Aussie Indie Insights: Pixel Elephant

Welcome to the first edition of Aussie indie insights. This is our weekly look at the local independent development scene, and each week, we'll be posting up a short piece on a game that's being worked on by an independent Australian developer. Given that most titles coming out of smaller studios are quite bite-sized experiences, the aim of this series is to talk to the developers and find out all the essential information. There'll be no fluff here; we'll just get straight down to the meaty bits of information!

Kicking off this inaugural chapter of Aussie indie insights is Pixel Elephant's Maciej Sawitus, who is talking to us about the company's first game Puzzle Rabbit. Maciej is a former Blue Tongue employee who has gone solo.

Pixel Elephant Essentials:
Founded: July 1, 2011
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Team members: Maciej Sawitus
Current projects: Puzzled Rabbit (iPhone, iPad, Android, PlayBook, XBLIG, PC), unannounced physics-based puzzle game
Your position/job title: Game Developer

GameSpot AU: What challenges did you face while developing the game?

The main challenge for me was to learn mobile development from scratch. I've [done] console and PC game development for the past seven years, but I've never done any iOS or Android development before. Also, I wasn't keen to buy Mac just so I could make games for iOS. Eventually, I ended up developing on Windows using the popular Marmalade SDK, which was a great choice.

Another challenge was to make the game look good on different devices. I decided to redo the art for a number of different resolutions and aspect ratios, including 480x320 (iPhone), 960x640 (iPhone4), 1024x768 (iPad), 1024x600 (PlayBook), and also 1280x720 (XBLIG). This was a good choice, but it took me a few days to adjust the game to work well with different devices.

One last challenge for me was to make the art work for the whole game. I'm a programmer and so I fully realize my shortcomings when it comes to drawing skills. I didn't want to hire an artist so I could keep my budget low for this game, yet I didn't want people to look at it and think "this looks like programmer art" (a popular saying among game developers). Sure, it's a small game, but I'm still proud when people I don't know (no point asking your friends about it) tell me it looks good. I have hired a professional artist for my next game, though, if you're wondering.

GS AU: If you had to talk to someone about your game who has never heard of it before, how would you describe it in one paragraph?

It's a charming little puzzle game with a Picasso-style rabbit pushing mysterious red boxes around. The game has pretty graphics, moody music, and nearly 200 challenging levels with different rewards for completing each one. Puzzled Rabbit is great exercise for your brain and is generally a calming experience that I can recommend to players of all ages. And if you like comparing to others, there's also online leaderboards.

GS AU: Bite-sized games are a great way for developers to experiment and try something new. Describe to us something that's unique to your game?

The unique thing about Puzzled Rabbit is how it combines challenging classic Sokoban puzzles with an artistic look and feel. There's probably more depth to Puzzled Rabbit than one might expect at first glance, thanks to elements like rabbit himself, his little story, and awards you get for solving each level.

Are you an Aussie indie developer working on an upcoming game? If so drop us a line at gamespotedit@gamespot.com.au.