14 DAY TRIAL // Last week, Running Pixel, a start-up mobile and PC casual game developer, announced Crystal Crush, an action puzzle game with clear cross-platform attitudes. Designed around the idea of a simple game with strong mechanics, immediate controls and colorful graphics, Crystal Crush promises hours of fun to mobile, PC and Xbox 360 players.
This game is the first step of the Running Pixel’s philosophy. Trusting in the power of casual games to penetrate different markets with brilliant results, its intent is to catch every opportunity that the structural change in the gaming industry offers. It seems that casual games are perfect tools to come up with what it believes will be the winner – cross platform gaming. The idea of creating an original IP that fits well with gaming mass market demands seems innovative. Games that anyone can download and play on their PC, Xbox 360 or mobile phone are the next step in the games industry.
Wanting to do more with its concepts, where others offer, at best, an online playable demo, Running Pixel is giving an offline extended playable. The players choose the platform they prefer, with discounts if they opt for more than a platform for the same game. This is possible as the game will be simultaneously released for all the platforms the company supports.
To carry out this project and hit the target, Running Pixel has developed “Sasquatch,” an exclusive development framework and a set of tools, designed to port any mobile game to the Windows and Xbox 360 platforms fast and easily, and/or to rapidly develop multi-platform games. The Sasquatch technology allows the games of the company to be platform neutral and capable to perform well on any supported platform, starting from a single concept with a minimum of changes, and adding specific platform features and effects.
Each game Running Pixel creates from now on will be based on this multi-platform approach. Basically, games made by Running Pixel support Java mobile, PC windows and Xbox 360, and there are plans to extend the framework to support the Android, iPhone and Zune platforms.
Crystal Crush is to be released in November, and is the first example of what Sasquatch can do. Four new games are actually in the pipeline, and will be released between the end of the year and the first quarter of 2009.
