Pixel Progression #9

Welcome to the ninth edition of Pixel Progression!

We just released an update, and in the update we're experimenting with a knockout reward system!

To learn more about the update, visit this changelog before reading.

If you didn't read the changelog, do so before reading this or you'll end up even more confused.

A knockout system isn't new to games, but it is to us! Obviously this system is seeing minimal use right now, but it's yet another good system that'll help us as we do more cool shit later.

For instance, if we ever did a new type of collectible with tons of new things to collect that were one time unlocks, you'd want this knockout system in place to make sure your RNG isn't giving you "pointless" repeats.

There will be a lot of things we want to change/improve with this system that isn't possible in this first iteration, as well. For instance, when leveling it'd be great if when you prestige you don't get the same skin or title unlock for the 4th time on a single 2xp day. It'd be cool to instead get some coins, or an entirely different reward. This will require a lot more work on our end, but is the type of thing we want to do.

Basically, we never want you to go "damn it, I already have this title so I get nothing", especially since fishing has a lot of one time unlocks. This is the building blocks for cool shit, and we love building cool shit.

The artists officially started season 3 of fishing, and the development team will soon follow!

Not much to report past the update that just released, but the next week or two will likely be fairly quiet while we put our heads down and work.

A lot of people have no clue how our team operates to get content delivered to you, and I'd be happy to spent a minute explaining.

We have a series of people with various skills, who contribute various amounts of time to running things smoothly. Some are daily full time, some are once a month. Today I'll talk about the people who work on the content that you see, but that doesn't devalue the behind the scenes work that makes the bot functional.

Myself, Mel, I do the business end and I decide on the content and implementations of things. I wear many hats that you'd find in a game development company, ranging from product manager to game designer, and lots of things in between. I used to develop on the bot, but stopped with the rewrite in 2022 as the technology was outpacing my knowledge and I was being spread thin.

We have two Pixel artists, Andrew and Sunbear, who make all of the new incoming art you see. They get tasks from me, and develop that art as their schedules allow, often working a few hours a week.

Zomb is our writer, doing various important things. She writes a lot of tutorials and tips, writes content for things like pets, and is responsible for a vast majority of NPC content, among other things.

Zig does the graphic design, which is things like the roadmap, the fishing map, and basically any art that isn't pixel art.

Badosz is the primary developer for the bot, and a majority developer for the website. Nearly all parts of the bot you've interacted with have been primarily Badosz. Generally I will give a list of tasks or features that I need in order of priority, and Bad delivers them working hand in hand with me to keep things balanced and fun. Bad works full time, and is the only developer touching the user-facing side of the bot as I've stepped out of development.

This small group, in various shapes and sizes, makes the content and regular updates you get delivered to you.

This is NOT the entire team, and there are 7 more key members doing things behind the scenes that without them would leave the bot unplayable. Those jobs are: web designer, backend engineer, gateway engineer, infosec, bot administrator, and server manager. We'll write more about them in the near future, some of their jobs are interesting and unknown enough to have entire articles written.

Each and every part of this bot is ran in a way that balancing quality output with minimizing burnout and unhealthy crunch/sprints. We are one of very few organizations that doesn't adhere to strict deadlines for most deliverables, and relies on trust and respect about delivery dates. We also do not force any certain amount of weekly hours, and everyone works on their own schedule. It doesn't ALWAYS work out, but it's often win-win in the end because we make cool shit with a decently fast pace, and we really enjoy it.

Hopefully this has opened up your eyes if you thought our team was smaller, or larger, than it really is. We aren't currently hiring, but the next time we are I'll be sure to mention it in a Pixel Progression.

Something I'd like to do each time we post one of these, is take a moment to call out cool things happening in the community.

The idea of ​​a free decision

Rolled a 20 + freemium 2x = Overpowered

Next week we'll try to have some sneak peeks for season 3 of fishing and some news on a game jam with real money prizes.

Drink your water... or else.