Hello friends :)

As we first thought of how Star Swapper would look, we had a pretty clear picture. As with everything in game development, the picture quickly mutated into a complex design with more issues than solutions.

At the very beginning, we were experimenting with different ways of marking slots for stars, marking stars themselves, and making a whole puzzle look good and clear to the Player. The challenge was to convey the information about each stars destination while at the same time the destination information being under the gameplay. At some point, we came with what we considered a good design.
Old concept With Latin symbols rotating over a desired slot and graphics imitating what we could possibly see in a space-themed movie, we jumped right into creating as many playable levels as possible. Problems arose when it came to levels with a high number of elements. These would be the ones you will encounter at the end of each Chapter. During playing those levels the number of rotating elements drove too much attention away from what was really important. We also had problems with fitting everything in a 4:3 aspect ratio screen. Gameplay elements would cross each other, hover on one another making the whole screen sparkle like a Christmas tree. The clarity became a challenge. We had to solve this issue efficiently as we knew we wanted the big levels to be a challenge later on in the game. We wanted to give you puzzle that would drive your inner Sherlock Holmes crazy.
Current game design Thats where a talented 2D artist came into the picture and finally gave us a coherent artistic vision of the game. You will learn more about that in another post. Thanks for reading and see you there, Titanite Games Website: Titanite Games Discord: Discord Social Media: Social Media Check our other games: https://store.steampowered.com/app/854870/Perseverance_Part_1/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1367460/Perseverance_Part_2/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1120790/We_are_Legion_Rome/

[ 2021-04-15 12:17:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello friends :)

Before we start sharing some more tidbits about how our game was created - check out the giveaway results on our Discord!

Working on a game project is always a challenge. Its a clash of egos, a clash of ideas, and a clash with the reality of insufficient coffee available.

Once we decided that the game is going to take place in outer space and you as the Player will have to arrange them in a certain way, we knew that were going to need a level designer. Thats when Angelika joined the team. At first, I thought that as an aspiring designer she would rather make a good writer than a designer. I had the pleasure of reading one of her stories which were catchy and sparkled my imagination. I knew she was a creative mind. Once she had shown us her designs on paper I immediately knew that shes the person for the job.
Angelika had proven to be skilled with diagrams, paper design, and Unity. She quickly grasps what the hook of the game was and created a number of levels. We would then test out the levels. They were difficult as hell. We had to make changes. Luckily we had chosen Unity3D to work with. Its an accessible development engine well suited for 2D games. Theres a vast knowledge base over the Internet. This was important for Daniel as he learned the ropes as we went on with the development. Early on we also decided that we want the game to be fun on touch devices and Unity3D allowed us to quickly prototype and test the game on small screens and tablets. Of course, developing for iOS and Android is more than just clicking Build but we established a few design rules that would allow us to avoid rebuilding the whole game once we begin working on mobile versions of the game. A few of the rules we had been: Having everything that is playable fit a 4:3 aspect ratio screen Avoiding using small interactive gameplay elements Not having gameplay elements cross or cover each other Keeping the memory usage to a minimum With this in mind, we began working out the looks for our game which you can learn about in another post. Thanks for reading and see you there. Website: Titanite Games Discord: Discord Titanite Novels: Twitter - Facebook - Instagram Titanite Games: Twitter - Facebook - Instagram Check our other games: https://store.steampowered.com/app/854870/Perseverance_Part_1/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1367460/Perseverance_Part_2/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1120790/We_are_Legion_Rome/

[ 2021-04-09 14:16:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello friends :)

Who would have thought that an idea for a unique puzzle game will come from a hidden object game?

Once I made my decision about making use of all the resources I had and making Titanite Games (Tap It Games then) a great indie team again the first thing I needed to decide on was the project. I was always opened on working with juniors. I believe that there is a limitless amount of skill and passion within people and its best accessed in people who begin their professional journey. I find great reward and joy in watching people conquering their limitations and getting better and better in what they love doing.
I was lucky enough to meet Daniel, our programmer, at a karaoke party. He was interested in AI, machine learning and other crazy-scientist-stuff which I had no idea about. He was also into games and game development. After a few meetings we decided to work together on our first project. As we approached many ideas we had our aim was to pick a project that we would be able to deliver with limited time and resources. I had great experience in designing and producing hidden object puzzle adventures but it was too big of an idea. But there was always this one type of puzzle that I always enjoyed playing. If you had played 9 Clues: The Sercret of Serpent Creek you might remember the puzzle near the end, where you had to mix together different ingredients to save our friend Owen. In this game, your goal is to arrange one set of elements according to their place of destination while having a very limited number of additional places you can move those elements to. It was the perfect mechanic to start fidgeting with and to base our project on as me and Daniel had a huge number of ideas on how to make the puzzle more difficult and entertaining.
As we came up with ideas on how to create mutations of the core gameplay and what possibilities they would give us, the last thing for us to consider was the setting. This was more difficult than we originally had anticipated. We need a setting that would justify many configurations of the same puzzle and using the mechanics we came up with. At the same time, I wanted the levels to look familiar to Players and at the same time give a sense of a challenge. There were a few concepts which included a magical owl repairing the Clock of Time, arranging gears in abstract mechanisms and a flower themed levels. Finally, we had it: stars in the sky. This approach gave us a unique setting, a whole number of existing configurations that could be turned into levels and a good explanation for our crazy mechanics ideas. It was perfect. Later on we would find out that designing the puzzles was tricky. We needed somebody to create the puzzles and focus on making them solvable. You wil learn more about Star Swapper development in another post. Cheers, Daniel Website: Titanite Games Discord: Discord Titanite Novels: Twitter - Facebook - Instagram Titanite Games: Twitter - Facebook - Instagram Check our other games: https://store.steampowered.com/app/854870/Perseverance_Part_1/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1367460/Perseverance_Part_2/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1120790/We_are_Legion_Rome/

[ 2021-04-06 13:17:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello friends :)

We have a surprise for you! We host a giveaway of 5 Steam keys for Star Swapper, tell your friends, and:

• Join our Discord
• Find |NEWS-AND-KEYS channel
• Leave reaction
• Thats it! Results April 9!

Regards, Titanite Games

[ 2021-04-02 11:02:43 CET ] [ Original post ]