We have introduced new Vector/Flash Section in our Portfolio:
http://www.retrostylegames.com/artwork/vector-flash-animation

Here are some GIFs of hand-drawn frame by frame vector animation:

Additionally here in blog we would like to post a couple examples of Flash and hand-drawn keyframe character animation:

For this example we created in Flash around 20 different animated creatures (of 4 classes), bigger Boss creature with unique animations and vector scenery background.

Flash source is built using common structure, so it’s quicker to inter-change Flash symbols between similar animations.

Here are examples of Flying creatures:

Examples of Attacking, Dying and other cycles:

Random example of Flash animations:

Happy Holidays to everyone, “RetroStyle Games” team wishes you productive and pleasing 2012 year!

We have updated our portfolio with more than 180 recent images of 8 different categories:

Additionally we have changed our gallery engine and now:
- it’s easier to maintain everything from our side
- there is full-screen mode so you can view images at higher resolution with all the details
- there is better SEO and per-image description
- overall usability of our gallery should be improved

We have restructured categories a bit, so now there are:

Game Interfaces – GUI, HUD, Windows, Buttons, Overall UI Style

3D Modeling – Next-Gen Characters, Low-poly Modeling, Texturing

Game Backgrounds – Painterly, Illustrative Stages and Game Style

Concepts – Characters, Environment and Game Style Researches

Icons – 2D and 3D Game Tiles, Chips, Objects, Cursors and more

Vector / Flash Artwork – Icons, Costumes, Game Elements, Backgrounds, Flash Animation

Game Sprites – Pre-Rendered 2D / 3D Elements with Post-Processing or Over-paint

CG Animation – 3D Animation, Video Presentation and Flash or Hand-drawn Animation

Don’t hesitate to contact us in case of possible cooperation!

With a slight delay, but we would like to share a great news with our readers. A couple of months ago our regular art outsourcing client Kristanix Games asked us to help them to create game graphics or rather virtual prototype of their new idea.

Their government has a program which rewards indie developers with money grants, so they decided to jump into competition with their new game.  Deadline was pretty short, so really small part of real game was developed. Basically we just visualized their rough ideas and helped them to prepare illustrative material for judges…

Waiting for results took some time but recently Tor Martin (co-founder of Kristanix) sent a happy mail to us:

Just wanted to let you know that we were one of 5 projects that got funding for Heroes Guild! It’s in Norwegian but here’s the announcement:
http://www.nfi.no/Bransje+%26+tilskudd/Tildelinger+%26+informasjonsarkiv/Tildelinger+2011/Interaktive+produksjoner/Heroes+Guild.92228.cms

We got about US $27,000! We are working on a prototype for it now (currently working on the level editor). After we’ve finished up the prototype, figured out what we want to have in the game etc., we will start with the graphics. We will probably do some small concept testing with the graphics while working on the prototype too, though to find out what exact style fits best, but the main chunks of the graphics we can start on after the prototype is done.

We started up a Facebook page for the game as well:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Heroes-Guild/106617172762686

So congratulations to Kristanix Games and their new Heros Guild development! This time they decided to target more hard-core audience. Be sure to check http://www.kristanix.com/heroesguild/ later on, when they put more information there.

Now, I would like to demonstrate some of the artwork and in-progress images done for Heroes Guild. Remember, that we were under tight deadlines, but the main goal of getting the funds was accomplished

Basically we were asked to produce:
- strategy-like isometric view of heroes town with a couple of special buildings
- dungeon level with more straight isometric view, similar to Diablo hit
- stylized GUI elements
- game title/logo/icon featuring 3 main characters (wizard, archer and swordsman)

The Town

We started with rough buildings concepts (blacksmith, guard tower, horse-stable and wizards tower).

Then we proceed with rough background mock-up and a couple of GUI ideas.

Because of tight deadlines we had no chance to polish town area further, but final image was happily approved by client and should show game idea in full spectrum.

The Dungeon

As always – really rough concept idea. Client wanted straight isometric look similar to most old-school and modern RPG games.

Then we built a 3D scene, populated it with various objects (monsters, skeletons, chests, barrels and more), pre-rendered everything with orthographic camera and heavily edited in post.

The Title

Again, rough idea with 3 main characters (wizard, archer and swordsman) and basic logo searches.

These are two final title illustrations we had a chance to polish just in time for competition final. Different style, different look, still show the main idea.

When competition was already over, we got more free time and came up with 3rd variant of Heroes Guild title which looks much more complete.

Be sure to check art production testimonials on our Contact page:
http://www.retrostylegames.com/index.php?action=support
And our Art Outsourcing 2D/3D portfolio here:
http://www.retrostylegames.com/artwork

“Dress-Up Pups” – is match-3 game based on idea of cute outfits creation for dogs and puppies. You play for the Pattie character, which is working in special kind of fashion agency for dogs. Her boss is planning vacancy and asks Pattie to be in charge while he is away. It’s a good opportunity for Pattie (and the player) to show how good she can deal with the business.

Game was created by RetroStyle Games and AnaWiki Games teams and is available from our site and a number of game portals: http://retrostylegames.com/index.php?action=dress-up-pups-match-3

We began work on our first match-3 game right after the release of Mars Miner in order to try our hand at the already thriving casual games market.
The project, under the working title of “Fashion Life”, combined within itself match-3 and dress-up functionality. At that point the dress-up concept was pretty unique, or at least not popular enough to inspire us, as we came up with it all on our own and failed to find anything of the sort present on the market at the time.

Under dress-up mechanic idea of cloth gathering with further applying to game character figurine was meant.

The project’s ambitious nature and complex design expanded swiftly. We even wanted to include some “The Sims”-like elements, allowing the player to develop their character, go to work, make money, visit various events and pick out appropriate clothing for each occasion. And that’s not mentioning the minigames. However, the short term goal was attracting gaming portals, publishers and investors.

We prepared a demo version of “Fashion Life” (with SDDs in two languages) to present at a casual software development competition in Russia (alas, can’t recall the name). The demo was still pretty far from the final product but we hoped that the judges would grant due praise for the potential, graphics and team behind our idea.

Needless to say, everything turned out quite differently from what we expected. The amount of feedback we acquired was minimal and the amount of investors that took notice of our project nonexistent. That along with a number of other reasons led to the eventual death of the “Fashion Life” project.
After a year or so, I began noticing a number of games that combined the concepts of time management and dress-up. The ideas in and of themselves weren’t anything unique of course, but I just found comfort in our ideas becoming a reality in some way.

I could end this sad tale with the above image but I’d like to continue.

After a while our team decided to take another look at “Fashion Life” and reevaluate our view of the casual games market. As a result, we came to the conclusion that the game was too complex and ambitious for a starter project, so we decided to work on a match-3 game again.
This time around we decided to create a product with an optimal minimum amount of features: a simple but attractive match-3 game and nothing more. I hope that clarifies the purpose of the above image.

So the reworked “Fashion Life” concept became the “Dogs’ Fashion” project. Furthermore, we were inspired by a “Maxim” magazine article on clothing for dogs along with all the cute images related to the topic.

We began developing “Dogs’ Fashion” at a good pace. My CG-business partners invested some funds and promised ongoing support and quality control, which even allowed us to outsource some of the work and noticeably increase the development of the game’s graphics.

At that time, RetroStyle Games only had its own projects to deal with, without any art outsourcing as per our current services: http://retrostylegames.com/index.php?action=artwork

This allowed us to swiftly finish up a sizeable amount of graphical elements including 15 detailed backgrounds, more than 10 characters, icons for the game and a foundation for the upcoming interface, along with completed dialogues and a simple plot.
But our coding efforts just couldn’t match that pace…

When the development of the game’s graphics was coming to a close, we began focusing on creating levels and balancing the game. A number of disputes regarding this particular aspect of the development process and a few others coupled with slow coding progress severely dampened our spirits and motivation.
As a result, the team decided to take a break without giving up on the project.

Due to post-crisis financial troubles at the time, all project participants needed financial support. As such, working on “Dogs’ Fashion” had to be coupled with regular outsourced projects and even with full-time work for some, which clearly didn’t improve the overall development pace for the project.

The game survived in a half frozen state for another half a year. At that point, I reviewed my views on work as a whole and decided to take up RetroStyle Games again but this time in a more focused manner. We began providing graphical outsourcing services on a much larger scale and also took a dive into iPhone app development.

One of our clients turned out to be Roman Budzowski from AnaWiki Games. After successful work on “Perfect Tree”, “Soccer Cup Solitaire” and a number of other projects, we decided to revive the “Dogs’ Fashion” project using our graphics capabilities and Roman’s “kung-fu coder skills”, as he put it.

The new “Dogs’ Fashion” engine provided the game with three match-3 modes instead of just one: swap, chains and group. On top of that, we decided to add collectable items, alter the storyline and add a female character.

At first, we didn’t want to implement a single primary character. It was our understanding that a single character concept wouldn’t be enjoyable for all players. As such, we had first decided to let players experience the story from a first-person view, which is what we based the interface and other elements on.

The new view of the game resulted in having to rework the storyline and the creation of the main character named Pattie. Her boss – the CEO of the Dogs’ Fashion Agency – was at first named Pier de Bone. However, that name was later changed to Bernard so that our writer could insert St. Bernard jokes.

The changes to the featured characters resulted in a need to redraw the comic strips featured in the game as well as another look at the game’s name.
Since neither of the developers were native English speakers, we chose from a list of potential new game names provided by a Canadian writer:

Canine Couture
Simple alliteration

Dressed to the Canines
This is a pun on a well-known English expression “dressed to the nines,” meaning dressed up in high fashion, e.g. in a tuxedo

Dogs on the Catwalk
The “catwalk” is what fashion models walk on. But the fact that it includes “cat” makes it a good pun when you combine it with dogs

Doggy Divas (or Dog Show Divas)
More alliteration

Dress-up Pups
Rhyming, rather than alliteration

Four-Legged Fashionistas (or Furry Fashionistas)
Yet more alliteration

Bow Wow!
Bow-wow is one of many English onomatopoeia for a dog barking. But “Wow!” is of course an interjection to express surprise and being impressed.

The Russian members of the team found some of the names to be rather humorous, but in the end, everyone supported “Dress-Up Pups”, especially since the term “dress-up” had already been present in our previous prototype of the game (Fashion Life) and allowed us to work with the renowned dress-up game genre akin to games like Dress-Up Cats, Dress-Up Girls and so on.

At first we planned on granting players points for each level they passed (points meant to be exchanged for outfit elements). This would’ve ensured that players received access to higher level clothing items based on how well they did at the game. The way this was intended to work can be seen from the screenshot below, however, the concept didn’t make it into the final version of the game.

Roman considered such mechanics to be too hardcore and relatively boring, since the player ended up seeing the same dog for lengthy periods of time.

Keeping that in mind along with a desire to diversify the match-3 game modes, we decided to introduce collectable items (“Around the World in 80 Days”, “Deep Blue Sea II”, etc.). We also implemented a puzzle minigame (put together to display an image of a dressed up pup), thus making puzzle pieces fill the role of collectible items.

In the end, we had developed 10 images of dogs and 30 clothing items for them (though not all of them made it into the final version), 12 backgrounds, 3-4 menu background options, over 40 icons, tiles, comics, interface elements and more.
As a result, we had created around 190 game levels total.

Work on the game began anew in August of this year, and by October we were already testing the end result and sending the pre-final version to gaming portals and publishers. Considering that part of the graphics, concept creation and prototype development were ready beforehand, the game took around 4-5 months to complete in total.
At first Delphi and Asphyre engine was used, later on – BlitzMax.

Overall, I had fired myself up and burned out over the game several times. But in the end, I just had to get it finished and put it out there.
As a result, we did it, and I hope that the story from this point on will be a bit less purposeless and on a bit of a larger scale.

For now the game is available on our sites and at BigFishGames where it’s reached ^3rd place among the top match-3 games list and ^51st in the overall top list in the past few days:
http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/10273/dressup-pups/index.html

I would also like to mention that particular publisher’s interesting survey process here, but I’m not sure whether that information can be released to the public. Anyway, everything what’s happening to your game is real fun and pure interest.

Thanks go out to everyone who took part in the project:
our tight development team, the team at Anawiki Games as well as Vlad Tkach and Alexey Prokopyev for helping me get all of this off the ground back when it was all just a dream.

Thanks also go out to my past CG-business partners for inspiring us and giving us the foundation for the project’s beginning, even though in the end we finished it likely in spite of that help rather than because of it.

And last but not least, thanks to Andrey Oleynik (http://dreamfoot.net/) for hosting, support and assistance with our site.

Thank you for your interest and reading!

Sneak peek preview at Dress-Up Pups casual game – prepare for the high fashion!

Dress-Up Pups is a Match-3 game that puts you in charge of a luxury fashion agency catering to the most extravagant dog-lovers. Each customer has a unique vision for their pet’s ultimate outfit; help them bring their dreams to life through both classic and chain-style match-3 game play, plus jigsaw puzzle mini-games!

Dress-Up Pups will feature 190 levels of match-3 fun. On the way to your design success you will meet 10 amazing characters and will create 21 unique outfits for their dogs.

Actually, we started to work on that project (code name Dogs Fashion) more than a year ago inside of our own team. But after 6-8 months of slow development Dogs Fashion was frozen.

Luckily our constant cooperation with Roman Budzowski from Anawiki Games ended up with Dogs Fashion’s resurrection! So meet new and shiny Dress-Up Pups.
We put in it all the skills we learned during creation of The Perfect Tree and polished a lot of ideas and art that was already created.

Dress-Up Pups was initially scheduled to be released on Oct 12th 2010, but since we want to give it a bit of extra polish the release has been moved by a week. It will be available for both PC Windows and Mac OSX… and hopefully after a while on Linux. Stay tuned.

RetroStyleGames congratulates Razor scooter’s company with 10th anniversary and release of AWESOME and FREE “Ultra Pro Rider” iPhone game: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/razor-ultra-pro-rider/id392353099?mt=8

It was a pleasure to take part in creation of that game. We were asked to create pre-rendered game sprites: 3 Main characters, Scooters, various Environment Props and some misc elements.  In final we have created more than 150 pre-rendered sprite sequences and around 16 unique animations.

Some progress can be seen under cut…

We have started our work for Razor’s “Ultra Pro Rider” game with rough character concepts and test 3D character:

3 characters were chosen from over 20 variants by Razor’s producer.
We have provided slightly developed illustrations of couple of game characters for modeling and other purposes:

It was time to do 3D sculpting, modeling and texturing for main characters and some props:

Meanwhile our 2D artists did some graffiti to decorate environment:

To handle big amount of pre-rendered sprites that were sharing same 3D rig and animations we have built pretty interesting and effective work-flow  It allowed to save a lot of time and costs using animation re-projection and clever layer management. This way it was possible to re-use animation of one scooter rider on second character with minimal polishing.
As we mentioned it before, in final there was around 16 approved animations multiplied by 3 characters and 3 different scooters.

You can download Razor Ultra Pro Rider for iPhone for FREE from AppStore:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/razor-ultra-pro-rider/id392353099?mt=8

Also you can find out more information and examples on 3D and 2D Art Outsourcing here:
http://retrostylegames.com/index.php?action=artwork

We are happy to release so-needed update to our first game – Mars Miner. It fixes pretty common bug connected with Zip.dll library we were using – which was stopping a lot of players from trying our game, specially on newer OS like Windows 7 or Windows XP 64 bit.
Also, it adds a couple of smaller balance and misc changes.

More information about Mars Miner game:
http://retrostylegames.com/index.php?action=prod_miner

Download Mars Miner 1.2 for PC:
http://www.retrostylegames.com/mars_miner/MarsMinerSetup.exe

History of Mars Miner updates:
1.2.0:
- Zip.dll startup error should be fixed now – download New version if you had that error
- Game Protection mechanism was changed – all license owners should contact us to get new keys
- Difficulty balance changes and other small fixes

1.1.0:
- New sound tracks by Mad-Tek and Takomo
- Difficulty balance changes, it should be easier and more fun to play now
- Other small fixes

1.0.8
- Reworked sound engine
- Additional music themes
- Story mode Awards and small balance changes
- Survival is more dynamical now
- Smaller game size, but more content

1.0.6:
- Random hanging in full-screen mode. Score computation’s are faster now in Survival mode

We are happy to release sequel to our own Bad Pocket Santa game. Polished and improved it really stands out from Pocket God and Pocket Devil analogs.

More information about game on it’s own page: http://retrostylegames.com/index.php?action=pocket-elves
Positive customer reviews are pouring in.

And here is bonus Pocket Elves video of farting Santa and vomiting elves:

Have fun!

I have done new version of video for FDMPro.com online football manager. It’s more dynamic and twice shorter (that was needed to save some time for whole presentation).
We didn’t win at SeedCamp this time, but still it was great experience for our team.

We are preparing renovated version of FDMpro.com for Seedcamp‘s final and I’m working over new stadium graphics.

Here are first tests (GIF animation):

The hardest part was to slice and prepare stadium model for rendering into layers. Also, we need to find some way to automate rendering process using scripts.