Pastel Stories

Freaky Fun

genre: platform
release date: March 2006 - tweaked in nov 2008
screen size: 500px/300px

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game description:

Have tonnes of freaky fun with this wacky squirrel. Our squirrel is stuck in a wooden block maze with all kinds of freaky creatures. In this addicting, 25 fun-filled level game you have to help our cute little squirrel get out of the maze and collect coins and stars to earn himself some bonus points. The bottom line: Avoid the Freaks! Enjoy this crazy game and dont forget to save your highscores. Keep track of your competition!

2008 addition - changed sounds, backgrounds and improved engine.

Your opinions:

Croftstorm at NewGrounds.com:
I thought it was excellent. I get bored very quickly, but I played (and enjoyed) this right till the end. The gameplay was simple but varied enough, and ran exceptionally smoothly. Your graphics are fantastic, I love how you drew the freaks, some great designs. I especially liked the floaty thing with two heads and the big walking one. I can’t really think of any negative points, so this gets a straight 10. Nice work.

Half-Breed at NewGrounds.com:
I must say this game was pretty good, I say this because I usually don’t play a platformer for more than 5 min. You have to remember I grew up in the 80s when almost every game was a platform hopping adventure. So the fact I played it for as long as I did is a complment to you. Those monsters were kick-ass. I like the bouncing moons and that big blue guy that burps out flying luggie monsters.

HyperYoshi at NewGrounds.com:
That was a pretty good game! It was too long for me, but it was still a good game. The monsters were kool, and I was happy that when you died you lost points rather than lives (lives drive me crazy) It should have been more fast-paced - I lost interest pretty quickly. Keep up the good work!

Filed by Mateusz Skutnik at 10:45 am under 10 Gnomes, Covert Front, the Squirrel Family
10 Comments

I tend not to write personal stuff about myself on my site, but this time it’s different and it actually concerns you, the players. Today was my last day at work. After six years I quit. They weren’t specifically happy about it, but I quit anyways. From now on I’m commiting my full work-time to developing games. And that’s the news you’re probably glad to hear. What does that mean to you - the player? Well, more games. Or maybe the same amount of games, only better ones. The advantage of this in the nearest future is of course quicker release of Covert Front 3 (hopefully in November or December), and in a bigger view - more Submachines, Daymare Towns, Covert Fronts and the other genre - silly games as well (mothballs, missions to…, pastel bunch games like Castle Run - pastel bunch is the ancestor of the Squirrel Family as that series is closed as of now). I also have ideas for new games series, which will emerge in upcoming 2009, staying a secret for now. All that will also mean my more frequent presence on Pastel Forum, in case you’d like to speak to me in person.
Answering your recurrent questions that pop up from time to time in your comments:

• is there going to be another Submachine?

Yes, of course. This series is open. I don’t know how many more I will make, but at least 10. Just see how it looks: Subamchine X. :D

• when will you create another Covert Front?

I’m making it right now. Along with other games, but still. This is my priority project. Hopefully I will finish it this year. And more Covert Fronts will follow, quicker than this one. :/

• How about DaymareTown?

Yes, that too. Those above are my three main game series, and I’m making them in this order: Covert Front, Submachine, DMT.  One after another. And I’m not stopping them for now. However - Covert Front finishes after fifth episode, but until we get to that point - I’m sure that many other games will emerge, or if not, I’ll stick to making Submachines and DMT one after another. I’m sure this outcome wouldn’t be so bad after all ;).

That’s it for now.
The bottom line is - as of now I’m all games (and comics occasionally) - so if I ever needed your strong support - it’s right now.

And I’d like to leave you with this video, as it suits the situation perfectly (well, not really, I didn’t win Lotto - but still, happy and free as a bird).

Filed by Mateusz Skutnik at 7:05 am under News
42 Comments

“Blaki. Paski” Mateusza Skutnika
Przemysław Gulda
2008-11-04

Gdański rysownik komiksowy, Mateusz Skutnik, przygotował właśnie najnowszy album swoich prac, album “Blaki. Paski”, który ukazał się nakładem oficyny Kultura Gniewu.
Zobacz powiekszenie
Do czego doprowadza Blakiego niepohamowana wyobraźnia, jak wygląda jego życie rodzinne i o co chodzi nerwowemu, włoskiemu pająkowi, dowiedzieć się można z najnowszego albumu komiksowego Mateusza Skutnika

Blaki, często milczący i zamyślony, choć czasami bardzo nerwowy, niewysoki człowiek w długim czarnym płaszczu, staje się jednym z najbardziej wyrazistych bohaterów polskiego komiksu. Narodził się kilka lat temu w głowie gdańskiego rysownika Mateusza Skutnika. Do tej pory ukazało się już kilka albumów z jego przygodami - najpopularniejszy był ten, w którym Skutnik oparł się na tekstach Leszka Kołakowskiego, tworząc jedyną w swoim rodzaju komiksową wersję dzieła filozoficznego.

Właśnie ukazał się album z kolejnymi, nowymi przygodami Blakiego. Nowymi, choć nie do końca premierowymi - część z nich była wcześniej dostępna w internecie. To składające się z trzech albo czterech kadrów paski komiksowe, ułożone w trzy osobne cykle: o samym Blakim, o jego wyjeździe na urlop do Sopotu i o jego życiu rodzinnym.

- Wszystko zaczęło się od zwykłej zabawy - opowiada Skutnik. - A właściwie: od konkursu internetowego. Na jednej ze stron poświęconych komiksowi co tydzień padała propozycja tematu i kilku rysowników próbowało zilustrować go paskiem komiksowym. Ja oczywiście wciągnąłem do tej akcji Blakiego. W tym samym czasie inny portal internetowy zaproponował mi rysowanie cyklu wakacyjnego, w ten sposób powstała w zasadzie cała środkowa część albumu. Dzięki temu jest ona najbardziej spójna z wszystkich trzech i opowiada najbardziej linearną historię. Potem wystarczyło już tylko zebrać cały ten materiał, dorysować jeszcze kilka historii, żeby każda z trzech części miała podobną objętość i album był gotowy.

Jego wydania podjęła się warszawska oficyna Kultura Gniewu, specjalizująca się w ambitnych komiksach undergroundowych, jako jedna z nielicznych przybliżająca polskim czytelnikom najciekawsze przykłady amerykańskich i europejskich “graphic novels”. Album Skutnika, dopasowany do formatu jego prac, ma kształt kwadratu. Po ostatnich filozoficznych przygodach, w najnowszym albumie Blaki wraca do domu. Paski Skutnika zdają się mieć bardziej intymny, a przy okazji - mocno autobiograficzny charakter.

- Nie ma co ukrywać, że ta postać od zawsze nosiła w sobie pierwiastek wzięty z życia swych twórców - opowiada Skutnik. - Dużą część starszych scenariuszy pisał Karol Konwerski, tamten Blaki był bardziej podobny do niego, teraz, kiedy sam wymyślam scenariusze, ta postać staje się coraz wyraźniej podobna do mnie.

Rysownik w swym najnowszym albumie trzyma się bardzo konsekwentnie kilku fundamentalnych założeń formalnych: wszystkie paski są czarno białe, w znacznej większości przypadków składają się z czterech równych kadrów.

- Im krócej, tym trudniej - mówi Skutnik. - Forma paska komiksowego jest z jednej strony bardzo wymagająca, ale z drugiej jest dla mnie prawdziwą esencją komiksu. Tu nie ma miejsca na żadne “opisy przyrody”, na żadne lanie wody. Trzeba opowiedzieć całą historię w czterech rysunkach, czasem nie używając nawet słów. To spore wyzwanie i może właśnie dlatego bardzo mnie kręci.
Źródło: Gazeta Wyborcza Trójmiasto

Filed by Mateusz Skutnik at 3:46 am under :: Graphic Novels ::, Blaki: paski
1 Comment

play | comment | discuss on pastelforum

That particular location has been on my mind since few months now. Unpossible in summertime - now it’s kind of abandoned, but not fully. I had to go there early in the morning to shoot those pics and even then there were some locals with their dogs or jogging or just on a walk. Damn the locals. I had to wake up at 6:30, go out at 7:00 to be there at 8:00. And it was sunday… Hope you appreciate all the pain I’m going through to bring you desolated and attractive lcoations for gnomes ;). Special thanks goes to my wife who kicked me out of the bed on that cold sunday morning. And actually went there with me.

Anyway - enjoy. Go get them gnomes.

Filed by Mateusz Skutnik at 2:11 am under 10 Gnomes, :: Flash Games ::
20 Comments

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Now this one is different story than yesterdays’s game (Aviator). In this one I didn’t change graphics, but the gameplay. To a dull game of collecting acorns via driving your car I added four power-ups, which change the gameplay into something a bit more entertaining. Still a classic 2005 way of thinking though. Don’t expect any fantastic gameplay that will blow your mind.

Another thing - this one is significant, it’s THE LAST squirrel game that waited for revision (until today). That’s it. The remaking process is done. Finished. Only new stuff from now on. Expect mind-blowing gameplays next year :D. I counted 30 games alltogether, some of them are retouched, others completely redone - you can play’em all on pastelgames.com naturally. Ok then, onto 10 Gnomes 10…

Filed by Mateusz Skutnik at 7:16 am under :: Flash Games ::, the Squirrel Family
3 Comments

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I looked through pastel stories archives and didn’t find any indication that this game was ever released. Strange. It’s an old game, from 2005, so don’t mind the ‘easy as hell’ gameplay (some of you might even say it’s boring). But to bring that game to SOME decent level of quality today I upgraded the graphics and changed music and sound effects. So, collect acorns and avoid enemies… - ideas for gameplay were soo easy back in a day. :D

Filed by Mateusz Skutnik at 3:53 am under :: Flash Games ::, the Squirrel Family
3 Comments

Sooooooo. Here it is. Unification between pastelgames and pastelstories. In design at least. We decided to pull out of “having a games portal” business, since anyone can have a games portal of his own in about five minutes. We went in a slightly other direction. Each of our series will have it’s own website - dedicated only to this game series. In time we’d like to add more content to each site, like walkthroughs, possibly artwork, and other stuff related to that particular series. Like the opposite of games portal. Instead of catchy 1500+ games!!! from which you probably won’t play anyway, you’ll have separate site focused on the subject that interests you most. For example - in time - all submachine addicts will find ALL content concerning submachine on submachineworld.com and they won’t have to look no further. I think it’s a good idea.

Other games that are not serialized and self-sited will run on the motherboard pastelgames site. New pastelgames frontpage features all games that we’ve created - gently categorized - so you don’t have to click through several pages to find your beloved game - it’s all there on the frontpage. We’re just cool like that. Also we hope you don’t mind adsense, as it’s the least annoying website advertisement system available. No popups, popunders, flashing ads about being 1,000,000th visitor to this website. Just some quiet adsense. And mochiads. But it’s in-game, not website ad. ;)

Let me take this opportunity to clarify one more issue. Many of you asked me before howcome I don’t have the Fog Fall or Great Escape on my site (pastelstories) - that would be because those games aren’t mine. The distinction is simple. There are three characteristics taken into consideration here - story, art and programming. If the game has at least two of those that were done by me - then the game is mine. So, for the Fog Fall I was just doing programming, the same with Great Escapes or Escape Artist. On the other hand in Iron Works I was just making art. These games are not mine. Simple, right? If you’re still confused, you can always look here, on pastelstories top game menu - those are mine. The rest, featured on pastelgames.com is our company’s business in cooperation with different artists and programmers.

As for commenting on pastelgames. Something had to be done about that jungle of chain letters and comments that contain only one letter, for example “a” but repeated 3000 times. From now on - you can comment on pastelstories or our forum, which goes by the name of… you guessed it… pastelforum.com.

so, we’re still wondering if that move was a good idea. Any thoughts?

thanks for reading (if anyone made it till the end)

Filed by Mateusz Skutnik at 2:21 am under 10 Gnomes, :: Flash Games ::, Covert Front, Movies, News
20 Comments

Flash Games with Design  Daymare Town 2. integrating excellent illustrations into a puzzle game

By Ko Maruyama

There are plenty of games that you can play through simple browsers.  Some of them are created with beautiful illustrations and artistry that takes advantage of the small file sizes for these games.  This month, I took a look at the sequel game: Daymare Town 2.  The simple puzzles (although sometimes tricky) are packaged with the great looking rough drawings.

I had a chance to talk with Designer, Illustrator, Programmer Mateusz Skutnik in Gdansk, Poland.  A traditionally skilled architect, Mateusz now called himself an architect because of his construction skills in game design.  His skills however, aren’t merely about flash animation.  He also creates some comics which he continues in Rewolucje.

Daymare Town is a story that takes you through a creepy, illustrated world that you can navigate with simple clicks of a mouse.  The tasks necessary to get through the maze are logical steps that aren’t always as easy as clicking the mouse.  Some tasks involve combining elements in your inventory while others require you to perform an action while an animation occurs onscreen (and those are some of the easy ones).

Did you go to art school in addition to traditional architectural school at the Technical University in Gdansk?

No, I didn’t go to any art school thank god. I started drawing about 20 years ago, and after 15 years of drawing crap I finally learned how to do it.  That’s the way it goes.  There’s no way around it - that’s a kind of advice for someone that would like to learn how to draw fast.

You work as a flash animation artist now, but how did you develop your programming skills after architectural school?

Watching the tutorials, going through countless trials back and forth and some small help of my fellow programmers that were kind enough to share the knowledge.

What was the first flash game that you made?

Funky Forest. This maybe not totally the first game ever made, but I don’t think that earlier attempts are online. We can assume Funky Forest is the first publicly released game.

What was the most difficult part about learning to program that game?

Understanding the basics. After this - it’s all very simple. To some level naturally, I’m not a programmer per se, so I’ve got my limitations.

What kinds of books do you read?  What kind of television or film do you watch?  What type of fine art do you like? As an illustrator, how do these influence your work?

If you ask me about my inspirations - I cant name that.  Everything is an constant inspiration I guess.
The strongest inspiration would be music, I like to visualize what I hear. Ambients, separate short sounds, etc. When I hear something I usually see it. Then draw it.

Probably the most popular puzzle games you’ve made are still the deeply layered Submachine Series and the fun 10 Gnomes Project.  What is the new project you’re working on?

I’m working on Covert Front 3 right now. After that Submachine #6. And I’m also working on 10 Gnomes series - one game per month, and also I program games for PastelGames.com.

Do you think that web delivery of flash games is a good thing for you entering the market?

Yes, most definietly.

What is the next part of flash / scripting that you want to learn?

Honestly don’t know. What I learn is determined by problems and obstacles that I encounter during development of a game. Finding solution is learning in my case. Can’t predict future programming problems ;)

If people want to find out more games that you like that other people have created, what would you suggest?

They should visit amanita design for their amazing samorost games and wada che nanahiro for his sheer absurd.

Thanks for fun and wonderfully illustrated games.

Thank you!

source

Filed by Mateusz Skutnik at 2:02 pm under interviews
7 Comments

Trzeci “blaki” to paski znane chociażby z internetowego konkursu na paski, czy łam naszego “Chichotu”. Mateusz zebrał je, posegregował na trzy kupki, przerobił z pasków w kwadraty (to akurat moim zdaniem pomysł taki sobie) i wydał (właśnie u tego gościa, co się tak strasznie śmieje). To zdecydowanie najlżejszy blaki, czyli i najbardziej dla mnie - co nie znaczy jednak, że całkowicie pozbawiony refleksji. Momentami jest refleksyjnie, ale tak nienachalnie jak to tylko możliwe. Kilkanaście pasków absolutnie powala, kilka jest na granicy mojego rozumienia żartu (znaczy, że je nie do końca rozumiem). W sumie świetny tomik, na który bardzo czekałem i z radością postawię na półce choć w ogole nie pasuje do poprzednich z serii. A Mateusz narysował mi na stronie tytułowej małego czarnego blakiego i mam. Co prawda KoLeC dostał znacznie większy i bardziej skomplikowany rysunek (choć niebieski), ale Skutnik robił go w sobotę podczas rozdania nagród, gdzie mu się wyraźnie nudziło. Mam przynajmniej satysfakcję, że moim długopisem rysował.

napisał: Kamil Smiałkowski

źródło

Filed by Mateusz Skutnik at 10:35 am under Blaki, Blaki: paski
1 Comment

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October the 1st is the time when polish universities start new learning year. So the time is right to show you gnomes hidden on my alma mater campus. The technical University of Gdansk, which I graduated from… like… 7 years ago. o_0 Jeez the time flies.  It’s not my department though, it’s chemistry, while i was studying architecture. but this spot, right outside the chemistry department was much nicer. :D

have fun.

Filed by Mateusz Skutnik at 9:25 am under 10 Gnomes, :: Flash Games ::
30 Comments