Blocky Roll: Dev Diary - Entry One

Welcome to the first entry of my development diary for Blocky Roll.

Blocky Roll is a puzzle game for mobile devices but it also includes some mechanics found in platforming and adventure games.  

You control the central character, Blocky in a bid to solve levels throughout a myriad of themed worlds.  Blocky moves through these levels and worlds in search of his brain and by progressing through levels Blocky learns and discovers new things.

The central theme to Blocky Roll is education.  Through gameplay elements, Blocky Roll will raise awareness and funds to support charitable organisations to build and operate schools in third world communities and to bring the opportunity of education to children all over the world.

In keeping with the theme of education, Pale Blue Dot Games has partnered with Edith Cowan University (ECU) to provide students of their Game Development course with the opportunity to work on the Blocky Roll project and gain valuable experience as they head out into the workforce.

Entry One - Monday 29th August

After meeting with the ECU team a couple weeks ago, roles were defined within the team and work was underway rather quickly!

Game design had already been completed at this point and the first week saw some great level designs start to take shape.

Testing also began on background environments. Blocky Roll has some themed worlds made of multiple levels to work through. The background environments will be made to match and emphasis the worlds theme. Early testing was done using voxels to match the blocky and cubed feel of the game. It was found however that the poly counts were very high which would impact on the performance of the game on a mobile device. The blocky terrain idea was abandoned for more traditional and low-poly terrain.

Prototype development also began for the testing and development of the movement and control for Blocky.

I would love to hear your thoughts as we progress through development so please comment, like and share! :)

Team Blocky Roll

Dan - Project Manager
Wyatt - Level Design
Alberto - Concept Art, Animation
Juan - Programming
Jake - Environment Design
Jorge - Creative Design
Dylan - Game Design and Director

Post originally published on Pale Blue Dot Games website.

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Pale Blue Dot Games first release, LUMBER LARRY, is out now and free-to-play on iOS, download and play here - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lumber-larry/id979141193