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Sorry for the lack of updates. Things have been hectic (more so than expected)...

I've been unable to view this blog. Although we haven't quite go to the bottom of the problem yet - everyone points the finger at someone else - my ISP's DNS servers report the blog.pixelbeard.com subdomain as NXDOMAIN (non existent domain). This meant that anyone attempting to access the blog on my local ISP or any other ISPs that may have inherited the problem were told my site no longer existed! Not happy.

As a temporary fix I've moved over to using OpenDNS one of the tech guys I spoke to suggested that as a permanent solution...! Yeah that'd be great. I'd have no way of knowing who round the world could access the blog - worst of all most people have no idea this kind of problem can be ISP related and would assume the blog just didn't exist anymore.

Anyway enough rant.

I've got some Beard Snatchers music to share - once I worked out how best to host it (any suggestions?) I'll post it.

A quick post to say thank you to Mike Nowak for posting the development video of Beard Snatchers on Offworld. I'm still not quite sure how he found it... But it spurred me on to finally pay some, much needed, attention to the aesthetics of this blog.

I hope you enjoy the updates. There are still some teething problems to work through. I notice I've wiped off the dates of posts - not intentional. They'll be back soon.

EDIT/ Fixed the dates. Now to check it in IE.

Beard Snatchers development continues. I can confirm the latest additions as Zombies and Dinosaurs (more next week ^_^).

Yay, new updates! The blogs been revamped too...

Let me know what you think.

Below is the new PixelBeard ident (1Bit version). Just encase you're not sure; an ident plays before each game's title screen. Like the classic SEGA ident.

PixelBeard's is very 80's and very pixely. I'm looking forward to reskining the ident to match the visual style of future games. Animating to this kind of soundtrack is fun but a little limiting at this resolution and colour depth... haha.

On a side note: I don't think enough game devs/publishers personify themselves as evil overlords/warlocks ^_^

PixelBeard Indent (1Bit version) from willfaulds on Vimeo.

So for anyone interested these are the tiles used to generate the beam in Beard Snatchers, 1954.

• Spawning loop (12 Frames)

• Capture transition (4 Frames)

• Capture loop (8 Frames)
  

• Closing (8 Frames)

These look so strange out of context that I've built a quick and dirty little interactive demo. It showcases the tiles in context.

Remember is interactive so click start.



Interesting? maybe?

Here's a short sneak peek at the latest build of Beard Snatchers, 1954.

The core game engine is almost complete. Its almost level design time, then the mad graphics dash.

So what are you watching (what's in this build)?

• Parallax scrolling background layers
• Spaceship inertia
• Basic beam & beamed objects inertia
• Optimised spawning and off screen sprite system
• Optimised recurring function handling! ^_^ yeah that's right - I think this'll be one of the next code snippets. So you'll get an explanation about what the hell that means in the not too far future.
  

Next build I'll be concentrating on falling object collisions and chain explosions... Plus some forms of AI to spice things up a little.

Beard Snatchers, 1954 (Early development build) from willfaulds on Vimeo.