#pebblepets

'May Day Fete', Heigham Park, Norwich, Norfolk

5th May 2014

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!

Let's talk about where Pebble Pets began.

For my game design minor, I had to take a programming class. I took Programming for Interactivity, an online class in which we worked with Adobe Flash and coded in ActionScript 3.0. This was during my sophomore year of college in early 2011. 

I was not good at it. Programming wasn't my forte, but you gain something from every class, even if you're terrible at it. Here was the value in my learning basic programming: I am now better able to write design documents.

Design documents are like the bible for the a game. It details every single little aspect of how the game works. I must anticipate every action the player will take and what the outcome will be.

When our programmer begins coding the game, he must refer to the design doc to make it function properly. Now that I understand some programming basics, I can better write the design doc in a way that lends itself to programming.

But here's where Pebble Pets comes in. For our final project in the class, we had to program a small game. I decided to go with a simple pet game. I made it even simpler by making it about a pet rock.

It was very crude and basic, but it was still a challenge for me. Want to play it? I uploaded it to Deviant Art here so you can! There's also some images from it below.

It doesn't look like much, but you can see some of the ideas for Pebble Pets, like the ability to dress up your rock, starting there. There's definitely some bugs, as I'm certainly no programmer. Thankfully programming on the app is done by Corey Westcott, someone far more at ease with it than I am.

Welcome to the Pebble Pets Development blog! My name is Amanda Lafond and I'll be your guide.

What's Pebble Pets? Put simply, it's an upcoming app for the iOS and (hopefully Andriod) market. In it, you care for sentient rocks and play mini-games with them. There's more to it then that, as will be revealed, but that's the general gist. It's currently in development by a group of Savannah College of Art and Design students going by the name Team Assemblarg. It will be published by Animosity Studios.

Who am I? I handle many things for Pebble Pets. As project lead I function as a director. I make many creative decisions and try my utmost to make sure everything runs smoothly. This requires that I write various documents, such as the pitch doc and design doc. In addition, I'll be doing all writing for the game and handling social media, like this blog.

When does Pebble Pets come out? We've been in development about four months and plan to release sometime in March of this year. Seem like a long time? It's a pet game, so it shouldn't be too hard to make, right? Real simple? Oh man, I wish that were so. Game development can be a messy business. No matter how simple a game may seem, there's a ton of work that goes into it, and so many things that can go wrong. However, that nitty-gritty is where the story lies. That's why this blog exists. Stay tuned, and I'll reveal all that I can about the development of this game. This has been the most stressful thing I've ever been a part of, but it's also been the most fun. It won't all be pretty, but I can guarantee it'll be interesting. 

Next time I'll show you the genesis of Pebble Pets.

In the meantime, like us on facebook for even more updates and concept art!

And for those of you viewing on Tumblr, check out the Pebble Pets site and the Animosity Studios site!