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[wearepinata]

So what is Spell Team Death Match?
Spell Team Death Match is a 2D pixelated PvP game for iOS. Think multiplayer Super Crate Box meets Unreal Tournament 2D - with spelling! Collect letters to spell weapon upgrades while dodging bullets and grabbing powerups. Destroy your friends or take on the world (one at a time) via Game Center. There will be bouncing, jumping, grenades, lasers, explosions, flying, hipsters and flying hipsters. Spell Team Death Match: Spell words, kill friends.

Inspired by the glory days of Unreal Tournament, we decided to make a game that was chaotic and fun but as a 2D platformer. We are in the process of getting some gameplay footage together but for now, here are various bits and pieces of artwork as well as some gifs. We are hoping to have at least 6 different avatars or possibly even an avatar builder if there is enough interest. Maybe an online library of characters that people can submit or use.

We are developing using Adobe AIR in conjunction with the the Starling and Citrus frameworks. And of course trusty ol’ Photoshop for the pixel pushing. We have enlisted the help of the awesome Bignic (of Zombies! fame) to create a banging soundtrack for STDM. You can purchase a copy of the entire soundtrack here: https://bignic.bandcamp.com/album/spell-team-death-match-soundtrack.

UPDATE: We've got an alpha gameplay trailer available! You can view it by clicking the image below:














We are hoping for a late April or early May release. But possibly by saying a release date out loud I may have inadvertently jinxed it :/ The initial release will be for iPhone, closely followed by a dedicated iPad release.

Anyway, we are quite active on Twitter if you would like to ask us any questions directly (@wearepinata), or you can post your comments below and we will do our best to respond asap We will be sure to keep posting our progress here as we get more gifs.

[happymonster]

Graphics are really nice!

[wearepinata]

Thanks! And here's another little pic including a new character, coming soon!

[8-Bit Ape]

The background art is amazing. Especially that second scene at the bottom of the first post.

Metal Slug is a favourite, if you can capture some of that mayhem...

[wearepinata]

The background art is amazing. Especially that second scene at the bottom of the first post.

Metal Slug is a favourite, if you can capture some of that mayhem...

Thanks! We wouldn't want to compare ourselves to Metal Slug for fear of setting expectations too high - but we're fans as well This style of gameplay will definitely be more like that of Unreal Tournament in the way that you are either constantly hunting, or being hunted. It was this part of the game mechanic that lead us to drop some of the more detailed backgrounds in favour of something less busy. Especially when we start putting particle effects on things it's going to get really crazy.

[Savick]

I don't really like that you're using soft gradients in combination with pixel art. It's always looked wrong to me visually. It might be just me, though.

[wearepinata]

Fair enough. Each to their own Our aim was to try and mix elements of scenery concept art with pixel art so as not go for too much of a dedicated "retro" feel. We are fans of retro style artwork, but we didn't want to go too hard core down that path.

[barley]

I really like the gradients with the pixels, it makes for some really pretty backgrounds.

This looks cool!

[matriax]

Remember me the sprites/look of Super Time Force. Waiting to see some animated gifs or a video 

[wearepinata]

Here's the first cut (sorry, couldn't help myself!) of the sword animation. Thinking of maybe putting another slice into the combo as this is probably the best way for the sword to work. 3 hit combos that miss will most likely render the player vulnerable to attacks for half a second.

[barneycumming]

I love the style- super squishy snappy animations- keep it up!

[wearepinata]

I love the style- super squishy snappy animations- keep it up!

Thanks so much! We've seen your artwork and animation for Crawl and we absolutely love it, so your compliment means a lot to us

[wearepinata]

Oh and here's another background test with a bit more of a streamlined UI

[wearepinata]

It's still a work in progress but here's another screenshot mock up. Trying to find that balance between detail and subtlety with the backgrounds while still maintaining a "concept art" feel:



To try and create a subtle consistency across all of the different arena types I have decided to use a colour that complements the main colour of the previous screen. As you can see here I have used a red that is complementary to the blue/green used in the previous image. The next image will take a complementary colour from either of these two and then use that as a base for the next screen design.

[wearepinata]

Here's another little gif of a win animation that we've been testing out:

[Neeko]

Really gorgeous pixel art! Animations are really smooth and expressive. I love it.

I'm developing a similar game (pretty much a demake of UT as a 2D platformer) and I'm jealous of your aesthetics, you guys just nailed it perfectly

[wearepinata]

Thank you! We're really trying to give the small characters some personality. As it's going to be a mobile game and the on screen sprite will be quite small, we are hoping to push character through their win animations and audio feedback. 

[wearepinata]

A few more gifs. Here are the upgrade and respawn animations that we've been playing around with:

[wearepinata]

Oh and here's another little gif of the flamethrower animation:

[eigenbom]

Great graphics, I love it!