alpacateam

[alpacateam]

Happy Birthday, Alpaca!

Hey everyone! It turns out we turn 2 years old today! (: Happy birthday to us! And well, birthdays actually make us nostalgic, so why not a post with a bit of our origins?

By Feb. 10th, 2012, Midio, Camis and Noia were working together at a game studio, and we received the news that we'd start working at a new crappy project. Again. We had lost the count of the numbers of terrible projects we worked on, but that made us quite sad. We started a gtalk conversation to discuss the possibility of working together: we called two other friends and started arranging a weekly meeting at Midio's place. By that time, Midio was doing art, Noia was a lead QA and Camis was still working with deployment, but wanted to start coding.

These meetings were usually very loose, not too much commitment, we were just checking the possibility of working together outside the bounds of the studio. You know, professional relationships not always go well when you don't need to commit to a certain rigid structure as that of our workplace. These reunions were usually during the evening, with Coke and crappy snacks and lots of laughters. They were a relief from the stiffness of the studio we worked at.

We decided to call ourselves Runaway Alpacas. And then Alpaca Team. We felt like we were running away from the whole crazy situation of the studio and we knew that alpacas are herd animals that tend to stick together as a big team. That's exactly what we wanted and needed!

Midio had just returned from the Global Game Jam in January, in which he collaborated with Miniboss in Trapped! In The Chamber of the Eternal Darkness and that experience shaped a lot the way he started seeing game development from that point on. The process at the studio was rigid, stiff, we couldn't collaborate freely or let the idea evolve freely to make a better game: we wanted and needed that. Plus, Camis and Noia weren't seeing any new outcome from their current positions and that was making everyone frustrated. 

After a couple of meetings, those two other friends abandoned the team. They had a hard time understanding that we couldn't just rush and start doing things if our work depends on the whole team's decision. That hurted us a little bit. We were three now and we thought we weren't going to make it. Camis was still learning a bunch of code things, Midio was very insecure with his art. That shaked us a little bit.

Our first idea was called Nitbone's Maze. It was a circular maze in which you lead some creatures along the way all to way to the center. 

(Characters by Arthur Mask)

We started prototyping the whole thing but we had lots of problems with the circular rotation on the Android devices. We started having terrible and deep personal issues. We couldn't keep up with the project nor with Alpaca itself. We were frustrated. We stopped.

Until October came. And then Camis was fired. And Noia and Midio asked to be fired too. And we applied to Blackberry's Jam Sessions while developing Luke at the Stars and we won the best game prize! That was the day we actually thought together: "Hey, maybe we're not that stupid at game making at all, and Nitbone's was just... maybe we took the wrong decisions only, we all have projects like that". And Luke was our real starting point. We decided we were going to be just the three of us, but that we would call friends to collaborate with us, so we wouldn't have to face the situation of being abandoned once again. We realized we worked well together, and that we were friends who understood our personal needs. We understood we had to make money to pay our bills and that we would make games on our free time and that was okay! We understood that pressure sometimes is good to get things done, but most of the times, just make things worse. We found out that we can count on and talk to each other about our insecurities and rely on each other opinion's when making a game. We feel like a band ourselves. 

Finding game making partners is pretty much like finding a love partner. There must be honesty, fun and reliability. And I guess we found all that during these two years of game making. We deeply hope that we continue to make the things we love for the years to come, and that we enhance and strenghten the bonds that keep us together. (: Thanks for reading this big post, we really appreciate it!! A warm hug, Camis, Midio & Noia.

[alpacateam]

Global Game Jam 2014

Hey everyone! It's been sometime since we don't update our website with some news, right? Well, it's about time! We participated in this year's edition of the Global Game Jam and we wanted to share a bit of this year's experience! Our entry for GGJ's 2014 is called: The Triad Trial. 1) INTRO

This time around we decided to do it at home for a number of personal reasons, and the lieu of choice was Midio's apartment, the (un)"official" Alpaca HQ (chosen as a middle point between Camis' and Noia's homes)!

We also managed to assemble a huge team this time! No, seriously, we doubled the number of people we usually have on game jams and it was incredibly fun! We called over new people like Luiza de Carli, a great designer who's never done a game before and who helped, taught and learned so many things along the way, Chi Odashima, a great visual artist and character artist who managed to keep cool at all times and make great art, (please, tell us our secret, Chi!) and Tassi Magalhães, an amazing character artist and animator. Other than that, Silva was our musician of choice, Trevis our old-time programmer companion and the basic formation with Camis, Midio and Noia.

Here's a picture of the whole family (or something like that):

2) STARTING

We started at 5 P.M. (GMT-3:00), São Paulo time, watching the keynote videos and receiving the theme:  "We don't see things as they are, we seem them as we are" In our opinion that was a very difficult theme because not only it was incredibly broad, but it touched a certain number of philosophical questions that couldn't be worked properly with the little amount of time we had. 

(Midio's bedroom has never been so crowded!!)

We started off calling Noia (who's in London) and trying to talk to Silva about the theme, but connection was sluggish and it was hard to explain everything. Upon the difficulties encountered, we brought over a huge piece of paper to work on and put all our ideas and brainstorm the theme. We overly obsessed with birds and silly/funny stuff and tried to organize the thoughts, but we had little or no success. We were highly obsessed with the idea of making a game with a panoptic pigeon. We decided it was pizza time.

(Let's jam from the elevator, let's grab some pizza.)

3) CHOOSING AN IDEA

We came back from the pizza place trying to figure out how the theme touched our personal stories and life experience and this time WE were sluggish (we blamed the pizza). Suddendly (and we don't even recall how), we started up with the ideas of using the birds, the self discovery/perception theme and we decided to start sketching/prototyping it. We based most of our ideas on the persian myth of the Conference of the Birds. - Chi, Midio and Tassi started searching for art style references and sketching the first visuals (this took 1-2 hours);  - Luiza and Noia started discussing more elements of the game mechanics (1-2 hours too); - Camis and Trevis started prototyping (this time around they tried using a new engine which was a VERY risky decision, but they turned out fine with it); 

(Tassi Magalhães' character concepts)

(Midio's first background concepts)

(Chi's cobra/snake enemy sketch)

4) DEVELOPING

We were mentally exhausted due to the huge amount of stuff we were thinking about and the heat (summertime in Brazil can be extremely harsh), and we decided to go to bed early to work properly on Saturday and Sunday.  Saturday and Sunday were dedicated exclusively to development, and we improved the first version of the concepts, characters and enemies, Luiza and Noia started building up the stages and Camis and Trevis started implementing the mechanics. By this time we managed to talk to Silva and explain the main atmosphere of the game and how we expected the music to be, and he started working on some song prototypes too.

(Trevis was implementing the main mechanics while Luiza was eating a peach)

(Tassi working on some characters)

5) MECHANICS/ VISUALS

In our game we control three characters at once (a Chicken, a Peacock and a Falcon) in three screens at once. In each screen you're able to see part of the whole picture (i.e.: the chicken only sees platforms while the falcon only sees enemies, and the peacock only sees items).

(Our main characters are based on representations that closely resemble traditional media, tribal art, engraving and woodcut)

(Three characters/screens at once, while you can only see part of the whole thing in each)

While playing, you can combine each screen into one in order to see the whole picture, but that comes with a cost: mobility. Just like real life, we only see parts of the whole and unity is a myth. Whenever we try to see the whole thing, we are rendered immobile: it's overly human and we have to accept the fact that our point of view will always be a small fraction of the what we consider to be whole. 

(Characters can transform themselves into a totem to check the three views assembled into one, but they can't move)

6) CONTEXT

We named our game The Triad Trial (TTT). The birds of our game are lacking flight and they hear of a mythical bird that can heal them and retrieve the flight power to them all. They then start a journey to find the mythical bird, but upon arriving in the mysterious location, they figure out there's no such thing as the mythical creature, but instead, find their own reflection on a lake. The myth can be interpreted in a certain number of ways, but we decided we could understand it as:

- Only the mélange of different points of view compound the total story (which can be subject to different types of interpretation and therefore, the concept of "one" is subject to fail);

- True strenght can only be obtained within oneself, but life experiences and interaction with others shape the speed/type of this connection with oneself;

- Unity is a myth. We have to constantly remember that not only we have multiple point of views depending on a certain number of factors, but that they can be discussed, dismantled and rebuilt;

-The journey is more important than the destination.

(The Chicken, the Peacock and the Falcon set up on a journey to find a mythical creature that can retrieve their flight abilities)

(Upon arrival, they find out there's no such thing as one mythical bird, but instead it was made of a flock of birds nearby. They then face their own reflection: strenght is on the inside, the journey is more important than the destination).

7) WRAP-UP/FINAL WORD

We were delighted in a number of ways with this GGJ, specially because the theme was abnormally interesting. It touched us in a profound way and we managed to merge lots of our personal experiences to enhance the design. This was also quite hard because we didn't want to be literal and then it required us lots and lots of thought and much hardwork to figure out the mechanics.

Luiza, Chi and Tassi participated for their first time in a Game Jam and they loved it as much as we did on our first marathons. Trevis and Camis started using a new engine (quite hard), Midio drew art without any lines and probably Noia and Silva also learned new and amazing stuff from the experience!

We're still fixing a big number of bugs and polishing it a little more, so the version uploaded on GGJ's website is still a bit crappy, but expect a nice version soon. We also created a page for Triad Trial at our website, so you can check info and download some more pictures!  Thanks for the time reading this and we really really appreciate the support, kindness and interest on our game (:

Best,

The Alpacas

[alpacateam]

CLM Poster and final touches

Hey everyone! We're adding the final touches to The Chainletter Massacre, our game for the 1st edition of the Pack of Horrors game jam. Meanwhile, while we're all working hard to deliver a cool game, we prepared a nice poster for download. Just click throught the image below to download a nice and big A3 print size version. We hope you like it! :)

Best,

Your Alpacas

[alpacateam]

Pack of Horrors

Hey everyone! Our livestreaming will begin shortly at 3PM (GMT-3), so stay tuned and click the image below to be redirected to it! :D

We hope to see you online :D  Best, The Alpacas

[alpacateam]

Get to know our next game idea! 

Alpaca Team rises

Hey everyone!  Alpaca Team is a tiny group with a cheerful yellow mascot! We’re Midio (the team’s artist & mister congeniality), Camis (our programmer & bacon lover), and Noia (our game designer/QA/does-it-all). This time we’ll stick with two other friends: Silva (a talented musician) and Trevis (a talented programmer). On to our idea, then! 

Our working title is "The Chainletter Massacre".

This game is a chainletter/ mail “simulator". In it, you control a 30-something old man on the mid 90’s who just recently moved to this glass house, and who starts receiving a bunch of bizarre and creepy emails, from undisclosed senders. These emails contain lots of pictures of the supernatural: ghosts, criptozoology, monsters, weird beings and such, and they all need to be sent to a certain number of people, otherwise something really really bad is going to happen to you. Well, guess what? Turns out that they WILL happen if you don’t. The thing is, sending emails will make you lose friends and love/health points, but not sending them will make monsters and creepy things happen at night. You’ll have to balance properly which emails to send and to whom in order to stay alive. 

We want the player to feel very very insecure with his decisions, and create this sense of disturbance/paranoia. 

This is a quick mockup depicting the art style/palette we chose for this game. It is very close to that of the GB Classic/Pocket, with only 4 colors. We want it to be fairly simple.

Our main (and only) char will be around 30 years old, but we haven’t quite chosen his final design nor his name. We liked the one on the top left, but we’re still unsure at this time.

We could probably argue for long enough trying to convince you that the main character is actually the house itself. Level design will play an important role in this game, and we want the player to feel constantly insecure. Midio’s architectural knowlege will come in handy! This house is also based on a real (and famous) house.

We want to work with the idea of shifts, so you don’t really know what will happen until you wind to the night shift and experience what your sent (or unsent) emails will cause.

At night, you can only flee and hide, but things will eventually get harsh.

Read More

[alpacateam]

LatS now available to a bunch'a smarthphones! :D

Hey guys! :D We've got AWESOME news! Remember when we said that Luke was only compatible to android tablets? Well, that has changed a bit! LatS is now available to a bunch of high-end Android smartphones too!

To check if you have any compatible devices, check the game page on Google Play. Spread the love! Best, The Alpacas

[alpacateam]

Download LatS set of wallpapers!!

Hey guys! We prepared a couple of wallpapers for download featuring LatS! Just click through the images do download them (: They're available at 1024x768, 1280x1024 and 1920x1080 sizes. We hope you like them as much as we do! Spread the word! 

Best,

The Alpacas

[alpacateam]

LatS Released!!

VISIT THE STORES!

*To visit Google Play and check if your devices are compatible, visit this link!  *To visit Blackberry AppWorld store, visit this link

ABOUT LUKE AT THE STARS

Luke at the Stars is a tiny puzzle game that tells the story of Luke, a little boy who decided to visit the love of his life, but found the door shut close. Sad, he decided to wander around the city looking for a spot to gaze at the stars and think about life, but the skyline was full of tall buildings. He then wishes up above for the buildings to be gone. Player takes the role of Luke’s imagination and must help him out by combining floors alike and making them disappear, thus, revealing more of his story.

The game features a story mode and an endless/survival mode as well.

Luke at the Stars won Blackberry Hackathon Best game prize in September 2012.

RELEASE TRAILER

We also prepared an official release trailer that can be seen here.

WHERE TO FIND US

You can find us on Facebook & Twitter too!

Thanks once again for your attention and support! Best, The Alpacas

[alpacateam]

Global Game Jam 2013!

Hey guys! It's been some time since we last wrote something at our blog. As many of you might have already noticed, Alpaca Team members participated at this year's edition of GGJ (Global Game Jam) with two of our friends, Bruno Silva (who scored the awesome tracks for Luke at the Stars) and Trevis Bonifacio (a skilled AS3 programmer and absent-minded QA). 

                                    (From left to right: Silva, Midio, Noia, Camis and Trevis)

What? You don't know what the GGJ is? The Global Game Jam is a worldwide marathon in which groups and individuals from all around the world gather together on registered places to develop games for 48 hours. It wouldn't be inaccurate to say that this might be the biggest and best game event of the whole world, and while it happens only once a year, it's very fun and rewarding! It's a non-competitive marathon, so you can take a sneak peek at the neighbor's desks and discuss some game ideas with your other friends and groups. It's a huge sandbox for experimenting on game design. The GGJ organization gives every year a different theme to help the teams develop something nice. While last year's theme seemed very, very unique by using a single image (the ouroboros), we were quite surprise to hear about this year's theme.

Yes, that's right, hear. This year's theme was the sound of a pumping/beating heart. While the theme seemed easy at first, as love is everywhere and probably is the most widespread and discussed matter in games, music, art and general media, it's really hard to escape from the most direct and superficial representation of hearts, blood, or love-related stuff. Well, here's a tiny overview of how we worked this jam and the game we made! Let's get started!

1) Defining the Idea 

Once we were all set in the place and had our computers connected and stuff like that, we decided to think a bit about the idea at a farther place, such as a small piece of grass outside our host building. You know, people discussing lots of ideas make lots of noise! We came up with the question: what makes your heart races? Such a hard question to answer, right? Well, we decided to stick with the binary: FEAR vs. LOVE. These are two survival responses of alive things: one must fear to be alive,  and must love to feel protected  and safe.

                                                (Just some notes from our sketchbooks)

But, what makes your heart races in games? 

Usually a big boss fight, or being chased by an enemy, or even speed or risky situations. Well, we though a bit more and decided to unite the "chase" concept with the "love-fear" concept, and came up with this rhythm like game we wanted to make, suited for two players (as love usually envolves more than just one person).

This stage took us about 1 hour and a half/2 hours.

2) Prototyping/ Concept art

While Midio was drawing the first concept art and trying to find a suitable art style for the game, Trevis and Camis were prototyping the idea to see if it seemed "programmable" (with programmer art, of course). Noia played a bit and saw future in it, the whole team felt we could develop it! Unfortunately, Silva had to wait a bit more to start composing, as it's hard to understand how the game feels at this point. 

This stage took us about 3-4 hours

3) Developing

Well, then we sitted on those chairs and worked the hell out of it!

4) About the game

We named our game "Cis & Dis vs. The Beat", being Cis and Dis our main characters who flee from the Beat, this huge and round purple alien like creature. Both players have to work together and press the right commands at the right time to make both of them flee from the monster.

Too many misses, and The Beat will grab you and shake you 'til you die. That's right, The Beat is not a bad monster, it's just... uncomprehended, and owner of this giant golden heart. Poor him, just willing to spread some love! Cis & Dis are a small joke with systole and diastole, the main times inside the heart in which the heart expels and refills itself with blood. The game was done in pixel art for a more arcade feel and the music, well, it's full of 8bit and 90's chiptune elements to keep the beat flowing. 

5) Main problems

We had lots of problems to find out who the main characters were. Midio was pulling his hair out all the time. Noia had trouble to make sure the game was fun enough, he created a beat generator using javascript to make sure the notes of the music would match the notes Silva was composing. Camis and Trevis, well, they always have enough problems programming and avoiding the bugs, and Silva had to find out what direction to take as soon as we had a small playable prototype (that's always risky!)

      (Yes, our desks are messy, but we 100% guarantee the deodorant and taken showers)

6) The main result

We are quite glad to accomplish such result with a small group with the little time we had, and we even managed to take showers and have lunch/dinner properly! At the end of the 48h period, by checking people's reaction to our gameplay video and the demo with Camis and Trevis playing live, we were sure we achieved a funny and well, at least a tiny bit memorable experience!

The game is on Kongregate, you can PLAY IT HERE. The game is also on Newgrounds, PLAY IT HERE You can check our GGJ's page at THIS LINK as well.

There were posts talking about it on Kotaku and Gamesfoda (sorry, PT-BR only), and there are lots of people playing it! We'll post soon some of our timelapses videos showing how our screens (and all of us) looked like while we developed Cis & Dis. We hope you enjoyed the post :)

Best, The Alpacas

[alpacateam]

Hey everyone! We just made this quick teaser featuring Luke at the Stars' gameplay! :) We hope you like it! Please share :)

Cheers,

The Alpacas

[alpacateam]

Hey guys! Just a quick update with last week's teaser featuring Luke at the Stars' opening sequence. We hope you like it! We'll post a new video showing a bit of the gameplay this week! Stay tuned!

[alpacateam]

Dev Diary #2

Hey guys! :D Last saturday Midio and Camis went to São Paulo to participate in this indie game discussion group Thais Weiller organizes! But it turns out two of the participants didn't come and Midio (from Alpaca Team) and Danilo (from Joymasher) had to join the event discussing basically the creative and organizational processes while designing our games.

                                                    (Guys? Are you about to fall asleep?)

After the event though, we, from Alpaca Team, thought it would be nice to give you guys an insight about our creative processes: how is it done? How do we get to achieve our results/organize ourselves? Well, let's get started into the Alpaca way of doing it! It's important for us to say that these are just an insight on how Luke at the Stars was developed, and in no ways means to be an absolute canon of how your project might be developed. We just want to help you guys to get started and share some of our tools during the development course.

1) Deciding the idea

We thrive on game ideas! Almost everyday Alpaca's members think about something new, a new game idea, something we would like to do or develop. But how to decide which idea is the best to start developing? We heard this question a lot during the event last saturday, and it's hard to balance, actually. Alpaca's first project was a puzzle/platform game which had many technical issues, and therefore, was abandoned. We then came up with Luke's idea. We chose to develop Luke because we knew it would be a short game and easily done by 4-5 people in 2-3 months. We also know it's a casual game, very mobile-ish, not prone to many bugs or problems: it's not supposed to be a huge production and it might be a great debut for the team. We decided to develop Luke then! You see, it's hard to find the balance between the size of the team and the size of the production, what are we willing to do, and then trying to realize what's the inclination of your production: this all helps you decide which idea to start making. Of course, experience helps a lot to realize those things and we had to fail many times during our 3 year game developing career to start noticing these things (and we hope to fail many other times too, because we get to learn a lot from these!). We have an online database of ideas on Trello. Trello is a scrumboard like tool which is also collaborative and can be used in many ways. We'll show more about it later onto organizing our to-do lists, but we use it also to put our game ideas. Each tab refers to a different idea and we put all the circumstances and pros and cons about it in a different card.

(Sorry guys, we had to blur the content, we don't want any spoilers about our new game ;) You can click for a bigger picture!)

2) Prototype

We then decide to make a simple prototype of that idea: is it fun? Or not? We assign the artist to create a very stupid version of the assets and the programmer to create a dummy version of the game. We then play and check the possibility of it becoming a bigger, better and greater piece. The prototype is very important because you can check problems quickly and decide if the game has some sort of future or not. 

                              (Luke's prototype wasn't very good looking, and that's ok!)

It's ok if the final idea is VERY different than the prototype. It's ok if it's not. It's also ok if many things change in the middle of the design course. For instance:  Luke didn't have any power ups or power downs, at first, he didn't have any backstory, the character was an old man, we had lots of problems with the floors/pieces, the player had to remove from an area of the sky, etc. All those things get clearer if you prototype your game. The secret that comes with experience is that you can try to predict where there might be problems and try to fix them beforehand. 

(Testing and prototyping will make your game better. Everytime you prototype or test some new thing, you save time, effort, and make sure your game will look more polished in the final version)

  3) Meetings

Well, where do we start now, after deciding the game is promisingly fun with a prototype? A meeting. We call the members and get together and start throwing the ideas seamlessly: whatever comes is good. We usually stick to a huge piece of paper in which we throw our ideas and draw/write stuff on it. This is an example of this part of the process:

                                                           (Click for a bigger version of it!)

It's ok if it's messy! These are all ideas and sometimes ideas do not come in a linear way. Midio is the "organization dude", and therefore, he's responsible for transforming all these thoughts into emails, other diagrams and clarifying these processes in a comprehensible manner. We start to filter these thoughts based on production time, complexity, how it affects gameplay and what would be better for the player. Again: it's a hard balance, but eventually, we get the grip of it!

4) Setting up who-does-what-and-when

Well, after our meetings, upon deciding the new implementations and what we are going to to put/remove from our game, enhancements, upgrades, new stuff, etc., Midio sends an email to everyone with a summary of the meeting and everyone can start putting the tasks on Trello, which is our main organizational tool. 

                                                        (Click for a bigger version of it!)

It's a collaborative tool in which we can put tasks, assign them to someone, check what and when has the thing been done and basically, check how the production has been. We had the chance to use Pivotal Tracker before it went paid, but you know, we're poor and had to stick with a free tool. We recommend checking on the internet for project manager collaborative tools online, we're pretty sure you're going to find organizational tools of your liking.  We don't have a specific person to set up those things, everyone can do this.

4) Developing

Usually during our meetings we decide what can be done within a week, and focus on developing art/programming/ balancing to fit that week, but we are a bit more flexible with time as most Alpaca members work on the game during our free time. We try to make the biggest number of diagrams to help all the members understand what is going on with the game, so we don't lose time implementing one thing or another in the middle of the process. 

This is a diagram depicting the basic screen flow of the game (very early development stage). Although this is extremely related to interface/graphic concerns, it helps the programmer structures his/her code and predict where there might be a problem or two, or "Will the other team members want to add something between the screen 1 and 2? I might code thinking about these mods". A screen flow is specially useful for the musician as well, as he/ she can understands or estimate what are the songs/sounds he/she will have to design for every part of the game. Bruno Silva is specially thankful for this :)

5) Storing

We store our files on Dropbox, which is a great collab/repository cloud file storage, to make sure everyone will get the same version of the file, no matter if Heitor is in another state, Camis is at her place, Bruno in a neighbor town and Midio taking care of Miniboss' creative director-cat, Diny. We try to keep our folders organized because it's really REALLY easy to get everything messed up. Not only the folder structure, but the way we name our files as well. 

6) More meetings

                      (Sometimes we use google hangout... with a dog mask... and it's fun!)

7) Bugtracking

Two of our members are trained into the millenary art of game quality assurance (QA/ testing), so we're quite prepared for bugs and stuff. We use Mantis , which is quite complete and has lots of features! The downside is that you'll need a server to host it. It's a great tool to keep the team aware of what's going on and what are the problems/ bugs we found. Although Noia and Midio are the QA-trained members, everyone can post if he/she finds a bug. 

Although there's so much more to say about our developing course, including game launch, trailers, pictures, etc., we wanted to give you a glimpse of the core of it, and we hope this helped you out and encouraged you to make your own games. Again, this is not a canon to follow strictly, but a small idea of how we make our games and work together. We hope you enjoyed the post! Remember, you can shout on the comment box below or write an email at: alpacateamstudio@gmail.com

We hope to hear from you soon :)

Cheers,

The Alpacas

[alpacateam]

New screenshots and update

Hey everyone! We'd like to share a couple of new screenshots with you, showing Luke at the Stars' current stage of development! We are very anxious to make a trailer so you can all see how the game feels, but we're a bit late with the music and sound design. We're also working hard balancing the game, making sure the gameplay is fun free of bugs! Meanwhile, we leave these screens for you guys to take a look! :)

  ��                                             (When two or more floors are combined...)

                                                                   (They both disappear!)

                                                       (Will Luke find where his love has gone?)

We hope to post the video soon and that you enjoyed these screens! :) Remember, you can shout at the comment box below or write to our email: alpacateamstudio@gmail.com

Best,

Alpacas

[alpacateam]

A! Behind the Scenes- Midio

Momma Alpaca returned with our third installment of A! Behind the Scenes with Alpaca's Artist and Designer, Midio! Want to know a bit of the crazy-rat-guy, including some of the most bizarre pet peeves of his? Or maybe how Luke at the Stars was first conceived? Get reading, then ;)

1- Hi Lucas! Tell us a bit about you! (Who are you, where are you from, what's your favorite Pokémon, those things... )

Hey guys! My name is Lucas, but some people call me Midio (I kinda like this nickname). I was born in Campinas, SP, Brazil, and I'm 25 years old. I studied architecture and urban planning, but fled to the game design area as I do feel happier making games rather than designing buildings and such (ok, ok, sometimes I do feel like designing buildings as well). Oh, wow, my favorite pokémon? That's a hard one! I guess that would be Umbreon! :)

2- We heard that you're a good father to all of your children, thus, we can imagine that you love them! What else do you love in this crazy world?  

Oh, yeah, I love my 6 fat rats : Zucchini, Dijon, Caju, Nori, Care and Mocha. Don't bother knowing their names, they're just named after food I love :) The obvious answer would be playing games, but I also love staying till late chatting with friends, drawing quirky and weird stuff and eating. I also love languages and learning new stuff, talking about life, death, everything in-between and the after life as well. Cartoons, sincere people, animals and puppies also figure into my "love list". :)  

3- Despite creating amazing characters and gorgeous worlds, what do you enjoy doing?   

Wow, thanks for the amazing characters! I do want to get better into character creation, as I'm much more into background art. Hmmm, I recently found out I love shooting with the bow and arrow, so I started archery classes! I also love cooking and I prepare food whenever I can. Or, while creating a game, you mean? I kind of answered a bit of my interests on the last question, haha! Well, while designing, I also love to think about weird and funny stories, or sentimental/delicate nuances, that players might relate to. I love discussing gameplay mechanics and the overall first stage of conception in the whole design chain.  

4- Well, we all love gaming and we all have favorites... What are your favorite games and why?  

Oh, wow! This list would be huge. I do love the Pokémon series (GB/GBA/DS), Ghost Trick (DS), WarioWare (GC/Wii), Metroid series, Zelda series, Mario series, Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga (GBA), Jet Set Radio (DC), SimCity (PC), Katamari (Xbox/PS3), Diablo II (PC), Donkey Kong Country (1,2,3, Returns), Smash Bros, DeadRising 2 (Xbox), Mirror's Edge (Xbox), Rhythm Heaven (DS), Plants vs. Zombies, Sonic, Portal, etc. I don't actually have a "more favorite" type of game, though I do realize I love fast-action and speedy gameplay mechanics. I love combo-based stuff and platform games as well. 

5- He's a maniac, maaaniaaac! Tell us about a pet peeve!

  Well, errm, this question is a bit embarrassing, but I'm terrified of cicadas and aliens, haha! When we reach spring in Brazil, I feel like walking around with a helmet, because I'm SO terrified the cicadas are going to fly and hit my head, although this has never happened to me or anyone I know of. While doing the dishes, I cannot have my nails touching the green part of the sponge or I freak out. I also cannot let my fingernails touch polyester or other synthetic fabrics: I guess I'd pee myself if someone force me to do it. This list could grow huge, but that's already enough for all of you to think : "omg, he's a freak". :D  

6- We know that you're the responsible for Luke's original concept. Do you mind telling us about how have you created it and what were your thoughts?  

Hmm... I guess much of Luke came from my experiences with failed love relationships. I was dumped several times and thus know how it feels to be left by someone you really love and care.  I try to get away from the world whenever I feel sad, try to find some of my inner peace into loneliness and face all the things that's been happening to me, try to find answers, or, better put: give me some of these answers, and Luke came as one of those. It came as a small output to try to give voice to something everyone has experienced: rejection, and we're working hard to make you weepy and touched by this boy's tale! Luke first came out as a bald man, I was thinking about a more mature character, and the art style was extremely connected to modernist cartoons. It was supposed to be a story in which the main character feels sorrow and sadness, more in a way connected to nostalgia and childhood feelings than with a failed relationship. Luke, as a boy, though, gives us more freedom to work with a platonic sort of love or a love that never existed, or something that is more naïve and pure, and we think this might reach a broader audience. But, that put, Luke came out of personal experiences, some really traumatizing and recent rejection experiences. The name, though, was not named after me, and it's just a little joke with our main theme, which is stargazing (Look at the stars -> Luke at the stars). 

7- And how has it been working on Luke at the Stars? Do you think that it's close to your original thoughts?  

I'm loving it! It's tiresome, of course, but I love it. Much of it has changed, but the main essence is still present. We definitely enriched the mechanics and much of the story changed as well: I think this is a great thing. I would be really sad if I didn't see any progress or any changes in the original concept. I'm really glad we could shape it better and get it actually working, cutting things off of it, implementing new stuff. It's also a pleasure to see our first concept growing bigger and more mature, I do feel this about Luke.  

8- Time to say goodbye...

  I hope you could get to know a bit of me by this tiny interview :) I really appreciate your patience reading! I'm very excited about Luke at the Stars and we hope you do enjoy all the effort we're putting in this game. I'm also really thankful to all my friends and family for the support through these difficult times. Keep in touch, write us anything! :) Don't forget! You can shout on the comment box bellow or write us an email at alpacateamstudio@gmail.com  

Best,  

Alpacas 

[alpacateam]

A! Behind the Scenes- Noia

Hey guys! This week's interviewed is Noia, the guy behind the level design and the QA mafia! Want to know more about this sports connoisseur ? Then start reading :D

1- Bruno, it's your turn now! Tell us a bit about you! 

Hi, I'm Bruno, a.k.a. Noia (I'm mostly know by my nickname), and I'm 25 years old. I was born in São Paulo, but I've been raised in Vinhedo, a small city between São Paulo and Campinas, where I live now. I'm a former IT Technician and have a bachelor degree in Media Studies. I have also worked in Quality Assurance for games for 3 years in the industry, and have studied Game Design techniques during this time. Now I'm doing my Master and studying how the immersion and the fun factor are important to learning in games and using all my skills learned through these experiences to develop games with care at Alpaca Team!  

2- We all have the stuff we love, do you mind sharing with us a bit of your passions? 

  Well, of course, games are one of my passions. I love playing games since I was a child and, more recently, I also began to love game development. I love sports, too! When I was a child, my favorite activity was to play International Superstar Soccer and comment the matches, pretending that they were being broadcast. I like to watch any kind of sports, from volleyball to basque pelota, and I try to swim and play soccer regularly. Reading is also something that I try to do frequently. In short, I love to learn. I love travelling to know a new culture. I love staying all night long having a beer and chatting with friends about how all the mankind problems and pretending to solve them. And I believe that this passion on learning and my passion about games are strongly linked.  

3- What sort of things do you do? We heard you're an awesome QA, but we also know you work hard on a bunch of other things, like caring for the mafia and such.   

Oh, I think that my ability as QA is related to all the awesome leads and colleagues I've had during my carreer! I was very lucky to work with great people and had the opportunity to learn a lot with them. I think I'm a great generalist, as I have coding abilities by my background as programmer, knowledge about medias and scripting by my degree in Media Studies and QA abilities.

Besides my professional skills, my girlfriend also says that I cook very well. Ed io non voglio parlare della mafia, non gli piace! (And I'm not going to talk about the mafia, they do not like it)  

4- What games do you like playing? What was the first game you played?  

Ahhh, good ol' times... the first game I have ever played was Pitfall, the NES version. It was my first videogame, my parents gave it to me when I was only 4, and we had a great time together. Thanks dad and mom! I like mostly strategy and sports games (but of course this doesn't mean that I don't play games from all genres :) ). My favorite game, certainly, is Age of Empires. I enjoy those endless battles, when you keeps playing for 4 hours but seems that were only 10 minutes. For now, I've been played a lot games from thatgamecompany. My last remarkable experience was with Journey. Probably it touched me like I was touched for the first time I've played a digital game. Maybe it was better than that. It's a must-play game, for sure. 

5- Time for the pet peeves! Tell us about something that freaks you out!  

Hahaha, great question! Competitions/presentations, in general, freaks me out. I was crazy a few moments before the result of Blackberry Hackathon, for instance. In these situations, I usually run (yeah, like Forrest Gump!) to relieve the stress. I also have some "work tweaks" that are easy to notice after a certain time. For instance, if I don't agree to something, I keep shaking my head with tiny and fast movements.

6- How has it been working on Luke at the Stars?  

Oh, amazing! I feel very excited about all the things I've learned. It's also being a great challenge to be the responsible by Luke's Level Design as I've tried all the concepts and techniques that I had learned theoretically to create a fun and exciting game, and hope you like it! I think that it's important to say that Luke was only possible as we have a fantastic team working on it, and I think that this game restored our mojo as game developers. We're doing it with all our energy and passion, and I can't wait to receive the feedbacks about Luke and think about next projects.  

7- Time to say goodbye!  

Gentlemen, it has been a privilege playing with you tonight. I'd like to thank everybody, my girlfriend, family, all my friends, and everybody that has been part of my life and helped me on my way (oooooohhhh). I don't like farewells, so, goodbye, my friends! (have I mentioned before that I'm weepy?). 

[alpacateam]

A! Behind the Scenes- Camis

Hey guys! We wanted to give you all an inside-out story of the people behind Luke at the Stars. Well, you've been checking our work, but who are we anyways? I bet a couple of words on the blog's menu aren't enough to describe us, so we came out with the idea of interviewing each of us. The first one is our programmer, Camis! 

1) Hey, Camis! Tell more about you! Where you're from, how old are you, those kind of things!

Hey! I'm Camila, a.k.a. Camis, and I'm getting close to my 25 years old. I was born in Bauru, in Sao Paulo's countryside, and recently moved to Campinas to work as a programmer inside the gaming industry. I graduated in Information Technology at Unicamp, and I work with games for approximately 3 years now.

2) Besides programming, what else you enjoy doing out of your life?

Gaming/playing, of course, is into my favorite activities. But anything that makes me use more my brain than muscles catches my attention. Watching movies, reading or just trying to win that discussion with a friend at a bar on a saturday night are among the things I enjoy doing the most!

3)How do you feel about being a woman and a programmer? It's like having a band in which the drummer is a girl! That's not very common, I mean, game developer's world is ruled my male sexism: have you ever felt any kind of prejudice?

Lots of people get surprised when I tell them I'm a programmer. When I first got into college, there were only 5 girls inside a 50 student classroom. This proportion increased in other freshmen classes as time passed by, which makes me really happy! I never felt any visible prejudice, but I did feel people didn't believe me or gave me enough credit for my work, doubting of my abilities. However, I always tried to prove them wrong and I believe I could do that in most of the situations. 

4) What kind of games do you like playing? And why?

I do believe my taste for games is equivalent to my taste for pizza. To me, it is really hard to have a pizza that tastes totally bad. In some of them, there are bits that could be changed, but also tasty bites that bring me some short moment of satisfaction. Well, the same goes for games, that means I play a little bit of everything! From the classic Tetris to Assassin's Creed. If I was to name every single game I play, I bet this interview would last a bunch of pages, at least! I can only say that, if a game can bring me a new experience: either by a different way to tell a story, on the detailed art/scenery or the mechanics, undoubtedly: this game is among my favorites. 

5) Tell us about a pet peeve/mania you have people might not know about!

Well, like a bunch of people I know inside the gaming industry, I'm a bit peculiar and indeed I have some weird peeves. For instance, I can only think while pulling my hair upwards, or rush to the shower when I need an amazing solution/idea. My best ideas come from inside the shower!

6) How has it been working at Luke at the Stars? Tell us a bit about it!

Luke came in the moment I most needed of it! I needed to be inside a project I truly believed and that brought me back the satisfaction of working with games. I was into one of these moments at life in which you catch yourself thinking where to go or what to do, and Luke at the Stars came to clear the path and bring some answers. The immediate answer was: "Yes, I want to keep working with games because that's what I like to do". So I could say working at this game has been way more than rewarding.

7) Any tip or advice for people who want to work with games?

Develop! (make!). Thinking about a game is really cool, but making it is priceless. And it's the sort of thing you'll only know about when you start making it. Do not worry if the first, second or third attempts go wrong, do not give up! We improve in small steps. One of your trials might be a huge hit in the future, then get in the making!

8) Time to say goodbye!

I just wanted to thank some people I worked with (at another studio), because every single day with them was a huge school. Some of them were fired, some of them left or still remain, but that doesn't matter. They are talented, cheerful, fantastic. They were the ones that gave me the base and reasons to believe in my dream and to get this far. I'm very thankful to them. Of course, there are other important people to me, but this interview is really small compared to the place I have for them inside my heart! (Enough sentimentalism now!)

Well, we do believe you were able to get to know Camis a bit better! :) Stay tuned for our next interview! 

Best,

Alpacas

[alpacateam]

Dev Diary #1

Hey guys! We've been trying to figure out what should our next post be about, and we came with an idea: how Luke evolved as a character. Well, he's not a pokémon, but he surely evolved and changed a lot through the course of design (and we hope he keeps evolving)! Let's get started then!

Luke first started out as a man who went to visit his girlfriend, and wanted to see the stars because it reminded him of his childhood memories watching the starry skies. 

(Omg, this was Luke's idea/first concept. What... in the world were we thinking at first place? A bald and old guy?)

This idea seemed nice, but was too specific, and a man crying out for his love didn't seem really charismatic and appealing to a wider audience. Stating that he had a girlfriend was also somehow restricted: why not a boyfriend, why not something else? We came to an answer: the story was not about love or being loved, it was about rejection: something so universal that the character should be more inclusive, as well. 

We then shifted Luke's design to a little boy who was going to visit the love of his life (unfortunately, you'll have to play the whole story mode to find out who his love is!). We designed him to be more of a 8 year old boy, and lots of faces and drawings were made in order to reach the look we wanted.

(Many of Luke's ideas came out from modernist cartoons, in which characters had few colors, few easily recognizable shapes, and sometimes, no hair. Why the baldness obsession?)

  (This was the closest we got at defining who and how Luke looked like. Ok, we just happened to make a tong twister!)

  On the jam we participated, though, the drawings suggested a more teenage look than a childish look, and we were quite unsatisfied with it. Luke had longer arms and a not-so-round face. According to neoteny principles, we had to change his design a bit more, in order to make him cuter/more appealing as a little kid. Midio came with a quick design for the title screen that soon became Luke's face- as we know- for the team, and since then, Luke's design has shifted to a smaller, more round-face kid, with a long distance between the nose and the lips, bigger eyes, making him look (just look) powerless. His limbs also became shorter, and his head, bigger. 

  (1. Version of Luke in one of the cutscenes, 2. The drawing that changed "everything", 3. Luke's newer version)

  For the team, it's such a great achievement to watch and see our character change and evolve freely, and we're really happy to see what it has become. What do you think about it? You can shout at the comment box below or write us a message @ alpacateamstudio@gmail.com

We also have news! We now have a facebook page you can like here!

We hope you enjoyed this post!

Best,

Alpacas