A Pixel Story | UK indie student studio’s debut
Channel 4 today announces that video game A Pixel Story, the BAFTA-nominated 2D puzzle-platformer from Lamplight Studios, is set for release on Steam for PC on 30 March 2015.
A Pixel Story is a fun and epic retelling of the history of video games… or a stress test for your gamepad’s structural integrity.
An early prototype of A Pixel Story was originally developed over a nine-week period by a five-person team. The game received a BAFTA Ones To Watch award nomination. Following this recognition, Lamplight Studios has been expanding and honing A Pixel Story‘s twitch reflex platform mechanics into a fun and challenging experience for gamers old and new school.
Taking on the role of the titular pixel, players need to escape from a Pong-like game world and then progress through increasingly detailed game worlds that pay homage to the developments made in gaming across four graphical generations.
Dare to be Digital 2012, the annual international student game design competition run by the UK’s University of Abertay, saw Lamplight Studios win the Channel 4 Award and £25,000 in prize money to develop their game idea with Channel 4.
Colin MacDonald, Games Commissioner at Channel 4, was one of the judges at Dare to be Digital and has been mentoring the developers since the competition winners were announced.
Colin said: “Lamplight Studios’ love letter to video gaming is fun, fiendishly challenging and charming in equal measure, and we can’t wait to share its story with the world.”
Martin Cosens, Team Leader of A Pixel Story said: “To our team, the Channel 4 award represents an unprecedented opportunity to further develop a title that we became extremely attached to over the initial development period. It allows us to follow up our full designs for a project we had initially hoped to develop a full game experience from. It will also allow us to establish a company, creating the capacity to work on a huge range of ideas, which until this point we only dreamed of working on. It marks the beginnings of a company that we hope will leave its mark on the British games industry.”
A Pixel Story features:
– Quick reflex platform action with a puzzle twist
– Vibrant worlds pay homage to 8-bit, 16-bit and modern gaming eras
– A magical teleportation hat
– Pad-smashingly-hard bonus challenge rooms
– Seven worlds, each with a new mechanic
– Evolving graphical and audio fidelity
– Thousands of coins, gems and special items to collect
– Did we mention the magical teleportation hat?