It always strikes me how much game development depends on good old paper.
E.g. this is the first draft of one of the game levels.

gr.jakko

Beside the joyful fact that in 2009 Pocket Town Hero will see the day of light, I just noticed that Secret of Mana was released on the Wii Virtual Console.

!fanboy alert, you can stop reading now!
As a Dutch seventies kid,  SNES and MSX ruled my teen years. And Secret of Mana was, and still is, in my top ten of best games ever. So after downloading and playing it for an hour or so does it still hold up? Surprisingly it does, I’m having heaps of fun and can hum all the melodies along, it is fantastic to relive the game in front of a television again.
Mind you, it is a game from another era and there are a few hardcore annoyances to deal with, but nostalgia and Wii’s ability to save and stop the game at any time compensates more than enough.

So does this have anything to do with the development of Pocket Town Hero? Of course it does! Since SoM is a personal favorite, I must’ve been influenced by it in some way, don’t I.

gr.jakko

Make sure you always do your research, and make sure you always have enough fresh ink cartridges ready.

gr.jakko

Every town needs a hero, and every hero needs a concept sketch first.

gr.jakko

Today I walked around the Iron Man (a local man-made lake), the weather was nice and crisp. I was glad I wore my woolly hat and gloves though, zero degrees centigrade and the strong winds can raise the discomfort level rather quickly.

Usually I don’t like winter, but on days like this.

I’m enjoying the last moments of peace. Tomorrow I have to catch the Daily Grind Express again.

gr.jakko

Every developer needs to chill at least once a year.

gr.jakko

This is where the title screen shows its true nature: the develop environment. Overkill to construct a 2d game in 3d? Probably… but 3d movements and effects can add so much more.

gr.jakko

When testing on the iPhone you lack the convenience of a regular keyboard for your cheat and hot keys. So I’ve added the following cunning ultra cheat code: four fingers to the screen and -hey presto- a debug interface.

gr.jakko

My oh my, has it been almost three months of radio silence already? Time for three quick updates I think, one for each month of silence. And, even better, two of them are EXCLUSIVES. It does feel like Christmas doesn’t it?

First one
Yes, I’m still here, working hard to get things done. Still loving it, thank you very much.

Second one *EXCLUSIVE*
The last months I have worked on the first PebbleBug Studios game, an amazing game for the iPhone with an amazing working title: Pocket Town Hero.

It’s still a couple of months from release, a couple of months filled with long working hours for me, and a couple of months filled with tantalizing anticipation for you.

And Third *EXCLUSIVE*
To keep you (and myself) entertained during that period let me introduce you to a new and exclusive feature you can only get here: the Daily-ish Picture Dump or DiPD for short. A somewhat daily update of the game and its development through the use of carefully selected images.

So, without further ado, here it is, the first DiPD of the -under construction- title screen, fresh from the iPhone.

Get it while the pixels are still hot.

More tomorrow…

gr.jakko

I just added a bit of color to the site, you know, to cheer it up a bit. In the coming weeks there will be more changes, besides games I’ve got a couple of side projects going on and at least one of them is bound to end up on the website.

But what about games? I’m currently working on the concepts and at some point in the near future I will pick one and production will start.

gr.jakko