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During the Christmas vacation I read the fantastic book Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter by James Gurney. It contains a number of really interesting ideas about colour schemes, so I was curious how these relate to existing games. I was especially curious about Proun : when creating the art for this game I did not know anything practical about colour theory. I just tweaked the colours until they looked good. Apparently this was successful, since reviewers were extremely positive about Proun's visuals and vibrant colours. How then do the colour schemes in Proun relate to Gurney's colour theories? To analyse this I have developed a simple little tool that visualises the colour scheme in an image. You can download the tool and source further in this post. So let's have look: what are Gurney's ideas and how do they relate to Proun's art? The concept I found most interesting in Gurney's book is gamut mapping . To understand this we first need to know ...

On 27 November Proun+ launched on iOS! The first reviews are extremely positive, both from the press and from users. We also got a big feature in the European App Store, so it seems like Apple itself also likes the game. :) Here are some quotes from the reviews and the launch trailer: " A bright, searingly good twitch racer that takes the fundaments of the genre and builds something staggeringly entertaining on top of them. " 9/10 PocketGamer.co.uk " Previously a successful indie release on the PC, it deserves your attention and patience. [...] Throw in a funky jazz based soundtrack and Proun+ has a lot going for it. " 4/5 stars 148Apps.com " this self-styled �journey through modern art� exudes an endearing weirdness that sets it apart and nestles it in your brain. Like that off-beat game you used to play, that you�re convinced only you can remember, which you can�t possibly forget. " 4.5/5 stars Gamezebo.com Proun+ is available in the App Store for iPhon...

We have released the first trailer for Proun+, the biggerbetter Proun that is coming to 3DS, iOS and Android! Proun+ is being made together with Engine Software and will have six new tracks and a completely new soundtrack: more songs and all the songs have now been recorded by real musicians for a much better sound. In this trailer you can hear the new version of one of the old songs and see one of the awesome new levels in action, plus footage from some of the original tracks. I am really hyped for the return of Proun, so I hope you like it!

My game Proun was recently 'cloned' by an iOS game called Unpossible . Unpossible isn't the first 'clone' of Proun: games like Synesthetic and Polyrider also copy the core gameplay and many obstacle shapes. Polyrider even goes so far as to copy-paste my main marketing text (DOH!). However, the timing of Unpossible is much more painful as Proun itself is also finally coming to iOS (and Android and 3DS): together with Engine Software I am working on a bigger and better Proun+. Proun+ coming to iOS means that it will be a direct competitor of its alleged clone Unpossible. I saw quite a bit of controversy online about whether Unpossible is a clone or not and whether that would be bad or not, so here is my own take on the matter. I think most people are worrying way too much about most clones. The only clones that should be considered a big problem are direct rips that add nothing and are clearly only intended as a moneygrab. Most infamous clones are not of this typ...

For the extended soundtrack of Proun+ I am composing a series of short sketches for grooves for the new songs. I already posted seven of them a couple of weeks ago and today I present the final six. From here on I will select the best ones and start turning them into real songs. I would love to hear your opinions on these, since that will help us choose which to expand on. Keep in mind that these are quick digital sketches. The final soundtrack will be played entirely by live instruments and produced by professional musician Arno Landsbergen , so they will sound much better just because of the real instruments and good production. The one below is pretty different from the rest. Arno and I wrote " Groove Sketch L " together and Arno recorded it live. This means that the sound is much better right away, making a comparison to the rest difficult. It also shows that everything is better on a real Hammond organ: what an awesome sound these things have! The Mellotron halfway (st...

Below are seven sketches for the music of Proun+ . I am writing an extended soundtrack for this game and the first step is to experiment with the basic grooves. My goal is to try a lot of different things, and then pick the best ones and turn those into complete songs. I am really curious which you like and which you don't like! Please let me know which are your favourites, and which you like the least! The final version of the soundtrack will be recorded with live musicians, so the exact sound and mix are not all that important right now. These groove sketches are also not real songs with a start and an ending: they just repeat a cool vibe for a while and that's it. What is really important though is whether you think these fit the game. Do you think they will work with the speed and vibe of Proun? For those who don't know what Proun+ is: my friends over at Engine Software are currently porting my game Proun to 3DS, iOS and Android. Engine Software is quite a famous studi...

In previous blogposts I shared the statistics of our games, talking about files and textures and about assets and audio . Today we get to the final part of this short series: code! Code is where size matters most. Not because creating 751 different particle systems wasn't a lot of work for our artists, but because unlike with particles, every additional line of code makes every existing line of code more complex. No matter how many particle systems there are, when creating one, an artist only has to care about that single particle system. The rest hardly matters. With code, the opposite is true: the larger a codebase, the more complex it all becomes. Of course, object oriented design principles say everything should be separated as much as possible, and this is a goal we work hard for, but in practice that is just not always doable. For example, the 15 characters in Awesomenauts all need to interact with each other. Any skill from any character needs to be able to handle interfer...

Last week I shared the first part of the statistics from our games . Today let's look at the second part: numbers about assets and audio. Plus a bunch of (hopefully) interesting contemplations and anecdotes about them. In fact, I had intended to also include stats about code today, but I typed so much text about all of this that I had to split it further. This series is now three blogposts instead of my originally intended two. Before I continue, let me abuse this moment for a short commercial break by (again) marketing our Kickstarter campaign for the Awesomenauts: Starstorm expansion ! Including PayPal pledges we have by now reached the first stretch goal (a new map) and are working towards the second stretch goal: Custom Games! Now, let's get to the actual numbers! Assets Levels 1 1 42 42 5 3 4 Skeletal animations 12 82 n/a n/a 0 n/a n/a Particles systems 2 10 43 43 2 526 751 Animation templates n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a ...

As you might know, we are currently running our Kickstarter campaign for our big Starstorm expansion to Awesomenauts. While we were preparing for that, I was thinking about how much Awesomenauts has grown since launch, and how much further it would grow by creating the Starstorm. Being a programmer, I love numbers and started collecting data on just how much Awesomenauts has been growing. Today I would like to share the first half of those with you! Since I like comparing, I have also added the other games I have worked on: De Blob, Snowball Earth, Swords & Soldiers and Proun. Hopefully you will find this as fascinating to look at as I do! But first, let me abuse this moment to blatantly market our Kickstarter campaign ... ;) We have already reached our main goal, and there are still tons of fun things in the stretch goals, including releasing our editors for modding. So please help make those features possible by backing the Starstorm, and scoop up lots of goodies in the reward ...