Pickford Bros 'pic blog'. Prototype shots.
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/Pickford Bros 'pic blog'. Prototype shots.
We're doing a daily picture blog on our site at the moment. The idea is a 'new' image each day which is vaguely connected to game development. Some of these are going to be shots of various prototypes we've worked on over the years. The first two are already up.
De-Flowerhttp://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/picblog.php?pic=28This is one we stopped working on a while back, although I always liked it and would love to develop it further.
Blueprint Versionhttp://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/picblog.php?pic=22This one has been completely re-skinned and developed further into our next game Magnetic Billiards. Which is completely original and bears no relation to any other game we may have been involved with. The finished game has a lush Victorian theme.
http://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/picblog.php?pic=9Both of the above prototypes have short videos which are linked to below the screenshot. They are hosted on Facebook; I'm not sure if you need to join to see them.
We'll be launching a free alpha version of Magnetic Billiards any day now. If you're interested add me or Ste on Facebook as we'll be spamming our friends lists when the demo is ready.
Good to see you guys alive and kicking.
Which is completely original and bears no relation to any other game we may have been involved with.
I played S***** B**** Blitz3D demo yesterday! Great idea and concept.
Heh... I was just at your site yesterday, reading why the C64 version of Feud sucked compared to the Speccy one. :)
It's already an interesting site, so the daily blog just adds another reason to visit.
> I'm not sure if you need to join to see them.
Yes, you need to join.
Okay cheers. I could have logged out to check I suppose. Doh!
I'll get them on youtube at some point.
I've added you and Ste on facebook, so if you see a Christian Perfect, that's me.
de-flower - ha ha most of your games have sexually related names
lol
Another big mistake was the title. Its a 'clever' literary reference - Amaurote being the name of the capital city of Utopia from Sir Thomas More's novel - but it didn't mean anything to anyone, particularly not the kids who bought computer games
I was one of those kids, a lot of speccy games had weird names anyway
I don't we'd ever release it with that name. It was more a joke title. We usually just call it 'flower'.
What are the Pickford brothers working on now? Or is it a secret?
Magnetic Billiards
Cool, I was 9 when you wrote that. This is my favorite bit.
CALL BIG_WIND
haha cool listing.
Magnetic Billiards? *cough StickyBalls?*? :)
I certainly hope so.
The mud wasn't cosmetic, you could fling as much mud around as you liked, fill pits with it, build hills out of it etc. The trick to getting it work on the limited tech of the time was to use a large texture to cache the visual side of it and only use live polygons close to the player vehicle.
That's very similar to what was done later in Sega Rally 2007!
1979 - Cool I was 9, not sure they had even put computer in the english language then. I started my programming on the vic20 - I think I was 11 (1981) - could be wrong (cause I'm old now).
Just looked down your softography and I can see Glider Rider on there - I can remember playing that on my Spectrum when I was about 12...happy memories!
A little follow up on Amaurote
http://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/picblog.php?pic=38The original sketch for the panel.
With much respect to Ste, it's really impressive that your (also impressive) graph-paper sketch (yay graph-paper) looks exactly like the actual game, at least from my ailing, failing memory.
I always wondered how you're supposed to pronounce Amaurote?
Ammor - wrote?
Ammm - aww - wrote?
Arrr - mer - wrote?
Ammor - rot - ay?
something else?
Heh, no clue.
That was me being pretentious 20 odd years ago. If I was making the game now I'd call it Invasion of the Death Wasps.
Well John, you've just shattered all my childhood memories - I hope you're happy :)
I like your concept art for Dirty Drivin' on 2 Dec
Heh, those are my eyes at 1:03!
@Blitzplotter, did you see the video? It's hosted on facebook so you need an account to see it.
I wondered who that face was. :)
In hindsight, would you change that odd weapon system? It seems a little difficult.
In hindsight I'd make a good game instead.
My wifes got a facebook account, I made a bebo account a while back. Maybe I should consider a face book one as well....
Yeah, facebook is brilliant. I like the way people use their real names.
I've got in touch loads of people I've lost contact with over the years. Mainly professional contacts.
Todays pic is from Magnetic Billiards
http://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/picblog.php?pic=42There's a video too.
I dislike that i would have to register first in order to see a video.
Oooh, think I'll have to register now.
Thats looking very good indeed John.
@taumel,
I'll see about uploading to Youtube when I get a chance. Facebook is just very convenient as we can host a group for game testers with minimum fuss. Also their video quality is excellent.
Okay, btw you can also use a high quality on youtube.
How? The same video looks crap in comparison.
Anyway I've uploaded them now. Some are still 'processing' so they might not work for a bit
"Dirty Drivin"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqR_yP55ViY"Magnetic Billiards"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXxAbVLzkPw"De-Flower"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nw36bKbcRQ"Blueprint Version"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A67hemTeX0w Hmmm wmv files, can't you use flash with h.264 for instance?
Did you provide several quality movies? At the bottom/right there is a link with which you can switch the quality of the movie, it improved the quality of the first movie.
What's wrong with wmv? The original video is good quality. I upload the same one to facebook and it looks great
I just uploaded one high quality version of each video.
It looks like the 'high quality' option appears automatically after a bit. They must take longer to process.
Hmm Billboards only is offered in the low quality. *update: now it's available too*
I don't know, i only once uploaded movies to youtube and there it worked out pretty well so i didn't dig into it any deeper if there are certain things to be considered (bandwith issues?, flags you can set?) which could enhance the quality.
What compression do you use with the wmv?
Since h.264 exists i'm completely sold on this using it in Flash or Quicktime. Quality wise it's not the perfect solution but it's good enough, common and the workflow is sweet.
I just use windows movie maker and set it to "LAN" quality which is about 1Mb per sec I think.
Anyway the high quality versions look okay so panic over.
This video has freaked me out. It's a tribute to my old company Zippo games.
Whoever did this has done a load of research.
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=MHgxfm4nfXg Nice, i liked the music.
A Naked War related updated today
http://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/picblog.php?pic=45We're celebrating 100,000 turns exchanged. We're also altering the business model a bit. Any subscriber now has effectively infinite challenge credits. Those playing for free can also keep playing but they'll only be permitted one active game at a time.
Also, the email attachments are gone. You'll still get an email with a link to your Naked War page where your turn can be downloaded. It's an extra click but it eliminates a number of problems with spam filters etc.
Your Naked War ad on the bb homepage has gone John.
Your Naked War ad on the bb homepage has gone John.
Strange.. It was there just yesterday!
It's still there, below Fairway Solitaire.
We were talking about the "Community News".. I think.
Seems to have been deleted. Did I break a rule?
Maybe someone (drunk or with otherwise clouded judgment) saw "Naked" and speedily ban hammered it.
Apparently the fraud thing trumps other news. A win for the griefers.
I don't even know why 'BlitzSupport' posted it in the news section, and not in the official section above (that is if he has the authority to do so, something tells me otherwise).
Anywho.. it should definitely be moved to the main area, where it cannot be weighed down by user-submitted news.
We were talking about the "Community News".. I think.
Oh, I see. My bad.
Seems to have been deleted. Did I break a rule?
I'm fairly sure there's a bug in the news code that happens occasionally. At a guess, I think sometimes an id is overwritten and the post disappears. It's happened quite a few times over the years for no reason.
Nah it was deleted to make way for the warning.
Anyway, todays picture is taken from our Wii Naked War Pitch document.
http://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/picblog.php?pic=48Sadly, Nintendo won't let us develop on the Wii.
Todays pic is a shot of the Magnetic Billiards help system
http://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/picblog.php?pic=49