. I was wishing they would bring back the matrix-like-sentinel-aliens of Crysis 1 in Crysis 3, but sadly that isn't the case.
So, downed and disappointed I sat down to look for things that are Crysis but could excite me more than the new Teaser and Voila ! Look what I found :
Aha ! Ain't that exciting ! A total conversion mod for Crysis 2 which seems to blend the jungle gameplay of the magnum opus with a sci-fi space twist to it ! Frankly, this has me more excited than the Crysis3 teaser and to imagine that this is by a smaller group and we won't need to shell out $60 for it ! I wonder how such groups get money for their food and rent ? I am sure there are no benevolent kings in any part of the world anymore, who would patronise art-forms like these and give the group a palace to stay in and food to eat while they rummage through their brains, hallucinating new experiences and materialising them inside computers ! Wish I could find such a patron ! From my own experience, making Christmas Magic for the iPad has been an excruciating 8 months of pen, pencils, papers, erasers, keyboards, swollen eyes in front of monitors, sleepless nights while my fiance waited for my calls which I forgot to make,...etc,....etc....! And now it turns out that we need to market it too, so which has turned into even more months of pencils, papers, keyboards, swollen eyes.......you get it ! Atleast our trailer has generated super buzz on the internet
and the game itself has generated a lot of word of mouth publicity for itself and hopefully it will pay for our bills now and help us fund our next project for the PS Vita. But working on total conversion mods which has no hopes of bringing any money to our homes and requires me to work full time to achieve a vision at par with a full game release !!!!!!!!! I have no idea how these guys do it !
and the third news I wanted to share with you guys is for all the S.T.A.L.K.E.R fans like me who were shell-shocked and heartbroken when S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 was cancelled .....the game is still dead, its not been continued, but, and its big BUT, its spirit has resurrected from the underworld and is readying up to shine on the world again !!!!!! YES ! S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is coming back , but as another title. The guys from GSC Game World which was closed midway in the development of S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2, have regrouped to form Vostok games and are continuing the legacy of STALKER with a new game called SURVARIUM ! Yes, it sounds strange, but just to confirm, lets hear it from the devs themselves :
So, its a new online shooter, presumably free to play , set in an apocalyptic environment like Stalker but may include more than just post apocalyptic Russia. ALso, the devs are even open to ideas from the gaming community and want to actively involve us in the development of the game ! THats awesome news and would be wonderful to see the inner workings of this group of guys I have admired so much over the years ! I, for one, have subscribed to their youtube channel and I advise that you should too, but its a free world, do what you like !
Have to sign off now, as my lightbox is screaming at me with its all its silence to come back and finish the awesome amazing work I have started and which needs to be shared soon with the whole world wild web ! Before it starts creaking towards me and gobbles me up raw and fresh, I need to end this post and get to work!
"creak...creaak..crrreeee...aa...k.k....! "
"Whats That ?"
"squee.aa.k..cre...ee..a..k... ! grrrrrr..r.r.r.r.....r.r"
"Its alright Mr. Lightbox, I still love you more than my computer ! Look, here, I come with my pencils and pens ! "
Hey ! I am back with some behind-the-scenes concept art of Christmas Magic and some b-r-r-r-r-reaking news !
So, lets roll ! This image you see up there was pivotal in the development of the concept of the magical tree. Before this we had tried many concepts, some were very unique indeed, but it was this image where, for the first time, we felt we were nearing the vision for the tree. A simple tree, not too high fantasy, not too alien or spooky.....a sense of mystery around it, yet charming and inviting ! Of course, this is not what you finally see in the game, cos we went through numerous revisions and little corrections before finalizing the tree's concept art. The final image will be featured some other day, some other time ! A little mystery is fun :) !
Otherwise, we have been busy working on the first update for the game. Finally, the update got done last night and has been uploaded to Apple for review. Hopefully it will be live soon !The main changes that have been made are:
We have made graphical improvements so that it runs better on iPad 1, as we were getting reports it was crashing on first gen iPads. We are still not sure if the crash is fixed or not. I hope it is.
Also, added support to earn in game goodies like Magic Pots for free by sharing the game on Facebook and Twitter
Fixed some text errors ! Yes ! Even after taking so much care that the game is perfect on launch, a small textual error crept in and has been fixed ! Now, you can enjoy the game ni all its dictionary-perfect glory :D !
and numerous other little fixes which only programmers would care about, so lets not talk about them !
Thats that, as far as updates are concerned but what you need to wake up and notice for now is this :
"Christmas Magic has taken the top spot and "Breaking" into the "News" section of GamingXpress.com ! "
Need I say more, just have a look at the shiny, glossy, squeaky clean screenshots on that page :D !:
Yes ! L'il Pono's mission to take over the interwebz is working out neatly. Soon, he will be more famous that all those famous celebrities no one cares about and only likes to read about (wink wink !) ! Pono's innocent face and the warm smile shall conquer every heart, mart, bits, bytes and websites out there !
"
L'il Pono is all set,
To conquer the mighty internet !
Tra La La...La La !
.....
"
:D
and dispelling the mystery right now, here's what the final art looks like :
Ain't that suweeeet !!!!!
Will be back soon with some awesome stuff i have been cooking up on my drawing table ! Hoping you guys will like it and it will set the internet a-blaze !
This is Renegade Singing out !
:)
I was looking out for Parallax and Steep Parallax Mapping on net and found out these pdfs and links.
Check this image to see what it looks like in CRYSIS! Also, there is tech demo vdo of Crytek displaying the realtime occlusion and self-shadowing with parallax mapping.
Right now, what I am trying to do is to find out, if this technique can also be used in rendered videos, as against just realtime footage. If anyone wants to add - Most Welcome!
