The Road to Becoming a Rockhound

Throughout this blog, I've wrote about some of the difficulties we've had throughout development. This post we discuss the most difficult decision we've had to make on Pebble Pets.

Pebble Pets will be delayed by one month.

As we headed for the end of March deadline, we have run into some hangups. While these are being cleared up, it sometimes meant having to cut features for now. These are things that would have been added in updates, but would not be in the initial launch.

Instead of doing this, we have made the decision to delay the game. While it's never fun to wait, this way when the game launches all features will be included and the game will be the best it can be. Thanks for bearing with us. We hope you'll try out Pebble Pets when it's finally released.

So what's the gameplay? At its core, Pebble Pets is a pet simulator. This means that you'll be taking care of your active rock as if it were a live pet.You will feed it, water it, clean it, play with it, pet it, etc. However, this post we're gonna talk about mini-games.

At launch we will have at least one mini-game in Pebble Pets. There will be a second either at launch or in an update. These two are called Boulder Dash and Stone Skipper.

Boulder Dash is based on dog agility trials. You will guide your rock through different obstacles by drawing symbols on screen. Your rock approaches an obstacle, you draw the symbol, the rock completes the action. Get it wrong, and the rock will be confused and you must try again. Our next game, Monster Mob, will utilize this mechanic to a greater extent. You can check that out in a previous post. The course will have 20 obstacles to complete. Obstacles are randomly generated. Some are harder to draw than others. Your goal is to get through the obstacles as fast as you can. You can compete against yourself, trying to beat your best time, against one of the in-game characters, and (after an update) against friends.

The second mini-game is called Stone Skipper. It is just what it sounds like. You'll be skipping your rock across water. Your goal here is distance, as this is a launch game. Basically, you will fling your rock off of a ramp and skip it across water. To continue to skip, you'll have to bounce off of items. Some items will cause you to go a greater distance, and some will slow you down. You can slightly control the altitude of your rock by drawing up arrows and down arrows on the touch screen. When you've slowed down too much, your rock sinks in the water and the game is over. The greatest distance wins. Again, you compete against yourself, in-game characters, and (eventually) online.

So all of Team Assemblarg has been throwing some ideas around for the next project after Pebble Pets. After some thought, our next game is going to be Monster Mob. Today you'll get the very first look at some conceptual art for it!

Monster Mob will be an iOS (and possibly Android) side-scrolling game in which a group of survivors run from a mob of monsters. However, you do not control the survivors or the monsters, but must manipulate the environment to play the game. You'll do this through drawing simple symbols on screen. Your goal is to get as many survivors as possible to the end of the level. Draw a symbol wrong or too slow, and the monsters will start picking off your survivors one by one.

The style is going to be simple silhouettes. We're taking some visual inspiration from a film called The Adventures of Prince Achmed. Thematically, the game will be humorous. It will have a campy B monster movie tone. For a better idea, check out some concept art and screen mock-ups below!

In Pebble Pets you only care for one rock at a time. This rock is called your active rock. So where do you keep your other rocks? You'll be keeping them in quarries! There will be three different quarries at launch to store your rocks in. When your rock is in a quarry, you don't have to worry about it, it will be totally cared for. In this post, we'll take a look at some concept art for them. Quarries will be another item included in early updates, along with more hats, rocks, and digging areas. We're also considering adding more team members to the Diamond Dogs and Rockhounds as well. Check out this concept art!

So how do you get more rocks in Pebble Pets? You dig for them! At launch there will be three different locations within the game to dig rocks out of. Each of these areas will have different rocks at different values. Some rocks are rarer than others and will be harder to find. In this post, I'll show you some concept art for the locations you'll be digging in!

As the time draws closer for Pebble Pets to be submitted and released, problems continue to arise. When you've got a deadline that you'd like to reach, and a game you'd like to finish, sometimes this means cutting features altogether, or saving them for later.

We're still trying to best we can to get it out on time, but game design is no fairy tale. Some things just won't make it. The first thing to go was part of the dress up section. This means all the items that would have gone on the rocks' faces. Dress up will largely be hats now, due to some of the issues that the other items presented. But hey, who doesn't like hats, right?

That brings us to the next big thing on the chopping board. It looks as if one of the mini-games may be cut for now, but added in an update very soon.

It's sad to see features and content go, but sometimes you have to know where to draw the line. Or realize that the line can be moved later.

Late October of last year, we were contacted by Animosity Studios and asked for some gameplay footage. They were having an event for the Helix Service (the service we are using to develop Pebble Pets) and needed video from some of its game projects. This was due by November 3rd.

We panicked.

Here's where some of the grittiness of game development comes in. At the time, we had a lot of art, animation, and even some programming, put these were not yet combined. We were not at a stage where we could put together such a video.

So what did we do? Well, here's the honest truth (and one you'll find other developers doing too) we faked it. The trailer is simply animation. However, it is an accurate representation of what gameplay will be like in the pet care section of the game.

We had to create an animation that looked exactly the way the game would play. It took a few all-nighters, but the trailer was completed.

There's a few things in this trailer that are different from the game now. For instance, originally the rocks were going to display emotiocons to tell the player what they wanted. This was taken out and replaced instead with more rock animations to better simulate a real pet.

Another difference is the backgrounds. The backgrounds in the video are placeholder ones, and are not in the game. Plus, the number of rocks you'll find at launch jumped from 30 to 51.

The rest however, is true to what you'll see in the pet care section of the game. There is that plus more to come later this month when Pebble Pets launches. Check out the trailer below!

Customization can be an important aspect of any game. The more control and choices you give a player, often, the happier they will be. This is due mostly to the sense of accomplishment that comes with the freedom to express one's self. 

In Pebble Pets, we have given the player the option to dress up their rock with various clothing items. This allows for that freedom of expression that some players crave. In addition, clothing lets us design more content for future updates. In fact, more clothing options will be a major part of the very first update.

First, we came up with a list of items to be included in the game. These were split into two categories: hat items and face items. Only one from each category can be worn at any one time.

These items were concepted by Ashley, and then vectored and colored by Yee Shuen. As of right now, there are some issues we are experiencing implementing dress up items into the game. However, there will be at least ten of each type of item at launch with an update soon to follow featuring more clothing items.

Below is some concept art for the clothing.

Pebble Pets will be a free to play title. The way that we will make money for our work will be through in-app purchases. This business model is also known as freemium.

Basically, our game will be free to download and play. However, you can buy more of the in-game currency, pebble points and energy bars, with real-world money. The pebble points can then be spent on the store in the game. You can earn pebble points within the game itself, these in-app purchases are merely a way to earn money faster. You can also buy some items with real-world money directly.

The above shows what the icons for in-app pebble point purchases would look like. The pictures represent different amounts of pebble points. The amount received and cost are still being worked out at the time of writing.

The choice to go freemium was another hard decision we had to make. There is a certain amount of risk that comes with it.

On the app market, there are typically two ways to sell an app. The first is to have two versions of your game on the market: a free "lite" version that is typically loaded with ads and has limited features, and a second version that costs usually 99 cents or $1.99.

With this model, your players will pay a flat sum of money, and you will make money with every copy downloaded. However, audiences have become so used to the freemium style, that most will not give a paid app a chance at all. Paid apps have been on the decline for a long time now. 

Then there's freemium apps, in which the game is initially free, but the player has the options to pay for things within the app itself. This has become the new standard for apps on the market today, but it does come with risks.

Because the player is not playing a flat sum, the game could potentially make more money than a paid app. However, because buying items is optional, many players will play the game without making any purchases at all, meaning no money for developers. If enough players do this, developers will not make back the amount of money that their effort was worth.

The honest truth is, we went with freemium because paid apps are dying out. Freemium is becoming the only way to make money from the work developers have put into an app game.

There will be two forms of currency within Pebble Pets. Both can be purchased with in-game currency and real-world currency. These are the pebble points and energy bars.

Above is what in-app purchases for energy bars may look like. Energy bars will allow you to perform tasks quicker in the game. Pricing and amount received are still being decided.

The biggest obstacle with freemium, more so than anything else, is maintaining player trust. The player must not feel coerced into paying for items in-game. Instead, they should feel as if the items would be a boon, but are not absolutely needed. They must also feel that they have not been ripped off once they do purchase items.

Who are the developers making Pebble Pets? Well, there's ten of us in total, and we all fulfill a different role. I'll take you through them so you can get to know our team a little better. That way, when you play the game, you'll know who did what!

Amanda Lafond - Project Lead, Writer

That's me. In addition to being your guide on this journey, I am also the team lead. This means that I more or less direct the game. I oversee everything and hand out tasks. It's my job to hold the team together and create various documents that are needed over the development of the game.

I am also the writer. Every bit of writing you'll see in the game was written by me. This includes all tutorial and chacracter dialogue.

Yee Shuen Lau - Artist, Animator

Yee Shuen's main job is to take concept art from Ashley and make it finalized art. This means taking raster images and making them vector images. She also creates art like buttons and menu items. Nearly every click-able interface item in the game is totally created by Yee Shuen. 

She is also currently overseeing animation. She animates rocks herself, and passes out animation tasks to other animators.

Jourdan Lasko - Artist

Jourdan's biggest task is to create every rock in the game. Jourdan designed all 51 rocks. Jourdan is also the one who conceptualized the art style of Pebble Pets. The entire look of the game is based on rocks created by her. She also works on all the environments.

Ashley Sarroca - Concept Artist

Ashley is our concept artist. She sketches out what most of the game will look like, and our other artists make it vector images. She concepted many things from environments to dress up items. However, her biggest task was concepting all the members of the Rockhounds and Diamond Dogs.

Corey Westcott - Programmer

Corey is our programmer. This means he basically makes the entire game actually work. Without Corey and his coding, there would be no game to play.

Michael Simpson - Artist, Animator

Michael also takes Ashley's concept art and vector-izes it. He mostly worked on the mini-game sections. However, his bigger task was helping out with various rock animations.

Michael Bond - Composer

Any and all music heard within the came was composed by Mikey. He composed everything from an overall theme for the game, to themes for the Rockhounds and Diamond Dogs.

Charlie Hafer - Sound Designer

Charlie hasn't submitted a picture, so here's a donut instead! Any sound effects you hear in the game were done by Charlie.

Tiffany Droke - Animator

Tiffany was our main animator for the majority of Pebble Pets' development. Towards the end she had to leave the team to pursue her studies. However, you can still see much of her work in the game!

Alex Nicewander - Helix Production Assistant, Animosity Studios Representative

Alex is the CEO of Animosity Studios, the studio that will be publishing Pebble Pets. He is also our Helix Production Assistant, this means that he helps make sure production is running smoothly, and that we have all the resources we need for development.

Characters and all that are cool, but the main focus of Pebble Pets is, of course, the rocks themselves. But what exactly is a pebble pet?

Put simply, they are sentient rocks. They are rocks that have come alive, each with their own likes and dislikes. Each with their own personalities. We as a team talked over a few reasons why this was. This included back stories like the rocks had some sort of tests done to them, they evolved sentience, and that they were simply found that way.

It's never explicitly stated within the game, and only hinted at in the trailer, but the answer is the last one. The back story for the game is that sentient rocks have recently begun to be uncovered in certain parts of the world.

Both the Rockhounds and Diamond Dogs are teams of geologists who are now dedicated solely to studying these sentient rocks. The Rockhounds in particular being the foremost experts on them.

Then there's the question of why we chose the rocks we did. Rocks were chosen for the game for multiple reasons. We tried o stick to materials that were not only visually pleasing, but that the audience might be familiar with. This is why there is a multitude of gemstones within the game. As of right now we have a list of over 70 rocks that will eventually be included in the game. At launch, however, there will be 51 to collect in total.

For the first time, every one of those 51 rocks designed by Jourdan Lasko will be revealed here in this blog! Check it out!

So now that all the characters from both teams have been fully concepted, I can introduce you to the rest of the Rockhounds and Diamond Dogs that will be in the game at launch. Please note this is all concept art and not the final assets that will appear in-game. All art done by Ashley Sarroca.

The Rockhounds team:

Pliny - The leader of the Rockhounds

A bit cooky, but always enthusiastic. Pliny is good intentioned, even if he is a bit scatter-brained. He knows his rocks and will be your guide to the world of Pebble Pets.

Dana - The second-in-command

Dana is very aloof and serious. She prefers rocks to the company of people.

Owen - The boy genius

Owen is a child prodigy and the youngest character. He's always trying to prove his worth despite his age. He does this through his various inventions, like his digger bot, Veizer.

Richter - The punk rocker

No one knows her real name, she's embarrassed to reveal it for reasons that are also unknown. Richter puts on a tough persona, but she's extremely kindhearted. She's the twin sister of Fyfe.

The Diamond Dogs Team

Hutton - Leader of the Diamond Dogs

Hutton is sarcastic and ruthless in getting what he wants. He does the best he can to lead his team in dastardly deeds, even if they aren't quite as evil as he would have hoped. 

Lyelle - The intern

Lyelle's just here to go along for the ride. She tries her hardest to be an evil intern, but it's not an attitude she's quite nailed down yet.

Morgan - The actor

Morgan's not actually a luchador, and he's not actually evil. He's just preparing for his role as a villain in the upcoming movie Stony IV.

Fyfe - The old school rocker

Fyfe is a bit more organized and sly than her twin sister, Richter. However, she's only joined the Diamond Dogs to be closer to Richter. She wasn't the best sister growing up, and now wants to make up for it.

We always knew that Pebble Pets was going to have some pet sim aspects to it, but the mini-games that would come with it were up in the air for a long time.

Originally, Pebble Pets was conceived as being more like Pokemon, in that you had teams of rocks, they had different attributes, attacks, weaknesses, etc. This was partly in response to the feedback we had from Biota. We began to craft battle mechanics geared towards the touch screen. The following is no longer in the game.

In our concepts, the player would choose from three different actions, as shown above. After tapping on their choice, they would have to draw certain simple shapes to complete it.

These would be shapes as simple as a semi-circle, as shown above. This would have cause a "normal" attack, meaning that you more or less bash your rock into their rock.

Depending on how well the player drew the required shape on screen, as well as other factors, damage would be dealt out.

Afterwards, your rock returns to its position, and the player waits until the button recharges to use that attack again.

After we turned in the pitch doc and made our case for Pebble Pets, we were surprised to find that we were directed to take fighting out of the game. It was admittedly frustrating given that one of the reasons Biota was shut down, was that we couldn't make it conform to the type of game Pebble Pets already was. Now it felt as if they were asking us to make Pebble Pets more like Biota.

We resisted for a while, but retired the idea of fighting. Mini-games then took center stage. We trashed all mini-games from the pitch doc and started from scratch. We made the mini-games more robust and important than they were before. They went through a few iterations, but in the final app there will be two mini-games: an agility course, and a stone skipping game.

Sometimes it's hard to switch gears and look at a game differently than how you originally concepted it. It's easy to get attached to an idea and resist change. It was even harder to change Pebble Pets after abandoning Biota.

Sometimes the members of Team Assemblarg just need to do something silly. Making a game can be stressful, especially when things don't go according to plan.

Making Pebble Pets has been a long process for us. One we started in September, and that still continues today. It will continue until March, when the game is released, and beyond when updates are needed. In this post, I'll share with you some of the silly art the team has made.

First is a series of gifs Yee Shuen Lau made.

This one was made after frustrations translating Pliny from raster (an image format that is difficult to resize) to vector (an image format that can easily be resized).

And this edited gif of a popular meme.

This gif she made after our Facebook page received over 100 likes.

This image was made by Ashley Sarroca during some downtime. It's a more "realistic" Pliny that turned out pretty humorous.

In addition, after some of the team took a trip to the Museum of Natural History in D.C. these pictures were edited to include Pebble Pets-likeness.

So with Biota on the back burner, we turned to Pebble Pets. After I suggested the new idea to the studio, we had about 48 hours to get a pitch document together. For Jourdan Lasko, Ashley Sarroca, and myself, it was crunch time.

It was winter break, so we were all in separate states, meaning we spent most of our time over Skype working together to get the doc done. Ashley and Jourdan concepted and drew, while I did the writing.

A pitch doc is a shorter document that is created to give the general idea of a game (usually) to perspective publishers. It contains general info on what the game is, genre, target audience, art style, etc. A game can change greatly from the design document, as ideas evolve throughout the course of development.

One feature that was in the design doc, taken out of the game, and finally put back in again was the two teams of geologists in Pebble Pets.

This was partly inspired by the dynamic of Pokemon trainers versus Team Rocket in Pokemon. Because fighting was the largest part of the game back then, we wanted to drive up the competitive aspect.

First we needed a group of good guys. In researching, we came across the term "rockhound," which is a word for an avid rock collector. This became our hero team the player joins. Below is the Rockhound logo.

Within our good guy team, we needed a character to show the player the ropes. Someone to be the tutorial character that the player could ask questions of. This became Sergeant Doctor Pliny. He once worked on geological studies for the Army, but has since retired and become a professor. He's welcoming, gregarious, and a bit cooky. He leads his team in discovering and researching sentient rocks.

But good guys are only as interesting as the bad guys they face, right? We needed a rival group of geologists to compete with the Rockhounds. From this came the Diamond Dogs. They're out to steal research and rocks from the Rockhounds. Check out their logo.

We also needed a counterpart to Pliny. We found him in Hutton, the leader of the Diamond Dogs. Cunning and devious, Hutton is Pliny's opposite in most every way. And he's Australian. 

Eventually we added more members to both teams, but these were the first two characters created for the game. Pliny is the only character to have always remained in the game at all stages. As a tutorial character, he is integral to the game.

Every other character spent time being cut. First to go were all of the Diamond Dogs. When fighting was cut, they were no longer necessary. We were down to just the Rockhounds.

They eventually were on the cutting room floor, save for Pliny, when it seemed that they just weren't needed. This was due to much the same reason the Diamond Dogs were cut. The game's scope was narrowed, and there wasn't room for them.

This past weekend an event took place called Global Game Jam. GGJ is, as the name suggests, a global event that took place from January 25-27. During this 48 hour period, participants must get together and make a game.

Team Assemblarg took a break from development to take part in this worldwide event. The event was only open locally to current SCAD students, so we also gathered some friends outside the team to help. We called ourselves Team Assemblarg and Friends.

Every year there is a theme that all the projects must follow. This year's theme was the sound of a heartbeat. After watching the keynote speech and theme reveal, all the teams went away to work around the Montgomery building for the next two days.

Our team created a game called K.O. Cupid, a play on the site name OK Cupid. In the game you play as cupid who, after a makeover from Mars, kills as many couples as he can. The health meter features an EKG. The more live couples there are on screen, the more frustrated Cupid is, the higher his heartbeat is. Too many couples on screen and cupid dies of a heart attack.

Though 48 hours proved not enough time to complete the game, we learned from the experience and had fun while doing so. Check out some photos of the team working below.

For more info on the game we created, check out our GGJ team page here.

We are hoping to finish the game and have a playable version soon.

You can also check out my Twitter Feed where I live tweeted as much as I could of the event.