We are really overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response to the game, and appreciate all the feedbacks. Here’s a post of highlights on the game development, and some hints on what else is next to come.

Art Of The King’s League: Odyssey
The shiny and polished visuals of the game are courtesy of Ritchie Fernando, as mentioned in our previous post. Many Leaguers have commented on the lovely art, and some extra thoughts behind Ritchie’s work can be seen on his project feature on Behance.

King’s League Soundtrack
Even though we gave the option to play without sound, many Leaguers did play with sound and had happy ears still. Why?

The reason is none other than the wonderful soundtrack composed by Francesco D’Andrea!
Don’t hesitate to check out the full soundtrack if you can’t get enough of it.

Premium Content on Kongregate
As aforementioned, the team is very happy and humbled with the response for the game. We have also received feedback for more.

Well, they said to ask and you will receive, so a carefully (and very excitedly) thought out set of premium content have been made available on Kongregate!

If you enjoyed the game, do support us through this premium pack! We made sure to provide as much entertainment and content as we could in this short period of time – and hope that you will help the development team make better games in the future!

A Mobile League
Some said they would love to play the League on the go – would you?

These are the updates we have so far. If you would like to be updated with the latest news on The King’s League, don’t forget to follow us on Facebook (or specifically The King’s League’s page), Twitter and Google+.

The champion stepped up to the throne and brought about peace and harmony throughout his reign. However, peace never lasts.

For those who have been waiting for another go at the league, thank you for your patience!
The King’s League: Odyssey is set to launch in April and you will be able to feast your eyes (and time, and fingers) on the game and its polished visuals.

Speaking of which, the shiny video and knights in armor are the proud creations of Ritchie Fernando, who collaborated with Kurechii for this sequel.

We had fun times working with Ritchie,  and sat him down for a little interview about his experience.

On most time spent:
I spent a lot of time on the animations. There were a total of 35 characters, with 5 movements (or more) each.

On character design:
I intended the characters to be faceless, to be unable to display emotions. As the game is about strategizing, I didn’t want players getting attached to certain characters. Ideally, they would be mixing and matching different classes to create various armies.

First character drafts of The King’s League: Odyssey.

The first character drafts had proper proportions, looking sleek and serious. Then I thought since the theme is already a league filled with battle, we could have a bit more humour within – and big headed characters were born.

On most enjoyable:
Perhaps also the most challenging: the icons.

They might seem simple, but the focus is always on communicating the meaning behind the visuals. They were no easy task.

To wrap up:
One major thing I’ve picked up during the process is that consistency is important, especially in terms of keeping game stickiness high.

Time spent on coming up with visuals, to craft, to polish and then make amendments is a lengthy one. For me, the key to staying focused is to be persistent. I’m sure many creatives have experience having new ideas after deciding on a direction for a project, the thing is to absorb them carefully – to discard those that would put a damper on your progress.

The King’s League: Odyssey is the first game I’ve worked on, and I’ve definitely learnt a lot from scratch. Designing for games is as fun as it is challenging!

You may find more of Ritchie’s works on his site or behance profile.
Click here for his gallery of The King’s League: Odyssey’s art.

Those who are born in the year of the snake are reputed to be thoughtful and wise to approach problems rationally and logically; instead of instinctively.

Of course, I’m not here to discuss about zodiac signs – but instead about the classic game of Snake.

My first game of the genre was one on Windows, named Paulie Python. Like other Snake games, the player controls the snake and maneuvers through mazes, eating up all the mice on the map to advance to the next level. Each mouse increases the snake’s body length and speed as well.

As someone who is constantly thinking of catchy names for our games, I take my hat off to whoever named the game – I can’t believe I still remember the name after almost eighteen years! I remember playing the game almost eighteen years ago, first watching my cousin spend countless afternoons trying to beat her own high score while singing to 25 Minutes (it apparently helped her to concentrate better). Now that I think about it, I wonder if the creator wanted to instill the rationality and steadiness supposedly found in those who are born in the year of the snake?

Paulie Python definitely taught me to have more control through the ever-increasing speed and complexity of mazes. In fact, it was the first game that taught me one valuable lesson: panic often leads to game over!

What I loved most about the game were the mazes. Not only did the mazes form illustrations of cartoon snakes, they were also increasingly challenging and unexpected as the game continued.

The straightforward and simple gameplay has also donned various skins and appeared in numerous variants in the years after: from a Neopets version named Meerca chase, to the popular one found on many Nokia phones. Even Youtube and Gmail have their own secret (or not so anymore) Snake game hidden in the services. Some variants are more creative in terms of obstacles and bonuses, and some are just as simple as it can get.

Meerca Chase II on Neopets.

Superstition or not, I think we could always heed the beliefs of the Snake Year: to focus and pay attention to details for a steady progress. An enjoyable game does not come with aimlessly rushing for a launch deadline, or misplaced focus and juggling too many aspects in one go. The most important things are intangible, and on top of the list is the core gameplay. Neglecting to set solid rules for the game would lead to risks of the development constantly falling back to square one.

Here’s to wishing everyone a year of focus and steady progress!

To those who are celebrating, Kurechii wishes you a Happy Chinese New Year !

During interviews, we are often asked about our inspirations for certain games. Yet beyond being inspired, there is always a very important phase that people rarely ask about: prototyping.

A prototype is an early sample to test a concept or process.

Creating a new game is like trying out a new recipe: you may have great ingredients, but you’ll never know how it will turn out when you mix everything together. There’s where the prototype comes in, and that’s where the risk of losing valuable time and budget is reduced.

But what form does a game prototype take?

We have tried box levels, paper prototypes and gone with a misled idea of ‘simplified levels’. Perhaps you have more to add to the list?

From paper to digital prototyping.

However, it is easy to get caught up with what form it should take. This time, we overlooked the objectives that the prototype should communicate. The form should be one that can help in successfully communicating the game’s unique selling point.

If the game’s main feature is an addictive puzzle solving system, does the prototype make the player feel like having another go at solving the puzzles? Is it challenging enough to keep the player wanting to solve more, or is it so challenging that the player gets frustrated?

If the game’s main objective is to have the players strategize and have fun with the various upgrades, is the player looking forward to strategizing or upgrading in the prototype?

Our highlight of the game is the battle system, and we planned it to be entertaining yet simple enough for casual gamers to pick up. In fear of wasted visuals, we decided to go with a box level. The idea was to test the system first, if it worked fine we would then proceed to spruce up the visuals.

It sounded like a good plan until we realized the “entertainment” factor was not being communicated well, due to the lack of polished visuals or animation. In fact, even we did not feel compelled to strategize when the stand-in visuals did not provide immediate feedback. Even the special events in each level were not included to ‘keep it simple’ – but it was exactly because they were left out that the game felt dull.

So we reworked the prototype, finalizing sprites and minor systems that would appear in the level. In some ways, this prototype is a small-scale summary of our game. After refining, we felt more satisfied seeing that our ideas had materialized properly.

There’s still a long way to go from here on, but at least we have a confident model of what we envisioned.

Experiences and tips related to game prototyping are very welcome if you have any to share!

Have you broken any resolutions, or have you made some epic ones?

Over here, one of ours is to release at least four games this year!
(It’s kind of a cheat-resolution though, I’ll tell you why later.)

Before I go into our plans for the year, a quick recap of some highlights in the last year:

In February, we were featured in the local New Straits Times. In the interview, we mention how the studio came to be, and also about our inspirations and aspirations. You can read the interview here.

A month later, a review of Reachin’Pichin was also published in the News Straits Times. The online version can be viewed here.

In July, we spent some time with Avery Score, the host of Astro Awani’s Gadget Nation. The three of us talk about our roles in the studio, you can see Yiwei’s segment here (the segment starts at 18:10). Lydia’s segment with Zyen can be viewed over here (the segment starts at 17 minutes).

GameAxis also interviewed us for their August issue, featuring a few local game developers in conjunction with Malaysia’s Independence Day.

You might have also read on Twitter that we have an upcoming project with Gamenauts this year! If you’re curious, it has to do with a sequel to a certain game of ours.

We spent 2012 doing some major housekeeping and development, so much that we moved into publishing a little late. Don’t fret though, we have three titles to be released this year, plus a new one we started working on late last year.

Thank you for sticking with Kurechii through 2012 despite us being rather quiet, may you have tons of fun this year!

Sincerely and thankfully,
Kurechii

First up, we present: our workstations.

This is where we spent 90% of our working hours at.

The other 10%? We’ll save that for another post.

Ywei is one for simple and clean spaces. Some highlights of his workstation are:

1. Weapons and Scrolls (A.K.A. stationary and documents) for the daily routine.
2. Many, many gadgets.
3. The legendary sketchbook that has survived many water-spills. Many game ideas and graphics were born from these water-stained pages.
4. The organizer. Quoting him, it’s “more boring compared to the sketchbook, but equally important”.

Gadget mania!

Next up, our resident illusionist:
Zyen’s desk is a little world of interesting collections, let’s take a closer look:

1.  Bottles – of stationary and things we have no name for.
2. Pretties: Doll and postcard from some talented local artists. And if you can’t see, that’s a frame holding an art of ballerinas with mustache skirts.
3.  Self-customized desktop wallpaper to make her messy icons more easy to pick out. Although, you can’t see them here because she has magically hidden them away.
4. Essential tea set.

Bottles are just one of the many things she collects.

Moving on to the young trickster:

Check out Nick’s wallpaper!

1. Everyone needs a trusty pillow and some comfort toys, especially when debugging.
2. Sketches before he moves on to digital art.
3. Believe it or not, all the visuals you have seen for Chicky Duo were drawn by Nick, using this very mouse! No tablets involved.
4. A pair of snazzy headphones received during his recent birthday.

We never expected this when we opened the box on his table. Classy pencil box is classy.

Last but not least:

Pink is not Lydia’s favourite colour, or so she says. It’s just a preferred colour.

1. A bucket to keep The Sketchbook and many colorful pens. Makes a good headphone stand too.
2. The cuddly dolphin Pillow Pet for sleepy days.
3. Inspiration board. Home to many aquatic or pink creatures and decorations.
4. FOOD. Because sugar keeps the ideas rolling in.

“Really, it’s just a preferred colour for a certain many things.”

That wraps up our first ever Studio Peek!

If there’s anything you would like to see for the next one, comment and let us know. Who knows, you might be able to see how our workstations usually look like.

If you have, do let us know – we need Sate back before we can finish Diggonaut!

Its inhabitants were Worroms, translucent life forms with brilliant minds. Worromot was self-sustaining, and the Worroms wondered for centuries what else the galaxy offered.

An expedition was launched – and Astronaut Lite was dispatched to Planet 2012. His mission was to find out more about the planet – whether it offered any useful resources, whether it sustained life, whether its inhabitants were generous or unwelcoming.

Destination 2012 was barren when Lite landed, so he set up his trusty excavation pod and did one of the things he enjoyed the most – dig.

We’ve been spending the past few months with Astronaut Lite and his underground adventures. Instead of keeping it all to ourselves, we hope to share his story with you too.
Be ready to dig in August!

Yes, we meant fluffy farm-next-door chicks. Complete with yellow feathers and and adorable beaks.

However, when they are faced with a task to save, their heroic side appears.

The Avengers-outfit is just for tribute’s sake though. These chicks will just be saving the day as their adorable yellow-feathered selves in Chicky Duo.

The lack of gamma-green-skin and shields does not mean a decrease in action, so be sure to keep an eye out for our tiny heroes!

Besides the tasks at hand, we have also updated our profile page. Do drop by and get to know the minds behind our games!

Oh, and before you head over – feast your eyes on some delicious looking eggs and chickens!

No, it isn’t for your stomach’s consumption.
Instead, it is to satisfy one’s need for adorable and mind-challenging entertainment.

Yes, that is an egg with an idea.

If you’re curious about what ideas it has – keep an eye out for the game when it releases!

Chicky Duo will be released before we reach the next quarter of the year, so keep your eyes out and don’t leave the nest unattended – the egg might hatch sooner than you know it!