Thanks to the new-and-improved Pastagames Amusement Device, enjoy The Rush with never-before-seen playability!

Do you want the clearest, cleanest, shiniest pixels money can buy?
Choose Pastagames Amusement Device brand game consoles (any iOS powered device)! You get not one, not two, but three times the fun for the price of one.

Hurry to your local drugstore or the nearest app retailer and get yours while supplies last! Say Goodbye to a bland and boring life, and Hello to the laughter of children!

Warning: this game may contain residues of macadamia nuts and gluten.

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We were growing a bit weary of various work-for-food projects when a massive desire to build a dot-matrix driven display came up. We failed to resist the urge and dove head first into an extra-hours project. It was a great opportunity to release some pressure and give a task to a special kind of minion we host from time to time at Pastagames.

At least twice a year we have 9th graders who come eyes wide open to our studio for a week to get a first contact with the professional world. We want them to do more than just play-test our latest production for a week.
So we set up a computer with Game Maker and invite them to give it a try. A one page design document in hand and a folder full of graphical assets; welcome to the beautiful world of video game making!
Our goal is for them to leave the Studio with a game that is not just placeholder populated. We had just released 03: Pixel with Arkedo. In it were plenty of great sprites and animations to work with.

So we designed a minimalistic platform game design with a twist. Pix’n Love – Rush was thought of at first to give a chance to these kids to end their one week internship with something to take home and be proud of!

The simple design got refined at every new trainee. We ended up liking the gameplay cocktail we had shaken enough that we decided to make a prototype our way. Then we got excited…

The production was cool for all of us: code-wise, the game uses a real Dot-Matrix display, each pixel has its own physics (shaders without shaders!); art-wise, playing with an existing set of sprites and modifying the rendering for each combo and game mode; and gd-ld-wise, using notepad to create levels (C was the cat, # a wall) and working the WarioWare hectic rhythm was amazing!

We struggled a lot to propose “good” tactile controls. It was the biggest setback we suffered. Virtual buttons on a touchscreen are a no go. Period.
To get back on the right track, we devised 3 one-touch game modes and added them to the 1$ package! One love.

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