Black Pants Studio

DevLog 23 - The mad King

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Most kings are mad, or if they aren’t, they tend to become so. That was the case in Rome, in Germany, and pretty much everywhere else in the world. Strange, too, that often no one can quite say how it came to be that the king is the king. The population mostly doesn’t care, as long as the king doesn’t annoy them too much. And it is exactly this kind of king that exists in Paul’s world. He is simply the king, doesn’t care about anything, which has led to the infrastructure becoming rather dilapidated, making Paul’s journey massively more difficult. The king is primarily concerned with himself and with having monumental statues of himself erected. Besides his vanity and a certain paranoia that someone else might challenge him for the crown, there is one further subject he pursues with great passion: time. For time passes and with it, so will he. This is why, the older he has grown, the more intensely he has occupied himself with the phenomenon of time. And so, at many corners and ends of Paul’s world, one finds statues and reliefs depicting clocks.

DevLog 22 - Flowers are back

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’m back in Franconia again, enjoying the beginning of spring here. Since Franconia probably has some of the best beers in the world, I happen to have exactly one of those sitting next to me right now.
Progress on Paul was a bit slower over the past week because I’m currently helping someone with their project as well. It’s been a lot of fun working with another artist again. It’s great for clearing the mind and bringing in some fresh inspiration. So I spent most of this week creating 3D worlds for that other projekt, and then in the evenings I usually dropped by Paul for a few hours, fixing a couple of bugs and continuing to design the set pieces.
So there isn’t really much exciting to show from Paul this time, apart from maybe a few lines of code or some half-finished backgrounds. That’s why this time I’m sharing a photo of my finished, favorite beer instead.
Cheers, and enjoy the spring,
Tobi

DevLog 21 - Making the Invisible visible

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A little update on what’s going on during the production of the turn-based combat exploration game Paul.
Current status: I’ve blocked out around 50 stages and populated them with enemies and placeholders. The pacing still isn’t quite right, some parts feel repetitive, others feel too dense. At this point, what’s missing are the story elements: those moments that let the player breathe and allow the narrative to reveal what’s really going on in this world beneath the earth. What the game needs right now is a sense of purpose for exploring this abyss! I’ve decided to start by sketching out the special places and encounters the player can discover throughout Paul’s journey. This includes a meeting with Madame Curie, climbing a petrified giant, or encountering the gingerbread witch. So now, in the evenings, I sit there with pencil, ink, and paper, making rough scribbles that slowly bring the (story) world to life and make it tangible. At the same time, I’m spending my time with testing, doubting, creating gameplay assets, throwing them away and rearranging of level parts. It’s a bit of a tough phase right now. But as I mentioned in my very first post, this isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon (and actually, I like that).
Best regards,
Tobi

DevLog 20 - Try Out the Quantum Helmet

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Besides the fact that it’s Easter, there’s also something small to celebrate here: this is the 20th devlog, so a little milestone. I think that’s a great occasion to release another part of Paul’s World.(we are on version 0.0.3 right now) A few new enemies have been added, along with two completely new levels and a small shop where Paul can spend the coins he’s been collecting so diligently. On top of that, the “Quantum Helmet” is now in action! I’m really excited to hear what you think about the new sections. Have a wonderful Easter and enjoy playing Paul, Tobi

DevLog 19 -Toenail

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A fresh beer sits next to me while I’m writing about the progress of our turn-based, dungeon-crawling combat game Paul. The world of Paul keeps steadily growing. I am trying to not getting myself lost in all sorts of details. The world is being built everywhere at once, gradually becoming sharper and taking on clearer shape. A few particle effects here, a bit of sound there, and improvements to individual snippets of code. Attention to detail is a great way to lose track of the bigger picture. It’s easy to spend half a day refining a visual effect without being 100% sure it’ll even make it into the final version. It’s like drawing a picture, or rather, a character. You don’t want to spend a whole week perfecting a toenail, shading and modeling it in detail, only to realize two weeks later that the character should be wearing shoes. And so, last week was once again a wild ride through different disciplines. A couple of new rough enemy animations were created, more sound effects were added, and two new levels are almost ready. So lots of small things, and no single, shiny, monolithic “toenail.”

DevLog 18 - Machine inside the Submarine

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

It’s still early in the morning, and I’ve just gathered a few images to document what happened last week. I’m still working on the turn-based combat adventure(?) game Paul. After focusing quite intensively the week before on the interior of the submarine world, I shifted my attention back to animation Step by step, I’m refining the animation pipeline and adapting it to Paul, and by now it’s starting to run pretty smoothly. A quick side note: a big THANK YOU to the developers of OpenToonz. It’s currently my first choice when it comes to more complex 2D animation - free, open source, and it offers everything a 2D animator needs. One of the characters I worked on this week was “Z1.” Here it is inside my “animation factory”: And here it is in the game:

DevLog 17 - Greetings from the Depths

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

It’s half past six in the morning, there’s a cup of coffee to my right, and once again I’m taking a moment to write down what happened last week in Paul’s world.

First off, I implemented quite a bit of feedback that came out of the first playtest (the current version 0.0.2 is available to play and comment on over on Itch.io). As part of that, I also gave Paul’s capsule image a bit of a refresh (hope you like it!). Then it was straight back to the drawing tablet and into the depths of the Nautilus.

DevLog 16 - Pub Sketches

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Today I am having coffee instead of beer while writing this devlog. I’m currently sitting on a train, and somehow beer and trains just don’t feel like the right combination to me. It’s already been a week since I released the first small gameplay test. Fortunately, there has been quite a bit of good feedback (thanks for that!), and I’m currently sorting through everything to figure out how I want to implement it. The plan for now is to clean up the first small section from the biggest issues before releasing another section.

DevLog 15 - Playable Paul

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

After fixing a few bugs, I think it’s time to show you a first playable snippet of Paul !

I’m currently looking for feedback, especially on how the game feels and whether the controls are heading in the right direction.

=> https://blackpants.itch.io/paul <=

At the moment, you can play Paul using keyboard, mouse, or gamepad. I also wanted to create a version for touchscreen devices, but right now I don’t have a clear idea of how the controls should look on a touch device (any input is very welcome!).

DevLog 14 - Back in Berlin

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I just went to the supermarket and grabbed myself a nice cold DevLog beer. The Beer is now sitting right to the left of my keyboard while I am writing about the progress which was made in the last few days:

I’ve been working for quite a while now on finally presenting the first playable slice of Paul to gather some feedback. But as it always goes when you’re close to finishing something, you start noticing everything that still needs attention. Mostly little things but also solid bugs which can be a gamebreaker. The codebase for Paul is already a few years old, and it’s interesting to see some of the coding ideas I had back then.

DevLog 13 - From Screen to Silk Screen

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A beer is waiting for me as I reflect on the past week spent working on our turn-based game, “Paul.” Calling it a “turn-based combat game” turned out to actually paint the wrong picture.

The Steam Deck Test Session

Last week, I took my Steam Deck over to some friends’ place for a “Paul” test session. The feedback was that “Paul” isn’t exactly what people expect when they hear “turn-based.” One of the main points to mention are:

DevLog 12 - Souvenirs from a bike tour

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Just grabbed a cold beer from the fridge and started thinking about what actually happened over the past week: I started quite a few things, but haven’t really finished anything presentable yet. I spent two days painting new assets for the game worlds, after that there were lots of code fixes, a bit of refactoring here and some cleanup there.

Along the way I stumbled over the settings. Now there are basic options like fullscreen, resolution, v-sync, and you can also tweak the difficulty. Since the settings screen isn’t visually exciting yet, there’s no screenshot of it here. Instead, here’s an image of some half-timbered house ornaments from Hesse (Germany). On my last bike tour through Hesse I fell in love with the many different wooden ornaments you can find on all those medieval houses. Some of them, slightly modified, have now made their way into the second UI design iteration. As you can see below in the item selection menu. We’ll see if it stays that way, and whether those kind of ornaments will also make it into the settings menu. But anyway, I’m really into these ornaments. They’re somehow rough, but they also give me a warm feeling. In fact someone created them a few hundred years ago simply to create something beautiful.

DevLog 11 - Marbles and Grey Cells

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Here are the latest development updates from our turn-based casual combat game Paul. This is already the 11th dev log and I didn’t expect that I’d actually enjoy this weekly routine: taking a moment, opening a beer, looking back at everything that happened during the week, and writing it all down.

So, last week was pretty exciting. The Steam page is live, and the first wishlists have already started coming in (which is super motivating). After all the Steam page tinkering and video editing, I had to think about what the next step should be. As we all know, it’s very easy to get lost in details during game development. Sadly this applies to all disciplines, from code to game design to art. Planning and keeping an overview is half the battle. So I played through the current version of Paul from start to finish and took notes. It turned out that the top item on my list was to focus more on the upgrade system. In Paul, there are marbles scattered throughout the worlds. These marbles store special abilities that can be projected into Paul’s brain using a marble machine. This can give Paul more health, increase the range of his teleporter, and so on. Of course, Paul’s brain capacity is limited, which also limits the number of active marble upgrades. Basically you find Abilities and activate them with the Marble machine. So I set up a rough gameplay scene to see if the next playtester who wanders into my apartment actually understands what these marbles are all about and how the upgrade system works. Oh, and since Paul is a mix of turn-based combat and exploration, there are of course secret doors, like this one hidden behind the fridge. I also did a bit of animation work, but that would be too much for this dev log. Feel free to check out the results on our Bluesky- channel (I think the Quantum Helmet turned out pretty well). So, my beer is almost finished, and so is this dev log. Have a great week, and if you feel like it, wishlist Paul on Steam.

DevLog 10 - Lean back & watch

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Today I’ve got another update on the turn-based combat game Paul, which is currently in production. Last week I spent some more time focusing on animation and level design. I don’t want to write too much at this point and would rather show a bit more instead. Here’s a first gameplay teaser that was created during development :

DevLog 9 - The Plan

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Plan…

changed. Last week, my initial plan was to grab my pencil and make more assets for the first two worlds of my turn-based game called Paul, and to work on some enemy animations while listening to some podcasts. However, things didn’t go as planned.

While looking at the material that already existed, I thought it would be a good idea to capture a short gameplay video to get an overview of what’s already there. I’d been thinking about creating a Steam page for a while, and while recording the gameplay, I realized I could use the video for it.

DevLog 8 - Schrödinger's Bullet

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Here is a summary of what happened over the past week. As mentioned in the last post, I made some first sketches for new foes like Pandora and Black Riding Hood two weeks ago. two weeks ago

While the evening news was running on TV, I created the clean line art for the characters(see pic below) and added a first idle animation for Pandora (see gif on top). During the drawing process, I couldn’t get the last playtest out of my head. I kept thinking about one particular thing that had come up in almost every playtest before. And that’s when something fascinating emerged.

DevLog 7 -Snake Goodbye

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A new year has started and let’s imagine it will be a good one. As per the Chinese calendar, 2025 was the Year of the Snake (maybe not so great) and now we are entering into the Year of the Horse (possibly much better). If I had to make choice between a horse and a snake myself, I would select the horse with quite high confidence. Although I generally prefer cats… regrettably, there are no cat zodiac signs. In Paul’s world, things are a little different though: of course, there is a cat zodiac sign 🙂

DevLog 6 - The Decision Is Made

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Between unwrapping presents, spending a good time with family, and decorating the Christmas tree, work on Paul also continued … and I made a decision.

The week was mostly spent on bug fixes, along with some improvements to visual feedback. Shortly after Christmas, a friend came over, we grabbed a beer, and did a spontaneous little playtest. As expected, a few issues popped up, but so did some really cool ideas.

DevLog 5 - Growing Up

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone,

With all the busy Christmas activities, some additional progress has also been achieved on Paul. As this is a production diary, I decided to share several pictures that illustrate how Paul’s style has changed and developed over time - basically a brief look back at the past two years.

At first, the plan was to make a sort of dungeon crawler game that operates on turns. The graphics style and character details were not decided at all during that time; there existed only an quickly coded prototype with some placeholder assets. This rough, scribbly sketch then became the birth of Paul as a character. Here’s an early sketch of a level section… And here it is one development stage further: At that stage, things seemed still somewhat dull and too plain to me. Therefore, I included a bit of woodcut-style visuals in Paul’s world. This is how it appears now: Developing the style gives me lots of joy and I am pretty happy with how it looks now. I hope that you also appreciate the way Paul is moving forward.

DevLog 4 - Guy Fawkes Tick Tack

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone!

The last week felt like a big multitasking race! I have been parallel working on different zones: some Level Design here, little adjustments to Enemy Behaviour there and naturally, plenty of Polish for Paul’s constantly growing toolkit.

Paul’s Diverse Arsenal Various kinds of foes are blocking Paul’s path. Luckily, he continues to discover a wide range of helpful objects that he can use to resolve the problem. It is very enjoyable to create and apply these items, as they provide completely new strategic options for Paul.

DevLog 3 - The Thing About Time

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone!

The day I began developing PAUL lies quite a while behind me now, so I’d like to write a bit about what sparked the project in the first place - what the core idea and initial motivation were back then.

In essence, it all has to do with time. Or rather, with the way time keeps moving forward and the pressure that comes with it. There’s always something that needs to be done, sent off, answered (preferably immediately, and ideally all at once). This constant demand means that some things simply get neglected or are done only half-heartedly. But time doesn’t care. It marches on, and with every step it brings new tasks, new obligations, new challenges. In that sense, time often feels like a conveyor belt and we are the conveyor-belt workers. That’s why one of the early sketches of PAUL showed him working on an actual conveyor belt at the beginning of the game (back when PAUL still looked like a fish). How nice would it be if we could decide for ourselves when the second hand takes its next step. And that is exactly the idea behind PAUL: in this world, everything waits for the player’s next move. Reflex-based gameplay is replaced by planning and thoughtful action. PAUL can maneuver through a dense web of projectiles while the floor collapses beneath him and a fire spreads- step by step, carefully planned, slowed down. Instead of real-time stress, there is a world that waits for the player. Situations that would be nearly impossible to handle in real time suddenly become manageable in a turn-based context. It’s an action game without the stress, with a rhythm that adapts to the player.

DevLog 2 - Fire and Leveldesign

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Last week I mainly focused on level design. Besides that, I continued working on the fire boss that appears in the game and gave him a first animation. In the video you can see a bit of gameplay. It’s not completely final yet, but it already gives a pretty good impression. I’m really looking forward to creating and implementing the final effects and sounds!

DevLog 1 - Production Diary started

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Hi, I’m Tobi and I’ve been working on a new game for two years now. I want to use this platform to take you along on the journey, to show what has happened so far and what will happen in the future. For me, this devlog is also a kind of diary: it records how things develop and will give me the chance, when everything is finished, to reflect on the process and maybe learn a little about myself as a game designer. I know game development isn’t a sprint but a marathon, and I want to document this marathon for myself, other developers, and of course interested players.

Game Prototype Is Ready – Now the Real Adventure Begins

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We’re excited (and a little proud) to announce: our **game prototype is complete!

Over the past few months, we’ve been working intensively on the development of our vision – fueled by creativity, dedication, and with the generous support of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) here in Germany. Their funding enabled us to bring our initial concept to life and create a playable prototype that already offers a glimpse into the world we’re building.

Old Games, New Games, Tons Of Games

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hi there, here is Tobi from the Pants. You certainly heard about Gamescom which takes place in Cologne each year, but I must confess I have never been there before. I'm not really into those big mega events normally. This year we were invited to talk about our game "On Rusty Trails" at GDC Europe, which took place a few days before the actual Gamescom. We also had some other events at Gamescom where we presented our mobile title "Blown Away". So, Stamm and I built up a little pants-delegation and joined the event. I arrived first at GDC, which is more for developers, publishers etc. not so much about party, more talking about contracts, technologies and business. I met Lea, an old friend of mine, who was part of the organisation team for the Indietalk together with Jonatan Van Hove. They both did a really good job making the Indietalk a cool event. Thanks for that!

Development Update #54 - We are live!

Mon, 13 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone! It’s time for the weekly development updated and we’re getting emotional this time! Granted: this won’t be much of an informative blog post.

Quick news:

Yesterday was a release party in Kassel, organized by the fine people of IDEAL and held in the beautiful catacombs beneath the café NEU. They spared neither expense nor effort and printed some awesome propaganda posters and Elvis (see above) and invited the citizens of Kassel to play On Rusty Trails one day before today’s release. I was there, talked to interested gamers and watchers and had a beer. Cheers!

Development Update #53 - If Black Pants Made A Platformer, This Would Be It

Sun, 05 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone, it’s time for the development update.

This will only be a short one, and probably one of the last ones for a little while. It has become pretty hard to have a development blog, when not much is really being developed anymore. The On Rusty Trails release is in about a week, and we are only polishing a few smaller things here and there. Content freeze was a while ago. This is the point, where no additional content is being added and only the things that are in the game are given last touches. So here is a small press roundup and some game art for your viewing pleasure.

Development Update #52 - Release Date Hype

Sun, 22 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone! It’s time for the weekly development update.

We are rapidly approaching our release date, which we have set to June 13th. Our Release Candidate (a stage of build that has the qualities of a finished game) is finished and we only have to implement minor changes until the release. This past week we sent out hundreds of press releases to gaming media like YouTubers and gaming news sites and are closing in on 500 of those. A press release is a mail with a few catchy lines about your game, paired with essential information, good-looking screenshots of the game, a link to the video trailer and a review code.

Development Update #51 - Secrets And Lightmaps

Sun, 15 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone! It’s time for the weekly development update, although I must admit that we haven’t been very weekly lately. Nevertheless, let’s begin with the Black Pants office; or better: with its representation in On Rusty Trails. As the production is in its final moments, we started adding rooms that are spread throughout the game and can be found by secret-loving players. Some of the rooms are easier to find, some harder. One of the rooms is the Black Pants office with some trademark furniture and decorations in it. In our featured image, Elvis has just discovered the secret office room and can find the signature “Markus” IKEA chair - a chair, 50% of the Pants hold in high regard. Essential items like the coffee machine and the esteemed sofa are also in there.

Development Update #50 - New Logo Animation

Mon, 02 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone! It’s time for the weekly development update.

Both Stamm and Tobi were away this week, and for personal reasons I am not able to write silly stuff on the internet today, so I will just show you this photo, Stamm has sent from the road and Tobi’s new animation for our logos in On Rusty Trails. The photo is of a underwear graffiti, which we are obliged to share on our blog, for obvious reasons.

Murmel's Blog - GamesWeekBerlin Edition

Mon, 25 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hey peeps,

long time no see! Games Week is over and I’m on the train back to Kassel. As always, Berlin was awesome. I met a ton of great new people, caught up with old friends and was awarded the grand sunburn prize for my achievements in not giving a damn about the sun. Good times. The picture above shows all the great people from our row at the Quo Vadis Indie Showcase. But let’s start one week ago. I guess this is going to be a long one.

Development Update #49 - You And Justin Bieber

Sun, 03 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone! It’s time for the weekly development update and we are starting with a screenshot from our new beta version. That’s right. A few hours ago I sent out the beta keys to our testers and they are already trying to destroy the game - for science ;) As for the screenshot, I am not 100% sure, if we had that billboard on the blog before, but definitely not from inside the game. We also have our protesters and stone throwers and Elvis in the middle, standing at the savepoint.

Development Update #48.5 - Fan Art Special

Sun, 27 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone, it’s time for the weekly development blog. But since it’s the Easter holidays, we are on a short hiatus and I will show you some cool fan art we have received over the time.

Credit: Steam User Tigg3R ₪

Credit: Steam User Red__Hara

Credit: Kopfstoff David Müller

Credit: mrptiko

Credit: Igor Wolksi

Credit: apps.im User ID Unreadable

Credit: iapps.im User ID 41331

Development Update #48 - Has Stamm Gone Too Far?

Sun, 20 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone! It’s time for the weekly development update and we’re starting with a little surprise I received this week. A friend of mine works at a social project, called Streetbolzer, which brings kids from all over the city together through football - screw America, you play football with your feet! He works with many children and told one of them about our game Blown Away. The little guy played the game and liked it so much that he made a Hendrik badge for me. I feel very honored! Things like this make me love my work even more. I’ll put together a little surprise to give something back!

Development Update #47 - Coming Soon (page)

Sun, 13 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone, it’s time for the weekly development update. Our featured image this week is from the collection of Steam Trading Cards for On Rusty Trails. After our first testing phase, we are working hard on squashing all the bugs and finishing a new beta version for a bigger test, with more people, in a few weeks. Meanwhile things have to move along outside the game, so we have started a “Coming Soon Taskforce”, consisting of Jones, Stamm and myself, to prepare our coming soon page on Steam.

Development Update #46 - Six Seasons And A Movie

Sun, 06 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone! It’s time for the weekly development update and we have some juicy billboards to show. Our featured image is the bomb - literally. The conniving Spike engineers have constructed an ingenious and deadly new weapon. Look at that smug grin on that Spike’s face. The bomb is a type of platform in On Rusty Trails, that has a time-delayed explosion, if you come in contact with it while sporting the wrong color (blue, wearing the Shifty Suit™, in this case). You will often encounter it in tricky situations and sometimes you will even have to detonate it on purpose to reach whatever lies beyond that platform.

Development Update #45 - Thunderbolts And Lighting

Sun, 28 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone! it's time for the weekly development update, and we're of with a really really boring screenshot. Yeah, you heard me! One might think: this picture looks perfectly fine. It has a stage from On Rusty Trails, Elvis is in it, the awesome lamps are there, the new slime texture has been applied. What a lovely shot. Wrong! This screenshot is a shadow of what it can be, although shadow is a good starter. Because to have shadow, we need light. And Mr. Tobi, the Bilginator, has added that - and so much more.

Development Update #44 - Slime!

Mon, 22 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone! We’re late for the weekly development update - may the gods smite me down! Actually, a series of miscommunication has lead to anarchy in the blog world of the Pants, but I am here to get everything back in order.

And I am not the only one, bringing things back in order. The Spike People of On Rusty Trails are taking their war with the Hairy People to the next level and have produced one of the scariest war machines out there. Avid followers of my ramblings might think of a blog from way back in the age of stone, where I showed you some boss ideas for the game. (Silly blog, great read, if I do say so myself).

Development Update #43 - What's In the Box?!

Sun, 14 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone! It’s time for the weekly development update with news from the blues! Our featured image is the first mockup graphic from the game menu, and as you can see, the current working title is “Bluesman’s Life”. Our hero, Mack, has to learn the way of the blues and we will accompany him from a young age until he is old. How much of this way will be in the prototype phase, is not 100% sure yet. Last week, we met Balloonhead, and this week, we will see two more of his encounters.

Development Update #42 - The Answer To Everything

Sun, 07 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone! It’s time for the weekly development update and we have so much stuff to show! Starting us off, the blues is back in town and has brought a new character, who is a guy with a balloon for a head. He’s called Balloonhead.

He’s from the tutorial scene of Mississippi Blues and has a sweet ride, which Mack has an eye on (I’m back, baby!). To call the car his own, Mack has to duel Balloonhead, which introduces the player to the gameplay mechanic. And here is how that looks:

Development Update #41 - Always Keep The Warranty

Sun, 31 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone! It’s time for the weekly development update.

Man, I have started this blog three times now and deleted everything in it, a short while after. My brain is so slow today. I can’t - for the life of me - come up with anything funny or stupid (which I will then sell you as being funny, because that’s what I usually do).

Do you know what else deletes everything in it? A freaking thunderstorm in Spike territory! Last week we saw Elvis, standing on the ruins of his little house, desperately looking for a solution to his problem. Luckily, this week, he is starting to remember.

Development Update #40 - We Are Very Font Of This One

Sun, 24 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone! It’s time for the weekly development update, and Elvis is here to start us off.

Our featured image is taken from the new opening cutscene of On Rusty Trails, where our main man errr robot is baffled, staring at the ruins of his once beautiful home. Stamm has been working on the cutscene, adding more description boxes, which had already used for Forkride Grilltime Sloth and liked them so much that they made it into ORT.

Development Update #39 - We're back!

Sun, 17 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone! It’s once again time for the development update - the first of 2016. Just a quick one, to get things rolling again, since we haven’t had a content meeting so far.

We started the year off with a two day meeting in Kassel, to talk about how the last year of projects went, to set milestones for current projects and so that everyone could hang out in a relaxed atmosphere. I didn’t take too many photos, but on top we have the whole team together - except the photographer: Rico, Stamm, Christian, Tobi, Jones.

Development Update #38 - It's done

Sun, 20 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone! It’s time for the weekly development blog. And it’s going to be the last one of the year*.

Blown Away is out now for iOS and Android, and we are packing up our stuff for the year. Tobi and Jones are already off to see their families for Christmas, Stamm and I are leaving in the next days. Christian and Rico are also getting ready.

Blown Away Burning Playground

Development Update #37 - Storytelling In The Background

Sun, 13 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone! It’s time for the weekly development update, and we are back with On Rusty Trails. Blown Away is in the review process with Apple, and if everything goes well, we can release some time next week. Tobi has transitioned to ORT, since his job on BA is done and so has Stamm, because Christian is so busy with the BA release that the blues will have to wait a little. Our featured image brings us back to the awesome billboards we had introduced a while ago.

Development Update #36 - In The Midnight Hour She Cried "Store, Store, Store"

Sun, 06 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone! It’s time for the weekly development blog, and we will keep it light and short.

Our featured image is the header for our new merchandise store. Yay! And if it ain’t the perfect time to be looking for presents these days… ;)

Pants

Black Pants Logo

Leschek

Tiny & Big Box Art

Tiny & Big Outline

So far, we have these five motifs, but there will be more, soon. After all, we will have the Blown Away release this month! We should also get more different products in there, in the future. This point would be an awesome opportunity to ask you guys about your wishes for the store. Do you have any favorite characters who should get their own shirt? Any other suggestions? Let us know, and we will see what we can do.

Development Update #35 - What Does A Car Sound Like, Stamm?

Sun, 29 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone! It’s time for the weekly development update.

Tobi is still finishing up Blown Away, working on performance issues and beta testing, so we have no new artwork from him. Hence, we’ll have to make due with good ol’ Stamm and his ventures into the land of the blues.

Our featured image shows Mack in his fancy new car, which is one idea as to how he will travel through the game. Remember, Mississippi Blues is in a prototyping stage (as always, this might not be in the actual game in this way) right now, so this is a pretty clever move. Why, you ask? Easy peasy. If your character moves by driving a car, you can throw out all the walking animation kerfuffle and let Mack ride from stage to stage. That sounds logical, you say? Why, right you are! See:

Development Update #34 - Smoking In Kindergarten

Sun, 22 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone! It’s time for the weekly development update.

Our featured image is from a new iteration of Stamm’s prototype from last week’s blog. You can see his first take on some characters for the new blues game. On the left we have Mack, who will be the protagonist of the game, at around kindergarten age. Please take into consideration that these are all first ideas and are not guaranteed to end up in the game like this. His adversary is a weird, unnamed dude with the wonkiest hat I’ve ever seen. He seems to be the king of kindergarten, because he has some kind of throne. He also smokes, which I would not recommend, at that or any other age, but who the hell am I to tell the king what to do… maybe it’s a bubble gum pipe?

Development Update #33 - Prototyping And Tutorials

Sun, 15 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone! It’s time for the weekly development update! And we are starting with Tobi, who is in the final weeks of the Blown Away production. Our featured image shows one of a series of screenshots he send me, from the new tutorial. He felt that just dropping the player into the game without some kind of explanation could become too confusing, so he added a little tutorial. The player will learn to use the teleport mechanic by tapping on the screen. Simple mechanic - simple tutorial.

Development Update #32 - Breaking The Game And Doing Yoga

Sun, 08 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone! It’s time for the weekly development update. This week is a little scarce with new artwork, I’m afraid. The featured image is one of the stages from Forkride Grilltime Sloth, which you may have seen a few weeks back on the blog, but I can’t be asked to destroy all my printers just so you get a new picture every week, sorry. The reason for the bottleneck with new art is that everyone has been busy with non art related things. In exchange, some weird stuff happened, which I will tell you about.

Development Update #31 - Blown Away Gameplay Teaser

Sun, 01 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone! It’s time for the weekly development update.

And it will be the official gameplay reveal for Blown Away. Note: The videos are only teasers, so they are not in HD.

But first, since we aren’t a game studio and we don’t have amazing artists, who do marvelous artwork, and a blog needs a featured picture, because sharing it on social media without a picture in it looks shitty, we will have to settle with a picture of my printer losing a hard-fought battle against the freight elevator. I still miss you, buddy :(

Development Update #30 - IGF Submission And Bonus

Sun, 25 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone!

It’s time for the weekly development update. It’s the week before the IGF deadline, so we submitted Blown Away and Forkride Grilltime Sloth. Tobi and Stamm had to take screenshots for the competition.

The Lost Document Stage

What you want to do for festival submissions, is find representative screenshots to give the jury a good and quick overview of your game. Here, we have the ghost in a bottle. A friendly encounter in the game. He can make things appear out of thin air.

Development Update #29 - In The Ascendant Of The Sloth

Sun, 18 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone!

It’s time for the weekly development update and we have a (s)lot(h) to cover! Our featured image is the magnificent title of Stamm’s magnificent secret project. A fun game for the whole family - if your whole family likes sloths, collecting weird characters and isn’t allergic to forks.

Car Dude

Hot Dog Man And Rico

Throughout FGS (no way I’m spelling this out every time), you will have the pleasure of meeting new friends with unique (and bonkers) background stories like the ones you can see here. These ones right here are a car dude who’s name hasn’t been revealed yet plus Hot Dog Man and Rico. Stamm thought, it was a good idea, to (loosely) base some of the characters on Black Pants members.

Development Update #28

Sun, 11 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone!

It’s time for the weekly development update. Number 28 already! Time is flying. So, what do we have to show this week? Our featured image is some concept art for Christian’s new project “Mississippi Blues”, courtesy of Mr. Stamm. Christian has started tinkering around on first game mechanic tests and prototype work in general, and Stamm was hooked ~~on a feeling~~ on the idea of producing some drawings. Where he finds the time, I can only wonder… It is, of course, an early concept so nothing final about this. Well, there will be a stage and guitars and a bar, that’s certain ;)

Development Update #27

Sun, 04 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone!

It’s time for the weekly development update. And I am glad to tell you that I was able to lock up some new content from both Stamm and Tobi!

Our featured image shows Hendrik mid-air, with rain and thunder surrounding him. The shot is part of the latest addition to Blown Away: the hardcore mode. We feel that the game is perfect for an extra challenge mode, where players with fast reaction times and a quick mind can show their skills.

Development Update #26

Sun, 27 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone!

It’s time for the weekly development update. Although, to be fair, there is not much development in this update, but the blog must go on! So we’ll make it quick.

The week started off with the Berlin boys coming to Kassel for a notary appointment. It was just a short stay for half the day and I forgot to take pictures, but Stamm provided me with a shot from our lunch. Me, Christian and Jones. Not in the picture: Lennert, Tobi, Stamm. Rico had stayed in Berlin, since he didn’t have to attend the appointment.

Murmel's Blog - #tourdemurmel Edition

Sun, 20 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Heyo friends!

It’s been a while, since I last wrote a personal blog. Mostly, because we already have the weekly development blog and also, because I didn’t go to any cool events since the last one. But that’s coming to an end right now, and I will tell you about my exciting last week.

The week before the last, my plan was to go to Milan, and represent German video games at the German pavilion, together with my main man, Stamm. Little did I know that Pocket Gamer would send us a last minute invitation to their Pocket Gamer Connects: Helsinki. Blown Away was chosen for the Very Big Indie Pitch, and after a little rearranging of flight schedules, I ended up doing a week-long trip through Europe.

Development Update #25

Fri, 04 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone!

It is time for the weekly development update. It has been a turbulent 24 hours here at Black Pants. Like I told you last week, Stamm and I will be flying out to Milan next week to show our games at the Expo and let the visitors play them.

Now, to our surprise, we have received a last minute invitation to the Pocket Gamer Connects: Helsinki, which is also next week. We had submitted Blown Away to the “Very Big Indie Pitch” and were chosen to present there! Free ticket and awesome press contacts, yay! And guess, who has the honor to go? You are correct: me. I honestly don’t force the guys to let me go to these, they just send me willingly. I won’t say no to that! Berlin, Helsinki, Milan in one week sounds like my kind of gig ;)

Development Update #24

Thu, 27 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone!

It’s time for the weekly development update. Our featured image shows the screen that will pop up after finishing a level in Blown Away. The concept is pretty simple and what you have come to expect from a mobile game with collectibles and level goals. You can pick up parts of Hendrik’s house in the levels. The stars will rate your success, depending on how many stones you were able to collect. So if you want that perfect score, you better not miss any stones!

Announcement Blog - European Video Game Funding

Wed, 19 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Good news, everyone!

Last week we received a surprising email from Brussels. Christian’s game concept for a new title called “Mississippi Blues” has been chosen for funding from the European Union and will receive a € 60.000 grant! Party Pants! We are super honored to be among the chosen projects.

FYI: 182 projects were submitted. Out of these 107 were deemed eligible. Out of the 107 eligible submissions, 31 have been granted funding and Black Pants is one of only 2 German studios to receive funding. This totally amazing and we’re blown away by the news ;)

Development Update #23

Wed, 19 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone!

It’s time for the weekly development update. I have to tell you something, but you have to promise, this stays between us!

I believe, everything is connected! Look at our featured image. You can see a Chinese localization of the Blown Away menu screen. But why? Let’s look at some facts: China is a country. People in China want to play games. Blown Away is a game. Black Pants makes games. Black Pants has 2 offices. Blown away will be game number 3 from Black Pants. 23!

Development Update #22

Wed, 12 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone!

It’s time for the weekly development update. This week with a real estate special. Our featured image shows poor Elvis, after his house was dissolved into a pile of rubble. This takes place right at the start of On Rusty Trails and is the main motivation for Elvis to start his journey.

In fact, On Rusty Trails is one of three house-themed stories and therefore part of the “Bilgeri House Trilogy” (unofficial name). Tobi has been using this motif in his work for different reasons. While living in Kassel, his influence was a shabby apartment with moist and moldy walls. Some neighbor’s pipes had been leaking (the ones from the toilet…), and the walls had to be opened up. I will spare you the details.

Development Update #21

Tue, 04 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Aloha, friends of the sunny pants!

It is time for the weekly development update, as we are riding on the latest heat wave, hitting Germany. High temperatures are, of course, a hot topic (eh eh) in On Rusty Trails. While Elvis and his peeps like it hot and dry, the Hairy ones are not as pleased.

A few weeks back, we had some party signs and Stamm left some more of those, before he went on vacation to Portugal with his old lady.

Development Update #20

Mon, 27 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hello, hello everyone!

Rejoice and be merry, the weekly dev blog is here! Our friend Stamm is on vacation and Tobi is working on Blown Away, so Elvis gets a break this week.

The featured image is Tobi showing off that Blown Away already runs on his two mobile devices. I could add a photo of it running on my device as well, but that would require me to take a picture with my device…

Development Update #19

Mon, 20 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hey and hello, everyone!

It is time for the weekly development update (although we are technically already in the next week). The reason for that is that we are trying to figure out, if the Facebook algorithm will bring us more views on different days/times of the week. So we’re pushing this to Monday.

This update will only feature Tobi and therefore only Blown Away, because that is what he has been working on. Stamm is AWOL and doesn’t have anything good to show this week.

Development Update #18

Sun, 12 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Aloha everyone!

This week’s development update comes to you, straight from the Black Pants HQ in Berlin. We’re meeting here, this weekend, to talk about our projects and how everything is going. While the partners (Christian, Stamm, Tobi, Jones) are having their meeting, I am typing up the blog.

And we are winding things up (I can feel the puns coming back to the blog!) with a sketch from Tobi. He jumped back onto ORT and started by rearranging the 115 levels (You heard me, one-hundred and fifteen - at this point) for a better gameplay feeling and coherent difficulty changes.

Development Update #17

Sun, 05 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Whoop whoop, the weekly development update is here!

As announced last week, we had to shoot Tobi and get rid of him, so there are no news from him this week. (He is actually visiting his family back home, no worries).

Our featured image is a mystery. Someone has planted several of these question marks all over the world of On Rusty Trails. Maybe the Riddler had some time off, because Arkham Knight had to be taken offline? One can only guess at this point.

Development Update #16

Fri, 26 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Comrades, the weekly update has arrived!

And we start the propaganda machine with our featured picture this week. Stamm has outdone himself with the Spike billboards. The first one shows Olaf, Chief Housing Manufacturer of the Spike People. In his factory homes for all the Spikes are built - including a lifetime guarantee. They were obviously not expecting the storms and rain…

Olaf Billboard In Game

This is the billboard again, standing in the game, all done with lighting and stuff. Olaf is my favorite character, so far. Look at these glasses! He looks like the freaking supreme leader of you know what country.

Development Update #15

Sun, 21 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone, The weekly update is here, to sweeten your weekend and Blown Away starts us off.

The first image shows the “Flame Thrower”, which is one of Hendrik’s enemies. Tobi sends us on a trip from the conception of the character to its finished form. In the image you can see him, spitting a fireball at Hendrik in one of the lost documents levels.

Design Flamethrower

This is the first step, a simple sketch with all the parts attached. Look at those eyes! Pure evil. This dude creeps me the hell out!

Development Update #14

Fri, 12 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Yello everyone, the Black Pants are here, to move into your wardrobe!

We jump right into the weekly update with the reveal of Blown Away’s main character Hendrik. Tobi has finished modelling the little friend, decided on the name and sent over this image of him standing in a level, the wind blowing around him. Cute little fellow, indeed!

And since we are never content with still life, he also included the walking animation.

Development Update #13

Sat, 06 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hello peeps, it is time for our weekly update, once more!

And what an awesome update we have!

First off, Stamm sent over the UVs (as seen and explained in Update #5) for the Spike NPCs, we had spinning around here, two weeks ago. Quick and to the point: Take 3D-model of Spike NPC, wrap around UV texture, make NPC look like a robot. Now our Elvis will recognize his fellow Spike People.

Development Update #12

Sat, 30 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hi friends! It is time for some cool pictures and mediocre jokes, the weekly update is here!

Tobi is excused this week, because he is helping his wife Bao with animating a film, so I was left with Stamm. Doing video calls with Stamm is an experience to cherish. Bonus content later.

Our featured image shows The Suburbs, the first stage of On Rusty Trails, as we embark on a journey through all (known) stages of the game on this week's blog. The reason for this is another undercover project we have been working on, which used up much of our time this week and involved making polished screenshots of every stage. I guess, someone wanted us to show them an overview of the game...who might it be? I have to keep you in suspense for a little longer, sorry.

Development Update #11

Sat, 23 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

It's been a whole week already. Time to update you!

The featured image is a photo of to do lists for Tobi and Stamm. I was told to emphasize, that "golden" tasks are Tobi's. Because he is our golden boy, I guess...
I don't know. Whatever the circumstances, the lists have been cleared pretty well, and work is getting done. I am proud of the guys.

Tobi cannot let Stamm take over the gif domain and has sent me a gif galore, if you will. He has updated the NPCs to better reflect Elvis' look. First they had two-part bodies, consisting of a pyramid head and a torso. During development, Elvis' model and animation was revamped, so the Spike People around him seemed a little off. After the update, they are looking spiffy and more Elvis-like, since they are from the same people. Here goes:

Development Update #10.5

Sat, 16 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hey peeps!

This week, the development blog is on a hiatus, but we want to deliver content, so the filler is a little look back on the development stages of About Love, Hate and the other ones. This will be mostly videos, pictures and some explanatory words, so let’s get going!

You might or might not know that our little rascals were once brought to life for a series of animated short films by Tobi. Back then, he was studying at the School of Arts and Design Kassel and there was only one other one pus Love and Hate really looked different from how they look now. See for yourself:

Development Update #10

Sat, 09 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hi friends, it is time for an update!

Tobi is almost through with On Rusty Trails. Over the last week, he was working on the story and a little more on the cutscenes. His main focus was a new project, that has been kicked off, since he needs stuff to do when he is finished with On Rusty Trails. The project is in a really early stage and updates will follow later, but Tobi has no submissions to the blog this week. So let's move over to Stamm's desk, he steps into the breach for Tobi and saves us from a gif-less post. Phew!

Murmel's Blog - Berlin GamesWeek Edition

Sat, 02 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hi friends!

It's Murmel with my report of last week's Berlin GamesWeek. As the name suggests, it is a whole week with events for games. My personal schedule consisted of: Quo Vadis, A Maze. and a so-called matchmaking dinner. But let's start at the beginning, shall we?

In the beginning there was Jack...eheheh, sorry.

My GamesWeek actually started on Wednesday, since I had to attend some courses at uni at the start of the week. I boarded a train to Berlin on the evening of Tuesday, to get a good night’s sleep at Tobi’s, who was my host for the week. First off, big thanks to Tobi and his wife Bao, who were awesome hosts (including a really scary late-night prank from Bao on Friday - not cool!). Since Christian was in Berlin as well, I had the honor of sharing a room with him for two nights, which always brings up the infamous Niemand-Murmel-Dilemma™ of me snoring and him listening to music on his headphones to get some quiet, which in turn will wake me up. A vicious cycle ensues…looking forward to Gamescom :D

Development Update #9

Sat, 18 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hey folks!

A new update is due, so let's dive right in.

Our featured image shows an in-game sign, announcing to players that they are entering the part of our world called "The Suburbs". We have many of these - and other - signs in the game, since they are a good way of communicating a situation to a player looking at them (just as in real life). Stamm's week revolved around the so-called icon signs, since we had noticed during production that we were not satisfied with many of them. Our first plan was to make big graphical signs, with much information on them. As it turned out, the fast pace of the game and too much information in one place do not make for a good gameplay experience. Icon signs, in contrast to the location signs like "The Suburbs", have no text on them and therefore have to send their message with only pictures.

Murmel's Blog - Berlin Office Marvelous Mega Move

Sun, 05 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hi friends!

Awesome news this week, as I am telling you about our new office in Berlin. No development update this time, but you get more of me in return. Who would not take that deal?!

I went to Berlin to help the guys move their stuff from our old HQ at Kottbusser Damm to the shiny, new, grass-is-greener-there Black Pants base at “Colonia Nova” in Berlin, Neukölln. On Sunday evening, I arrived in B and I instantly knew that this move would not be the fun kind, since rain was pouring and the next days looked to be the same. But brave movers do not falter, so after an awesome home-cooked meal and a good night’s sleep at Stamm’s, we ventured out into the rain on Monday morning to meet up with Jones, the designated driver, and retrieved the van at Robben & Wientjes, a rental company with an all-smokers office (felt like an episode of Mad Men minus the booze) and affordable prices. At the old office, we encountered a little slapstick moment, finding this:

Development Update #8

Wed, 25 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hello all!

This week we will have a short update, since I was busy translating our funding application. Also, next week, we will have Murmel's moving blog with photos from the new Berlin office, and many other joys and wonders, which I will blog live from Berlin. It's travel time, yay!

On with the important stuff! Stamm was working on backgrounds for the machine world. Our featured picture, and the three below, show his work. All the yellow lines and hearts and stuff are called "gizmos". They will not be visible in the finished game and are used to visualize certain effects, which you cannot see in a picture. For example, from where to where can a platform move and where is the turning point - you get what it's about.

Development Update #7

Tue, 17 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hey and hello, readers of this magnificent blog!

First off, the new office is 99% locked in, so you can look forward to Murmel’s Marvelous Moving Mega Blog™. As reported last week, production of On Rusty Trails came to bit of a halt on Stamm’s part, because he wanted to finalize the new office search and had to put aside some time to produce assets for a game pitch, we will submit to a EU games funding campaign.

Development Update #6

Tue, 10 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone! It is update time, and we can only deliver a short one this week. Looking for a new office has taken up most of Stamm’s time, which brought his productivity for the content side of things to a halt. On the bright side we can say that our new office is 99% safe and we will let you know as soon as the lease is signed. Be prepared for some awesome photos! He also scribbled a path of his journey to find an office, which you can see as the featured picture on top of this post.

Development Update #5

Thu, 05 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hi folks, it’s time for the weekly update!

Today we venture into a war zone! A War between Elvis’ People and the other, hairy ones. Stamm built some red flying, deadly cubes - war machines for the war levels. These have clearly taken some hits already and are looking pretty banged up.

The following shot shows the assets in action and Elvis between a rock(et) and a hard place. The left side of the screen is Hairy dominated, so only his Shifty Suit™ can help him activate the blue save point to land there. Doing that would clearly upset the rocket launcher, though, so the player has to act quickly to avert getting blown out of this world. The little triangle is a placeholder for a collectible, to be implemented at a later stage.

Development Update #4

Tue, 24 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone! It’s week four of the development update on On Rusty Trails. This one not too long, since Stamm has been busy looking for a new office space for our Berlin team. Updates on that can be found on social media or here, when it’s done.

Stamm sent in a so-called “beam box”. It basically does what the name suggests. Elvis can jump in and the box will beam him to a different place:

Development Update #3

Tue, 17 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone! Here is our weekly update on the development of On Rusty Trails.

Stamm had to halt production for a little, because we were having a sale of all our games and the eComic on all available platforms. When something like this is going on, we have to prepare some stuff, like assets for the stores. This means, we give them banners, icons and so on. For this special sale, we had our own landing page on the website as well. Next are two assets for the sale. The first one is a Steam “capsule”, appearing as a section on the store page. The other ones is our Twitter banner. You can see all our projects featured in the sale.

Development Update #2

Mon, 09 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A new week - a new update!

Hello folks, this is week two of our development updates.

Stamm is still working on the tunnel scene. He uses small parts to build clusters generate bigger chunks of the level.

Tunnel Parts 1

Tunnel Parts 2

Tunnel Parts 3

Tobi was busy working on the background for “Spike City” - the part of On Rusty Trail’s world that guy Elvis calls home.

Development Update #1

Tue, 03 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone!

We decided to add a new category of posts to the blog, where we will keep you updated on what is going on in the production of On Rusty Trails more frequently. There will be a post every week with some footage from the development and comments on what you can see, so let's get this started.

On the asset front, Stamm has been working on parts for building a tunnel that our friend, guy Elvis, will fly through in the finished game. The process looks like this:

Murmel's blog - New year, first meeting

Tue, 27 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hello my dear readers,

This is the first 2015 blog and it will be a little recap of our first team meeting this year and a small outlook on the future.

We had our first team meeting of the year, which has to be mentioned, because this means that all of the Pants where in one place. We wanted to do this as an X-mas meeting, but release stress made us postpone it. Apropos release stress - About Love, Hate and the other ones can now be found on Steam, after we ported it to PC in December. We’re happy to have put out something, so people remember we are still alive, since our main production On Rusty Trails is very time-consuming and has taken us pretty long so far. Our current production plan states a release date in September. Which leads us to the meeting.

Murmel's Blog Goes To Poland - "More wine?" - "I'm French!"

Thu, 06 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Disclaimer: Sorry for the layout. Our Wordpress has been acting up and we will update our website towards the end of the year anyway, so after a few attempts of fixing it, I just posted the blog like it is now. It will look better, once the website has has been updated.

Hey guys, Murmel here, starting to write a new blog from Poznan, Poland - or as you could call it: Murmel in Wonderland. So basically we have been invited to fill in for another German dev team for a study visit to Poznan and the Poznan Game Arena (PGA), which is the biggest Polish trade fair for games. I was the lucky one to get sent here, since it is my job to be at these kinds of events. I have to tell you, things have started off kind of surreal, because essentially this whole trip is paid for by several organizations like the EU and the Polish government and what not. So what is happening is that I get stuffed with awesome food at fancy restaurants, and get hailed a cab whenever I want to go to the fair grounds from the hotel (which is a 20 minute walk away, but somehow I am in Wonderland, remember?) So yesterday (Wednesday) I arrived late, because Deutsche Bahn likes to fuck around with me lately and my first connecting train from Kassel to Berlin had been cancelled. Thanks again. I was set up in a hotel near the city center, within walking distance of the fair grounds and met some of the other participants of the study visit, ranging from journalists, to other devs, to people who work for real industry heavyweights like Humble Bundle or Adobe. Everyone is super friendly and from all over the world and we are having a great time. I still have no clue, how I have “earned” a spot here, but I am definitely enjoying the hell out of it. Here’s the view from my hotel room (free mini bar included) and a shot of the restaurant we just went to. I will keep writing over the next days and put this up some time next week, when I will be back in Kassel. So let’s see, what awaits me next!

Murmel The Drunk Chef

Tue, 30 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

So there are these awesome people from the School of Arts and Design in Kassel, who have a comedy film project where people have to compete in a cooking duel while being more or less wasted. Our very own Murmel (me) has been asked to participate and the result can be seen online now.

Disclaimer: I was REALLY wasted. The video is only partly in English, because it is a German show, but Craig is Canadian so it switches between German and English. We are being told, there will be an English version soon, maybe with subtitles. I only put this on the Black Pants site after being told by the other Pants to do so, because this was a personal thing. They said it might be funny to other people, so here goes nothing:

Leschek's Flug Awarded "Best Independent Comic 2014"

Mon, 07 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Awesome news on the comic front!

It is an honor to report that the Black Pants Adventure Comic Lescheks Flug won “Best Independent Comic 2014” at the International Comic Salon Erlangen.

In addition there were great reviews on Intellectures, talking about “Stamm’s borderless creativity” and on ComicReview giving Leschek 10/10 plus a downloadable audio review. (Everything in German)

The English translation of Leschek is almost ready for release and we will update you soon.

Murmel's Blog - DCP 2014

Tue, 20 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

It's me again, and this time it is only a short update.

The Stage

Last week our Symmetrain friends Daniel and Philipp plus Christian and I (for Black Pants) went to Munich for the "Deutscher Computerspielpreis" (German Game Award). Symmetrain had been nominated in the category "Best German Mobile Game" and thus was our 3rd game of three to be nominated at the DCP. Sadly it was the first one not to win. We want to congratulate Golden Tricycle and their game CLARC for winning the award.

Murmel's Blog - A Maze. 2014

Mon, 14 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

My dear readers,

It is me again with news from Berlin. The last few days have been amazing. I am now sitting in a bus back to Kassel and have a few hours of travel ahead. Berlin was awesome as always and here is my full blog of the event and stuff around it:

I arrived Wednesday evening and we just had a relaxed few hours at Stamm's with some cooking, beer and talking. [Daniel](https://symmetrain.com/) was also staying at Stamm's and we did some catching up and listened to Daniel's stories from [IGF](https://web.archive.org/web/201404/http://www.igf.com/). I really hope to get nominated with one of our future games, I so wanna go there!

Murmel goes A Maze.

Wed, 09 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Hey folks,

It’s been too long! Two hours ago I boarded a bus (with god-awful internet connection) to Berlin to visit the A Maze. Indie Game Festival. I have been waiting for this day since Spielsalon last year ended. I will meet some friends there, see awesome games and I will blog the shit out of it. The only sad thing is that we have no game of our own to show in Berlin this week, but we are getting closer. Last week we released About Love, Hate and the other ones for Mac, and will continue to release it on other platforms this year. As for our new game project(s), expect to read news around the time of Gamescom. Latest talk is that Christian and I will be there to show something, if we have enough material.

Tiny & Big goes to school

Sat, 22 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

In addition to receiving a Silver Pädi last year, for being valuable for kids, Tiny & Big now even gets mentioned in a German school book.

Book cover

The article is from the DCP website and is the statement of the jury awarding us with the German computer games award back in 2011. Students are asked to write about a game of their choice and to use stylistic devices they have been learning in their class.

Besuch

Tue, 11 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

In a cooperation with not only our local university, Universität Kassel, but also the bib International College we were joined by a group of future game designers, developers and artists on monday. As all of us are really busy developing the next Black Pants game, we have decided to have them roll a project of their own. I don’t want to spoil anything so take a look at their dev log over at their facebook page.

3D-Tiny

Fri, 28 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Hey folks!

We recently had access to a 3D-Printer and made a little 3D-Tiny. Here are photos from the first try:

Printer

Printing...

3D-Tiny

Tiny Steam Machine For Tiny & Big

Tue, 18 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Christian and Jones went to the Steam Developer Days last month and they brought home a special gift. Here are some photos of our awesome Steam Machine:

Steam Machine box

Steam Machine box open

Steam Machine box open 2

Steam Machine top

Steam Machine TV-mount

Steam Machine back

Steam Machine vs power supply

Steam Machine connected

Steam Controller

Booting

And here is Tiny & Big, running on our Steam Machine:

Stamm artwork for ARTE

Mon, 17 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Stamm was asked by ARTE to draw a wallpaper for their online magazine ARTE Creative. They also wrote a feature on him (in German).

You can go over there and download the wallpaper or get it directly from this post. It’s drawn in Stamm’s unique comic style and shows his love for gaming and weird alien creatures.

Murmel's Blog Goes Berlin - Call Of BOLU Edition

Fri, 10 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

It’s time for El Blogerino again!

After having worked with the Black Pants for a few months now and getting to know my fields of work in Kassel (which still get more complex and exciting) the time had finally arrived to visit the Berlin office. The university is still on winter break so this was the perfect moment to pack up my things and get onto a train.

Little pants man right outside the office

Murmel's "It's 2014" Blog

Wed, 01 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Happy new year everyone!

Since the holidays are over and a new year has begun I want to do a little recap of my first “year” (more like 3 months) in the world of indie-game developing.

First off I have to say, I was overwhelmed with the Black Pants. I have known Stamm for ages now, but I had only met some of the other guys (not even all of them because they had left for Berlin already) once before starting to work here. Stamm basically vouched for me to be OK, so after a brief talk with Christian I was in. Like a dream, right? Here I was, having played computer games since I was a teenager, always thinking : “Working in the games industry would be cool” but first: How to get into the game industry, and second: “Hey parents, I wanna do something with games…” - sure, son! Fast forward to 2013 and - not so fast forward - through all the crappy jobs I tried before: Kassel, here I am!

Stamm is everywhere

Fri, 20 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

This son of a gun did it again! Mr. Stamm got some love and praise for his work.

Leschek’s Flug (Leschek’s Flight soon to be released as English E-Book version!) got mentioned in this review (German), and also in the German newspaper “Die Welt” in a piece that speaks about the publishing house Rotopol out of Kassel. They publish many great artists, go check them out!

Another review for Leschek by Comicgate can be found here and he also did an interview for the latest issue of Geek! (both German).

Dude! Sweet!

Wed, 18 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Hey there chocolate lovers of the world!

Look what a nice promotional gift reached the Black Pants HQ this week:

BP Chocolate

BP Chocolate close-up

I bet it won't stay in the nice packing for very long, so look at it while you have a chance.

Cheers, Murmel

Tiny & Big Modkit

Tue, 10 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Hello folks, this is Murmel, live from the Pantalones Negros HQ,

Some famous person once said: everything is better with laser…or was it bacon? Never mind! The point is: we have a cool tool out that let’s you build your own Tiny & Big levels and build in your own stuff! So you can literally laser anything! Little brother is annoying? Laser! Teacher gave you a bad mark? Laser! Got into a mob fight? Laser! You see where this is going. As long as you can find a 3-D model of the things or people you want to laser, you can load them into the mod kit and laser away.

Black Pants at Spielsalon Kassel

Fri, 06 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

As you can read in my blog, all of the Pants were at the Spielsalon Kassel last week. But not all of them were just there to have fun. Some had to work and here is what they did:

Christian was part of a panel about funding small businesses and start-ups through crowd-funding. It was an interesting topic, since there are more and more indie studios trying to get their games noticed and many of them struggle with funding.

Murmel's Blog - Spielsalon Edition

Thu, 05 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Hello my dear readers,

Disclaimer: This might be a long one, it was an awesome time!

I am back with a blog and it has a theme: Spielsalon Kassel 2013. The Spielsalon is an expo/festival/party for games (PC, console, even board games) which takes place in Kassel every two years and which is being put together by the Kunsthochschule Kassel, the animation class in particular. I was there between the 27^th of November and the 1^st of December, mainly partying but also to see the games and meet awesome people. Games shown at Spielsalon included Surgeon Simulator, Space Team, TRI and The perfect woman. The latter ones by our friends Rat King Entertainment and Lea Schönfelder.

Murmel's Blog #4

Tue, 19 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

My dear readers,

MARKETING - what a terrible word, isn’t it? One of my duties here at Black Pants is to find ways to make more people aware of our games, so our artists and programmers can live in their little sheltered worlds and be creative and don’t have to worry about their paychecks ;) - and apparently I am the devil for dealing with these things, at least if you ask the IT guys.

Pädi Awards 2013

Fri, 15 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

We are proud to tell you that Black Pants as only Studio won two Pädi Awards this year. The Pädi Awards have been around since 1997 and we stand in a long line of winners. Pädi awards games that are children-friendly and have a pedagogic component to it. Me and Stamm went to Munich to receive the awards at a great show, especially for the kids. They were able to test the games and had some cool stage appearances.

Murmel's Blog #3

Mon, 11 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Hello my dear readers,

Sorry for not writing sooner. It’s Monday morning and I am sitting in the Black Pants office all by myself, so I thought: Let’s write a little. First off there will be some slight changes to the blog. We decided to split my ramblings into different categories so it looks nicer and is more fun to read. So “Murmel’s Blog” will be purely me talking about stuff I want, mostly Black Pants related or about what I am doing. Other things like interviews or news for games etc. will get own posts.

Talk and Play Berlin

Fri, 01 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The Talk and Play event in Berlin was a cool experience for Tobi and Stamm, they sent me some pictures to upload, so here we go!

Cheers,

Murmel

First row

The screen

There are people!

Fixin' the machine

Does it work?

Left: Tobi, right: Stamm

People playing

Look, it's us!

Tobi at OpenTechSchool Berlin

Wed, 30 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Tobi will talk about making games tonight at the OpenTechSchool event in Berlin. If you are interested in games and how they are made you can see him at Adalbertstr. 7-8, Berlin-Kreuzberg. The Event starts at 7.30 pm (19.30 Uhr). Tobi’s talk is scheduled for 8 pm (20.00 Uhr). After the talks there will be some playing as well.

Click on this link to their website for more information

Murmel's Blog 2

Tue, 22 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Heyo, friends of the pants!

It’s Murmel again, live from the Black Pants HQ.

I recently visited Rotopolpress. They are a publishing house based in Kassel and they are the ones who publish Leschek’s Flug by our very own Stamm. Currently Leschek is available in German to pick up at Rotopolpress, or online if you prefer that or aren’t from around Kassel. If you are in the area though, I recommend visiting them, it’s a nice store with friendly people. The English translation “Leschek’s Flight” is in the works by yours truly and will be out as an ebook, hopefully later this year. As always, I will keep you updated.

Murmel's Blog

Mon, 07 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Hello world,

My name is Florian, but my friends have called me “Murmel” for as long as I can think. Murmel is the German word for marble and that’s all I can really tell you. I can’t remember, why exactly someone chose the name or even who started it. Well, the only important thing is, you can call me Murmel.

Why am I writing a blog, you might ask yourselves. And more importantly: why should you read it? First of all, because it would make me really happy to reach people with this, and because I would love feedback to this and future posts. Second: Today is my first day at Black Pants, and from now on part of my job here is to keep you guys informed about our work, our games, and our studio.

Gamescom 2013!

Mon, 19 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Attention everyone, a little brigade from Black Pants Studio will be at the Gamescom in Cologne, Germany from 21.-25.08.2013.

After working sedulously on his first personal game project Symmetrain, Senor Daniel Goffin will be at the Big Indie Pitch tomorrow, presenting a nearly finished version of the upcoming Black Pants Mobile Game, as before mentioned, Symmetrain. He’ll also order serious beverages at the Notgames Fest 2013 Party later that evening.

Humble-bundled!

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Tiny & Big: Grandpa’s Leftovers is included in the Humble Indie Bundle 8 for the next 7 days!

We are honored (humbled, even! sorry.) to be included amongst this awesome selection, I mean, just look at that line-up! It’s been almost a year since the release of the game, and what a nice way to celebrate the almost-occasion this is (light your mental candles!).

By the way, even though we are working as hard as we can to reply to all support requests, don’t be mad if we need a few days to get back to you. Our team is so small, you know, you could probably fit all of us into an Isetta. This means we have no dedicated support people or anything, and we have to answer mails and write forum posts while trying to juggle our day-to-day work at the same time. Thanks for your patience, everyone!

Tiny & Big: Grandpa's Leftovers released upon the world!

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Tiny & Big: Grandpa’s Leftovers is now available for download after being purchased using strings of bits that represent cash.

You can support us directly via the Humble Store Widget (below) on our website.

Get STEAM advantages.

Or maybe you prefer the GOG DRM free version.

Or get your retail box from Amazon.de, which will be available June 29th.

The official soundtrack can be found on Bandcamp and on our Website.

The Black Pants team is still a bit dazed from the last few weeks of finishing the game, so if you have technical issues running the game, please bear with us while we catch our breath. We’ll try to address each and every one of your questions, it just might take a little bit of time.

Thanks to everyone who’s been along for the ride, please continue to support honest videogaming, and enjoy your slicing endeavors!

Yours,
the Black Pants

Tiny & Big: Grandpa's Leftovers is coming to Steam!

Fri, 04 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

We have a pretty big announcement: Tiny & Big’s first episode (since episode 0) will be released June 19th on Steam, for both PC & Mac!

Tiny & Big on Steam

The retail release will be hitting Germany pretty soon, too! That box will be some bee’s knees, and hopefully it will reach our international friends and customers, too!

While we get crackin’ to finish the game, why don’t you join the official Steam group?

Crimson Cow and Black Pants!

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Ladies and Gents!
YAYHAR! We’ve found a great partner in Crimson Cow, a little, niftey publisher from Hamburg. They are going to cover retail distribution of Tiny and Big: Grandpa’s Leftovers in German speaking countries.

So much for the updates,
Greetings,
Stamm

Thanks for the feedback and the Testing and everything else!

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Hello Everybody,

since our last release of Tiny & Big: Up that Mountain! (VERSION 0.6), we received lots of fine, helpful feedback. We just want to bow our heads and say thanks to every human who sent error logs or provided criticism. And thanks to everyone who blogged and did videos and walkthroughs. All of this support is a great morning motivator, similar to coffee, maybe better!

A lot of people were made aware of our game when we were featured by Nerd³, who honored us with an awesome little walkthrough of Episode 0.

The guys behind Tiny and Big: Sebastian Stamm (comic artist)

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Cheers fellow indie friends,

we've prepared a series of articles "The guys behind Tiny and Big" to introduce you the core team of Black Pants that is working on Tiny and Big. Todays focus is on our comic artist Sebastian Stamm.

Sebastian is an illustrator and animator, born in the deep dark forests of Frankonia. At Black Pants Studio, he is the one who makes all the artworks, graphics and textures. He is the one behind the witty character- and storydesign. In addition to working on Tiny and Big, he is finishing his illustration graduation, as he's still studying at the school of Art and Design in Kassel, Germany.

He lives in a small apartment on the fourth floor of an old house with his gal Julia. He enjoys fine cookery as well as canned meat. His main passion is reading comic books, which made him amass a huge mountain picture books by different authors. He is mostly interested in indie comics and likes Rob Schrab, Geoff Darrow, Dave Cooper, Warren Ellis, Bill Wray and stuff like that. As an old console aficionado, he's gathering and restoring old video game consoles from time to time. Under his couch, you can find some gems like a C64, ataris, a odyssey 2001, a donkey kong micro vs. system, and some more electric waste.

Tiny & Big - Grandpa's Leftovers Introduction

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Cheers fellow indie friends, this article is for all you guys and gals out there who didn’t stumble upon our game Tiny and Big - Grandpa’s Leftovers, yet. We would be glad to give you a short introduction.

The game is about a nerdy guy called Tiny, who’s only heirloom of his dear grandpa (a nice pair of white, fine rib underpants!) was stolen by his sandbox nemesis Big. Equipped with a self made ray cutter, a gripping device (snitched from the local hardware store), a few “Mannheimer” rockets and a fine attitude, Tiny flags down a taxi and sets course to the desert, where Big has disappeared…

Screens of progress and the news!

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Dearest friends of Tiny & Big, behold! It’s been a good while since our last update, but things are going swell. Over the past 3 months, the levels have been assuming more and more of a level-ish shape and kept growing rapidly. Furthermore, Black Pants Studio has absorbed another human being.

From now on, full-time level designer and officialese member, Tobias “Hat” Bilgeri is supporting us in building levels, finishing the game and dragging people to beverage offering parlours.

You can see his splendid short films and movies here: Bilgeri.eu

AND We were asked whether it’d be possible to submit fan art. Why, yes it is! Just send your pieces at stamm@tinyandbig.com and we’ll proudly present them on our site and on indieDB. We’d be much more than honoured to receive some of your art!!! Alas, here’s a little sneak preview of the recent status.

What we'll bring to Gamescom Part I

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everybody, to celebrate the upcoming GAMESCOM event in our good ol’ home country Germany, we want to give you an overview of what we’ll bring to the exhibition. Currently we’re close to finish 3 of the 6 planned levels. We also recently finished a nice „secret“ tutorial for you to learn how to use the following tools, which can be used in a creative and destructive way.

Tiny can use his rope with a grappling hook to pull stuff around. It allows him to move heaviest rocks in a useful position.

The incredible festival march!

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

We started flirting with the IGF more than one year ago, when we just missed the submission deadline for its 12th installment by approximately two months. Back then we wanted to submit our prototype demo “Up That Mountain”. Perhaps it was some kind of weird destiny to fail that deadline, because who knows whether that old demo would have brought us as far as “Grandpa’s Leftovers” was able to. After the student entries were published, we realized that our chances to see San Francisco were pretty slim. There were just short of 300 submissions and a lot of them were amazingly good. In our previous contest, the 2010 Indie of the Year Awards, we probably were as far away as possible from touching an award, which we attributed to the large amount of great games. Even bigger the surprise when we were nominated for the IGF Student Showcase. We quickly decided we had to show more than just one level at the IGF, so we declared the following weeks crunch-time. Eventually, we didn’t finish all the levels we planned, yet we were highly pleased with the build we took to California.

And the Winner is...

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

…not us! Yet we are! It’s crazy!

The Best Student Game award went to FRACT, and it’s completely deserving, no question about that! So congratulations Richard, keep it up!

GDC is now over, and it’s been a blast! We met so many nice people, and the IGF atmosphere was exhilarating. If you are an indie developer, you should definitely consider submitting your game to this festival.

While we were busy at the GDC, amazing news were brought to our attention, two newses actually: Tiny & Big has reached the finals of the indiePub Indie Propeller Awards, and it is also nominated for the Best Concept by a Student Team award at the Deutscher Computerspielpreis!

Grandpa's Leftovers at the IGF San Francisco!

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone!
We've landed the Pantsjet and arrived safely at the GDC in San Francisco.
After wrestling the monster of crunch for the last few weeks, we're proud to showcase the first couple of levels from Tiny & Big: Grandpa's Leftovers exclusively at our booth at the IGF pavilion.
It's located at HALL B / Expo Hall (Moscone South), be sure to pay us a visit and slice some stones…
We're looking forward to meet you there!
Regards and Later,
Black Pants
P.S.: here's footage!

Going to San Francisco

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Having stomached the initial (pleasant) shock that was our nomination for the IGF Student Showcase, it’s up to me to write some words about it. It feels awesome, and we really appreciate the, well, appreciation of the IGF jury. That nomination hit us like a big comet of love, right in the metaphorical balls! I remember waking up to a tweet from someone saying “Congrats @tinyandbig for Student Showcase winner at Indie Games Festival”, and instantly my heart stopped to become a small, wrinkled ball of dry matter, just as somebody would feel when exposed to super-sonic speeds, or baby kittens. The rest of the day, all of us wandered around with the biggest smiles anatomically possible for the average face.

We had actually planned to enter Tiny & Big into the student competition back in 2009. We missed that deadline by about 5 months, but released a demo as a proof of concept that really worked, and the additional efforts paid off. There are still many of you indie enthusiasts which download and play that demo every day. To you, we are incredibly thankful, and all those who sent in feedback and words of encouragement deserve our utmost respect!

Even though the last few weeks have been quiet ones around this place, a lot was going on behind the scenes. For one, the site has received a complete overhaul (regular visitors will have noticed), and is now a big pile of awesome. The guys behind that operation are Stamm, the grand master of all things pixelated, and Sven Rogge, tamer of the page template. You look at it, right now.

We exchanged our board, too, as the old software had major annoyances. The old posts have been archived, but are not yet imported to the new forums. Please re-register if you had an account on the old board, sorry for the inconvenience!

Besides that, when not paralyzed by the Holidays, our team worked on the Up that Volcano demo, and we silently uploaded a new build two days ago. It comes with lots of bug-fixing and gameplay-tuning, so check it out for the sake of checking out. Maybe the bug that annoyed the whoopsies out of you is now gone for good!

Some of you may have heard us promise a demo of Grandpa’s Leftovers, the first full game in the Tiny & Big saga. So, here’s the bad news: we decided to postpone that demo until the full game is in a more refined stage, i.e. we don’t want the release date of the final version to be too far apart from the demo. This way, everyone who finishes the demo will be able to pre-order the game right after! Until then, have fun with the new demo release, I hear it might have that awesome gimmick seen in the trailer for Grandpa’s Leftovers!

Back Front Side View Of His Laserness Himself!

Sat, 11 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

To go along with our redesign post, here's a final character sheet of Tiny in bloom and with equipment loaded. The little mugger has a size of 5.24 real human feet and a shoe size of 11(as a nitty-gritty character, he prefers Velcro® fastener on his footwear). Unless stolen, he normally wears one specific pair of underwear and likes his hairdo to be short. Skin tone is a healthy dark grey. Due to his carefully chosen way of life, you can see his perfectly ball-shaped belly when you look at him in profile.

Final Tiny Ready To Be Served In Full Color!

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Since our first release of the beta of Tiny and Big: Up that Mountain, we always wanted to advance Tiny's character design for the final game episode Grandpa's Leftovers. It's been about time to share the final re-design of Tiny, so here's some exclusive renderings for you.

We tweaked some of Tiny's proportions, gave him a teeth makeover, shed some more dirt on his feet and added a bucket full of valuable gadgetery to survive the desert: (imagine the following lines read by a loud commercial speaker with a slight german accent)

Yep, You Can...

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to you, Tiny and Big is now one of the top 100 nominated games for the Indie of the Year Awards! And once again, we are asking for your kind support by voting in the final round to push Tiny and Big as high as possible. You can vote by clicking here, go to the upcoming category and open the platformer register, where you will find Tiny and Big. And please remember, if you are a registered user, your vote has more weight!

Thanks everyone!!!

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

We were pretty much overwhelmed by the tons of spiffy feedback we received regarding our new trailer. The responses have been a huge motivational boost to make a unique game which helps us through the tough phase of releasing the next version!!!

The new release is coming in the next few weeks. Meanwhile there is an older release in the download section.

The Quoness Of The Status

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Time for a summary of what's going on right now, right here at The Pantsagon!

Let's start a couple of months back, just after we released the demo of Tiny & Big. We sat together joyfully, as we just had received buckets of great feedback on the game. And although we'd just spent all our energy on the demo, we naturally already thought about production of the final game, and just how awesome it would be, and that we would complete it by the end of the year. Our team was mostly students of the University of Kassel, so we decided to enter the student competition at the Independent Games Festival.

Got Funding

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

After a long lasting battle and almost endless weeks and months between hope and fear, finally a happy end. We ensured funding for the next twelve months, as the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) believes in us! From now on the following logos will accompany us on every step we'll make as long as the funding lasts...

However, with big bags of cash comes great responsibility. Naturally, the first thing is making a nerdy and totally awesome computer game. And besides the development of Tiny and Big within this time frame we have to elaborate a nice business plan. But with our heads full of strategic wisdom and encouraged by YOUR support we feel ready to lift an unique and individual game studio here in the center of Germany. So stay tuned... watch our progress and feel free to contact us for sharing your ideas or ask any kind of questions. It's the only way you can ever find out what size Tiny's pants are. And it's not medium.

London Calling!

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Greetings, everyone out there! Our little delegacy of three is back from London. Our heads are still swirling from all the input we got, but nevertheless, it felt good to take some days off from the heavy production phase we're in right now...

First of all, our slot was great. The folks running the Indie Games Arcade supplied us with a nice set of two machines to show our little demo of Tiny and Big. It was great to meet some comrades from the English indie scene, like the guys from Honeyslug, who put a pretty nifty looking game called Hohokum to the monitors. Special mention goes to the evening we spent at the King William IV. We reached that drinkery after a long journey through most of London, had a Show and Yell, which was hilarious, the ale splendid.

Indie Games Arcade Coming Up Next Week

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

A quick reminder: Tiny&Big - Up that Mountain! is featured in the Fantastic Arcade Showcase this weekend).

While this is a really awesome thing for us, there is something which makes us feel even more awesome: the game has been selected for the Indie Games Arcade section of next week's Eurogamer Expo 2010 in London! Can you say...awesome??!!

For this event, we're flying some of our best men over to the British Empire: humble Gentlemen, Mr. Stamm and Mr. Sys, will be at the booth to give you a hands-on experience! And you can play the game, too.

More Arousing Rocks!

Sat, 18 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Here's some new updates for you!

We've spent the last 3 or 4 weeks coming up with a clear concept and basic rules of how the environment should look like, especially the rocks. It's been some pretty mind-twisting weeks.

With Tiny&Big being a physics puzzler, it's pretty important to get a direct grip on every form in the game. Means, if I cut stone, it should be pretty simple for me to tell which direction it's gonna fall. Otherwise, it would be rather hard to have any linear puzzle quests in the game. And of course, the stones, cactuses, statues and everything else had to fit in Tiny's crudely drawn world.

Tiny & Big Hits The Festival Circuit

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

While we are spending our nights and days on the brand new Tiny and Big episode, the beta-demo is featured at its first game festival.

So if you are near Texas between the 23rd and 30th of September, you should consider to visit the 'Fantastic Fest' in South Lamar, Austin, play the Tiny and Big demo, watch some weird horror movies and have a beer with Bill Murray! Tiny and Big 'Up that Mountain' will be featured among 30 games in the 'Fantastic Arcade Showcase'. Have a look at the full lineup here: https://web.archive.org/web/201008/http://www.fantasticfest.com/arcade/games

Cacti

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Hello hello, in the beginning of every game-production-plan there's always a big load of concepts to be done. Every character, item, prop and bit of environment wants to be thought about and and at least sketched out in some way or another. Right now, we have been working on the vegetation of our upcoming next episode.

This is just a small portion of all the vegetation we have been trying to come up with. Maybe we'll be willing to show much more on a later date, but schedules are tight at the moment!! As a little treat, here we have two renderings of the respective in game models. Neat!

Tiny And Big Theater

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to the Tiny and Big cinema! A good story based game needs cutscenes. That's the reason why we are developing a scriptable scenario feature for Tiny and Big. Our goal is to provide an easy to handle script, which can be used by our stage directors who have little experience in programming. For example they would like to say: "Hey TINY, go to the position where the red marker is and be quick on the draw. BIG, you have to look scary and curse 'What the heck ...', wait two seconds and then run away."

Back In The Game

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

We had to take some time off after releasing the second beta of Tiny & Big - Up that Mountain, and didn't find time to update the site since then. The reason why we're so busy was mainly our quest for project funding. Now, after the first [Tiny Telegraph](/blog/2010/tiny-telegraph-no-1/) was released, we'll do the blogging thing regularly.

On the matter of financing, it's not yet certain if we can land enough cash to work on the game as a company. But we definitely want to stay indie, with that being so hot and trendy at the moment...

Tiny Telegraph Newsletter No.1

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

![](pants1.png)

Greetings everyone! It`s been about time to throw a big THANKS on your screens, thanks for all the great feedback and mails you send us. This`ll all help us to make an awesome game! We took some quality time to rearrange our minds and restructure our little, five person black pants shack. And surely to regain our mighty game production pants!