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[kiwicode]

PLAY IT HERE!

Hi there,

I'd like to show you Sky Island, a 2D / 3D platform game I released on March 2011. Since it happened to be a bit of talking about Sky Island I decided to write this to officially talk about the story behind the development of the game.

In Sky Island you are a Sun's scale which landed to protected the sky islands from the invasion of the dark souls which want to steal all the stars. It's now up to our hero to defeat the dark souls and protect the sky islands.

Your goal is to collect all the stars in each level. In order to do this, to avoid obstacles and to unhide secret paths you click on the level and rotate, this way you switch to the 3D view and can change which angle you're viewing the action from.

Sky Island features 15 different levels, 3 different pixel art scenarios and 4 music tracks. The development of the game took about 6 weeks. I used Away3D as rendering engine. It was quite a challenge to get this kind of 2D / 3D engine running smoothly on browsers.

The game is influenced by most of the Super Mario titles, especially Super Paper Mario.
Other games which inspired this game are Crush and FEZ.

I'd like to spend more time on the last game I mentioned since FEZ's creator POINTED OUT DIFFERENT TIMES ( as he likes to write his tweets ) that Sky Island graphics and main idea are a complete FEZ rip off. From a point of view that's true since Sky Island can be considered a FEZ and Super ( Paper ) Mario clone but that's not what I had in mind to achieve.

With Sky Island I didn't want to mess with FEZ, I just wanted to make a game!

In an overgrowth browser games market you get tons of new free games every week so it's very difficult to get your game noticed. That's why I wanted to develop a free, never seen before on browsers, 2D / 3D platform game. Regarding the FEZ issue I just thought “We are playing on two different leagues so I bet Sky Island won't mess with FEZ”, but it looks like Phil Fish didn't care about this.

From this I've learned which is always a better idea to credit people if you got inspirations from their games ( so, indie developers out there, get ready to always put Mr. Miyamoto in your credits ) and that 0x42C7FF color can't be used since Phil Fish claims property over this shade of blue.

Hope you enjoyed playing Sky Island as much as I enjoyed programming it!

Thanks,
Gionathan

[st33d]

I think you're missing the point.

You were smart enough to look at the mechanic and replicate it. Which is a stunning feat in itself.

And then you made some levels and stopped right there.

You have the ability to do something original and memorable. But instead you make something that makes me wish I was playing Fez instead. You make me wish I was playing a better game.

It's a sad waste of talent.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

but how can you know that fez is the better game? we haven't played it yet

not that i'm defending the cloning of it, but it's still a very strange thing to assume

[r.kachowski]

Community allegiances aside, I thought it was a pretty fun flash game and an appropriate use of talent.

[kiwicode]

You have the ability to do something original and memorable. But instead you make something that makes me wish I was playing Fez instead. You make me wish I was playing a better game.

It's a sad waste of talent.

I develop games to make a living and, at my current stage, I cannot effort to invest too much time into experimenting radical new ideas or mechanics, that would be too risky at the moment.

Also, why indie developers must always be associated to memorable, sensitive games developed thanks to their inner feelings, why they can't just be ordinary people, trying to create something classic, well executed and enjoyable?

[im9today]

[s0]

The Thor movie is a Norse mythology ripoff.

[im9today]

yes it is impossible to tell the difference between small similarities and large ones

[ANtY]

Good job, first game for a month maybe that didn't make me bored after 1 minute. I rly enjoyed your game  

Also good job with this technology

[leonelc29]

In an overgrowth browser games market you get tons of new free games every week so it's very difficult to get your game noticed. That's why I wanted to develop a free, never seen before on browsers, 2D / 3D platform game. Regarding the FEZ issue I just thought “We are playing on two different leagues so I bet Sky Island won't mess with FEZ”, but it looks like Phil Fish didn't care about this.

see Ninja Fishing and Muffin Knight. Your intention are same with Gamenauts and explanation are same with Angry Mob. what different is the market place.

you might create something new, one day.

[moi]

With Sky Island I didn't want to mess with FEZ, (...), but  Phil Fish didn't care about this.

That's how I sum up your point of view

Good job, first game for a month maybe that didn't make me bored after 1 minute.

my favorite flash game so far

[st33d]

I develop games to make a living and, at my current stage, I cannot effort to invest too much time into experimenting radical new ideas or mechanics, that would be too risky at the moment.

You should invest in copying Zynga then. They've a similar moral compass.

[ANtY]

Good job, first game for a month maybe that didn't make me bored after 1 minute.

my favorite flash game so far

Oh, that's cool, bookmarked cuz I have to go now.

Try this man, http://www.kongregate.com/games/camaleonyco/moby-dick-the-video-game Moby Dick is awesome!

[Zaphos]

On the game itself: I almost like the game, but I feel the puzzle design is ... sloppy?  The puzzles are not designed to be minimal and express interesting results of the mechanics, nor are they designed to be sprawling, 'open' puzzles where the player has room to express creativity.  It is sometimes difficult to get a sense of the layout of the levels just by spinning the camera, which seems to encourage a certain amount of trial-and-error brute force solving.  The mechanic itself is strong enough that it's still a neat game to play, but it feels like a missed opportunity.

On the drama: I think the practical effects of this game on Fez will be very close to zero, so I can't really worry about it much.  Neutronized is obviously not Zynga or GameLoft or whatever, afaict, and has done less clone-y games.

[Desert Dog]

Haha, neat game! Gameplay is very weird.

[gimymblert]

More like fez demo, We can see the scale of both game are very different. Actually it might work like a proof of concept prototype for fez, since people didn't play fez yet. I can see PHIL being smart enough and capitalize on this "play it, fez is like that except with 10 times more thing and polish".

[Zaphos]

I can see PHIL being smart enough and capitalize on this "play it, fez is like that except with 10 times more thing and polish".

fwiw, this is what fish said about sky island when it appeared on indiegames:

luckily, they only managed to steal the core idea and aesthetic, not the execution.
this plays nothing like FEZ and falls into all the same traps it took us so long to figure out how to avoid.
but thanks for all the flattery, neutronized.

- http://www.indiegames.com/2011/03/browser_game_pick_sky_island_n.html

[Amon26]

I liked this. the visuals were cute and nice and the controls were real good.  Thanks for makin it! 

[kiwicode]

I develop games to make a living and, at my current stage, I cannot effort to invest too much time into experimenting radical new ideas or mechanics, that would be too risky at the moment.

You should invest in copying Zynga then. They've a similar moral compass.

Well - talking about moral compass - at least I'm not releasing tons of sequels.

[st33d]

brb, making a sequel