All Hallow's Eve Tea and Masquerade

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If you’re looking for something to do in Toronto this Halloween may we suggest ALL HALLOW’S EVE TEA AND MASQUERADE at Bento Miso? They Bleed Pixels will be among several spooky local indie games available to play. Cover is $5 at the door. “Delightful drinks and tantalizing treats available for sale at the event.” All profits go to the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 

More info here: https://bentomiso.com/events/all-hallows-eve-tea-and-masquerade

I get back from my epic Tokyo trip the day before and will likely be in attendance, confused and disoriented by massive jet lag and so very afraid.

They Bleed Pixels at Kaigai International Manga Fest in Tokyo - Oct 20th 2013!

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We’re making it out to one last event in Japan before heading back to Canada. You’ll be able to find us (and pick up some rare TBP postcards, prints and buttons) at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) table at the Kaigai Manga Festival alongside several Canadian cartoonists and fellow Toronto indie dev Christine Love. It’s part of a larger event called Comitia which is jam packed with amazing original art. 

More info on Kaigai and TCAF’s involvement can be found here: 
http://torontocomics.com/news/tcaf-to-japan-kaigai-manga-festa-october-20th-2013/

Screenshot is from a quick and dirty tutorial translation we’ll have at our table. Big thanks to the folks at Playism for helping us out with that. Expect a full localized version of They Bleed PIxels from them sometime in 2014!

A Short Dance About Architecture (and Action Games)

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A short game design microtalk on performance platformers and game controls I gave at the Tokyo Indie Underground event at 8bitcafe in Shinjuku (2013/09/18). Worth checking out if your interested in some of the thinking behind They Bleed Pixels.

Into my second week in Tokyo now and lots to write about including attending and exhibiting at Tokyo Game Show’s first indie game event (including a super confusing stage show I got to be a part of).  More soon!

They Bleed Pixels & We Love Fine Team up for PAX!

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Super happy to announce that we’ve teamed up with the talented folks at welovefine.com for PAX Prime! They’ve put together four unique designs (3 t-shirts & 1 bag) that we’ll be selling at our booth this weekend (#684 in the IndieMEGABOOTH)!

I know folks will ask and yes, we are talking about the possibility of making these available online sometime in the future but for now PAX Prime will be your only guaranteed chance to pick one of these up.

The four designs are:

Big thanks to the artists who worked on these!

More info on where to find us at PAX Prime complete with map here.

They Bleed Pixels at PAX Prime - Booth #684 In The Indie MEGABOOTH!

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THEY BLEED PIXELS AT PAX PRIME BOOTH #684 IN THE Indie MEGABOOTH!

We’ll be at PAX Prime in Seattle this weekend (Aug 30-Sep 2, 2013) sharing a booth in the Indie MEGABOOTH with our friend Christine Love (Analogue / Hate Plus). You’ll find both of us at booth #684. I’m going to have all the They Bleed Pixels goodies we had for sale at PAX East and FanExpo as well as a selection of T-Shirts and bags created by the talented folks at We Love Fine! 

More info and bigger images of the awesome new We Love Fine stuff here.

The IndieMEGABOOTH is absolutely huge this year, check out the trailer to see all the games being shown!

 If you’re at PAX come stop by the booth and say hi!


Our boothmate Christine Love has a good post on her *very* mixed feelings attending PAX.  I’ve stated previously on twitter and I’ll state it again here that I share her sentiment and hope that over time the folks at the top of the PA empire become more sensitive to the concerns of the women, queer and trans folk that are an important part of the gaming community. 

Spooky Squid Games at Fan Expo Toronto - Aug 22-25, 2013

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We’ll be at Fan Expo in Toronto from Thursday through the weekend! Come play They Bleed Pixels and pick up some rare TBP merch including the super rare Little Black Envelope Edition pictured above!

We’re booth #2042 right across from Ubisoft in the South Building by a clump of other indie game folks including Capy, Christine Love, Onipunks, DMG Toronto and Bento Miso

More info on Fan Expo Here - http://www.fanexpocanada.com/

We’ll also be stateside at PAX PRIME the weekend after. More info soon!

Miguel Interviewed on BigSushi.FM Podcast

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I was interviewed a few weeks ago by the folks at BigSushi.FM, it was during a craaaazy heatwave in Toronto and I slowly became more and more heatstroke delirious as it progressed.  We discuss a whole bunch of the things I’m involved in, not just They Bleed Pixels but Comics vs Games, The Hand Eye Society and even my brief foray into the world of special effects for film (*cough* Cube2: Hypercube *cough*).

Listen as I slowly melt!

Interview on my mixed opinions on Steam Trading Cards as a developer.

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Want to read about my mixed feelings on Steam trading cards?
Here’s an article in Games Radar that fulfills that need!

The title is a bit sensational but I think the article itself does a pretty great job of condensing a nuanced 45 min conversation into a few paragraphs. I do not envy journalists their trade.

Someone made the They Bleed Pixels dress in Animal Crossing!

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Thanks to reddit user rocan91 for creating this awesome version of the TBP dress. I had been planning on borrowing a friend’s 3DS to try making one myself but it looks like rocan91 did a great job! I’d love to see some screenshots of folks wearing it so I can see how it looks in game.

Note: You probably need to click on the image and view it full size to get the QR codes to work properly

http://www.reddit.com/r/ACQR/comments/1i0zoo/request_dress_from_they_bleed_pixels/

Oh and a reminder we’re selling TBP super cheap on Steam for the next week or so! http://store.steampowered.com/app/211260/

So I spent a little time this weekend messing around with Saint Row 3’s character creation stuff...

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Cross posting this from our FB page:

So I spent a little time this weekend messing around with Saint Row 3’s character creation stuff and created a pretty credible likeness of the They Bleed Pixels girl. SR3 is not really my thing but the customization and online sharing tools are pretty great.

If you want to run around Steelport as the Clawed Girl here’s a link to her on saintsrow.com http://www.saintsrow.com/community/characters/details/126189313149623974

Someone has also made some sweet TBP Minecraft skins that I posted awhile back:

http://www.planetminecraft.com/skin/they-bleed-pixels-heroine-full-transformation/
http://www.planetminecraft.com/skin/they-bleed-pixels-heroine-normal/

Anyone tried recreating her in other games?

Love Love Hill Sketch of Toronto Indie Games

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Artist Dirchansky from the excellent Love Love Hill comics collective just posted this awesome sketch featuring They Bleed Pixels alongside fellow Toronto indie games Home and Analogue: A Hate Story (links below if you don’t know about them)

We were all part of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival’s trip to take part in the Kaigai Manga Festa in Tokyo last year. I really should get around to posting some TBP related pictures of that trip because it was pretty amazing.

sumafu:

Coolios Toronto indie game developers~ check their games out !!
Spooky Squid Games’s They Bleed Pixels
Christine Love’s Analogue: a Hate Story
Benjamin River’s Home

They Bleed Pixels Steam Trading Cards released!

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So I had a lot of fun putting these together. A good chunk of the art is new and there’s some brand new story nuggets for fans who want more info on the world of They Bleed Pixels. Hope you all enjoy them!

If you don’t have They Bleed Pixels yet Amazon has it at a 66% discount with 3 free games as a bonus or you can get it at full price direct from Steam.

If you aren’t familiar with the whole Steam Trading Card thing here’s the info on how it all works.

Official Steam Avatars for They Bleed Pixels

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I’ve spent the last few days putting together a Steam trading card set for They Bleed Pixels (more on that soon, when they launch!) and stumbled onto the tab that let’s me add official game avatars to Steam. Yes we really should have had these months ago when the game launched. I’m the first to admit I’m kinda clueless as to what’s available on the Steam community side of things. But better late then never!

So here are the five avatars which include some new artwork created for the Steam trading cards along with some older art from the game.  You can add them to your steam profile here. I may add a few more in the future.

We are of course 100% cool with folks downloading these and using them for other services, twitter etc…

They Bleed Pixels: Tips for new Players

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We’ve got a bunch of new players coming in due to the sale so I thought I’d post up a few tips for folks discovering just how difficult (and rewarding!) They Bleed Pixels can be.

  • Play with a gamepad if you can! We support Xbox360 and other XInput controllers automatically and there are several ways to hook up gamepads that use the older directInput standard.
     
  • Prefer ‘X’ for attack? The controls can be customized in the options menu.
     
  • Having trouble with the little squidies? Don’t forget your dash attack, slash up and charge down attacks. They’re each super effective in the right situation.
     
  • Having trouble with slippery surfaces? Remember you can still react quickly in the air. When you can, use your jump and double jump to quickly change direction.
     
  • Having trouble with double jumping after wall jumps? Make sure you’re first hitting jump then pushing away from the wall. Otherwise you will fall off it first and then use your double jump early. There’s a few frames of buffer to help but for some that isn’t enough.
     
  • Don’t try to get all the pages and achievements your first time through a level.
     
  • If you’re stuck on a level try going back to an earlier one and search for pages or go for an achievement. You’ll probably be surprised by how much you’ve improved in skill!
     
  • Take a break. They Bleed Pixels was never intended to be played in a single sitting. As with the old game’s that inspired TBP you’ll often find your skills have improved when you come back to it.
     

If the controls feel slow or sluggish you’re probably not running the game at full speed! Experiment with turning off effects, parallax and v-synch in the options. If your graphic card is below spec you may also get better speeds running full screen or windowed depending on your particular card. Updating to the latest drivers can also make a big difference in some cases. For laptops make sure the screen is set to refresh at 60Hz or higher.

I occasionally come back and add to this list. If there’s a tip you think should be included let me know! (gif source: http://simonlane.tumblr.com/)