Projects By the Logic Squid Team
The Sheepening
Type: Game
Platform: Android
Release: 2013
The Sheepening was Logic Squid’s first attempt at mobile game development on the Android platform. The game was released initially as a paid app to try to recoup some development costs but eventually ended up as a free download. It featured leaderboards through Google Play to allow players to compete with friends for high scores. It was delisted from the Play store in 2018 due to incompatibility with changes to Google Play integration.
Developing The Sheepning taught us a lot about the Play store, the Android environment and Google in general (for better or worse). The soundtrack was also released to most popular digital retailers at the time.
The team had a lot of fun going through the stages of game development and mobile app deployment for the first time as well as getting an introduction to marketing and porting to lesser known platforms at the time like the now defunct GameStick. It was certainly hard work but the team loved every minute of it. Some of our fondest memories stem from the sweat that went into this simple game.
The soundtrack can still be heard on Spotify. If you are at all into chip sounds or retro game music, these tracks will be music to your ears.
The Shootening
Type: Game
Platform: Android
Release: n/a
The Shootening is an unreleased Logic Squid game that was the next project in line after The Sheepening was released. The idea was to make a side scrolling shooter with cinematic elements like time dilation, leaning on heavy action sequences (sort of like a shoot em up meets sidescrolling action game). The player would be a mercenary tracking down bounties in a future western meets action movie kind of scenario.
All characters were armless akin to a stack of blocks to keep the game feeling less realistic and thus not quite so brutal given its content. The game showed a lot of promise but never made it past the early development phase. The really magical part was that it ran at a solid 30fps on some of the very earliest (slowest) Android devices. It was a masterpiece of draw call management. As the mobile gaming scene evolved and profits from The Sheepening were sparse, the project was put on indefinite hiatus.
There were some music tracks created for the game as well. One for the title screen and one that would act as music for boss encounters. You can hear the Boss Track below. Additionally, both tracks can be heard on the Logic Squid Soundcloud page.
Stoney Tales
Type: Game
Platform: Android
Release: n/a
The purpose of this project was to find ways to create more interesting looks for simple geometry that could be rendered into sprites for a side-scroller game. We ended up with a tool that could transform very simple, low poly geometry into a look that was almost like ethereal clay. It had a soft feeling and caught lighting well, but had ghostly edges.
The theme for the test was that of a well travelled stone rolling along on a fantastical adventure through a magical land which, while happy during the day, quickly turns incredibly evil at night.
The tool to process geometry into the ghostly clay look ended up being lovingly referred to as The Stonerizer. Though the game development didn’t progress too far, the Stonerizer was a great tool to bring life and style to simple geometry.
As for the audio side of the project, there was a level track produced for the tests to help set the mood when ushering the character through the mysterious lands. It can be heard below or on the Logic Squid Soundcloud page.
WarBattle 2
Type: Game
Platform: Android
Release: n/a
WarBattle 2 was a game idea that aimed to mix elements of RTS, RPG, Tower Defence and Tetris/Block Match style games.
The player would take the role of a god/overseer and use blocks to turn the tides of battle as multiple factions fought for victory. The player would use resources earned in battle to upgrade their godly abilities, recruit imp minions that would collect resources on the battlefield and lay traps or upgrade infrastructure and play out the future of the kingdom of tiny soldiers. The team thought it would be funny to build the game as a sequel to a first game that never existed with a tongue-in-cheek subtitle.
Though the game wouldn’t progress far beyond some early tests, there was something satisfying about matching up those colours and obliterating the growing hordes making it one of the more fun projects in the LS stable.
Procedural Animation and Level Design Research
Type: Research & Development
Platform: Android/PC
Release: n/a
The purpose of this research was to test procedural animation in a player controlled character entity navigating a procedurally generated world by the player. The player would have to lead the character by moving a target on the ground which the character would then move directly toward.
The test took on the theme of a drunk person trying to stumble their way home after last call. The idea was that the world would get progressively more dangerous and bizarre with the player controlled character feeling like they were losing their minds a bit in the progression. The player would trying to lead the character around obstacles and throttle their speed to prevent stumbling and injury. The test was fairly successful but the day jobs of the team delayed any further development.
Vector to Pixel Research
Type: Research & Development
Platform: Android/PC
Release: n/a
The purpose of this engine test was to be able to harness the benefits of using vector/geometry art but still maintain the gritty feeling of sprites. It was quite successful in many ways and opened up a lot of possibilities to get a nice look and feel, but with the power of a lighting engine and animation splines rather than building sprite sheets and using raster images. The result is a very retro look but without having to worry about sprites at all.
The team had been having a lot of fun with some great beat ’em-up games and rediscovered how satisfying it is to just mash buttons on an arcade stick. Streets of Rage 4 (Dotemu) and River City Girls (WayForward) were some of the stand out favourites as well as the Battletoads reboot (Dlala). This has inspired the team to start experimenting with the mechanics involved in beat ’em-up combo systems as a theme for the 3D graphics system that would look and feel more like an old school raster art 2D side scrolling brawler while keeping the animation, rigs and geometry fully vector 3D.
