Baton Rouge media is buzzing about Tadpole Treble
The Advocate and Dig Magazine featured our newest game collaboration, Tadpole Treble, this month. The articles focus on our friends and partners at Bitfinity, Mike and Matt Taranto, the game’s roots in Baton Rouge. It is a great game to have worked on with these guys. We rank it easily in our top 3 Craigslist encounters ever.
Here is the link to the Advocate article, and here is the link to the Dig article. You can also scroll down for the full text of both articles.
Full text from the Advocate:
BY TED GRIGGS
August 30, 2012
Sometime within the next few weeks, two Baton Rouge brothers plan to release a demo of a musical adventure video game, where players guide a tadpole as it fights its way upstream through musical notes that appear as rocks.
The game is called Tadpole Treble, said Michael Taranto, who along with his brother, Matthew, own Bitfinity LLC. The demo will be for PCs, Macs and iPhones.
“We kind of based it (the game) off something that we love, which is music,” Michael Taranto said. “So we took some songs that we created, and we use them as the (game) levels.”
The heroine of the game is Baton the tadpole, who gets separated from her family.
In order to reunite Baton with her family, the player must guide the tadpole upstream, past oncoming musical notes/rocks. Players snag food to restore the character’s life and other items to multiply their scores or access shortcuts. By guiding Baton into special zones, the players can collect bonuses.
“Eventually we’re going to create a full game, but in the meantime, we’re going to have a demo that we’re releasing on brawlinthefamily.com,” Taranto said.
Matthew Taranto created the website, which Michael described as sort of a Nintendo parody comic strip.
The strip gets around 3 million hits a month, he said.
The Tarantos worked with Pixel Dash Studios to develop the demo. Pixel Dash, a digital media production company, is a tenant of the Louisiana Technology Park on Florida Boulevard. The company specializes in interactive media, video game development, mobile application development and 3-D animation.
Pixel Dash also is one of the key companies developing casual games under the state’s Digital Media Tax Credit program, according to the Louisiana Economic Development Department. The others are Firebrand Games, of Baton Rouge; Dream Forge Entertainment, Monroe; Twin Engine Labs, Shreveport; and Gameloft, New Orleans.
The Tarantos’ game is Pixel Dash’s second public release, Pixel Dash owner Jason Tate said. The company worked part-time on the demo for nine or 10 months as the work evolved from an early prototype to more of a full-blown demo.
Michael Taranto said he and his brother were creating the game but needed a programmer, so they placed an ad on cragislist.com.
“We created a little bit of a demo, but it wasn’t anything spectacular,” he said.
By tapping Pixel Dash’s expertise, the brothers have been able to put together a much better demo, he said. They also are taking advantage of the state’s tax credit program for video game development companies.
There are still a few things that need to be worked out, but Taranto said they expect to launch Tadpole Treble by late August or early September.
Full Text from Dig Magazine
BY JAKE CLAPP
POSTED AUG 22, 2012
The last few years have seen a spike in the number of full-length, independent video games produced and released online, either for free or cheap. Free software is helping amateur game designers develop quality games they can then spread to a hungry audience. Two local brothers are the latest to take a shot at game design, with their side-scrolling, musical adventure game,Tadpole Treble.
Michael Taranto and his younger brother Matthew are preparing to release a demo of their game in September, and with an interesting premise, whimsical cartoon style, and addictive gameplay, Tadpole Treble is worth a try.
“We’ve always enjoyed video games, it’s been one of those dreams to actually make our own,” Matthew said. “It’s never been that feasible, until recently when there have been more digital, smaller games produced easier.”
Meeting in a small office in Michael’s Prairieville home, the Taranto brothers take me through Tadpole Treble. The idea is to guide the main character, a tiny tadpole named Baton, through the constantly side-scrolling environment, dodging obstacles along the way, in an effort to get back home. The gameplay is simple: you control Baton, moving him up or down to avoid the blocks, but the more interesting part of the game happens as you move past the obstacles. The black blocks are musical notes, and as you speed past them the music is played. As the level becomes harder, the music becomes more complex, and instead of dodging one or two notes, you’re dodging entire piano runs, or a three-note chord.
The environment changes with the music and the small details in the background really bring out the unique style of the game. Those paying close enough attention will notice the notes falling in their proper places on the staff.
It took me four tries to get through the demo level, and when I did I still scored a “D” rating. Michael and Matt are both able to make it through on the first try, but neither score above a “B.” This is the type of video game that is quite simple, but keeps pulling you back until you get that high score.
“The key is, we share a passion for music that comes from our family, and, of course, video games. So with this, we could really combine the two to make what we like to think is a unique game,” Michael said.
Matthew, a church pianist, is also the creator of the video game-inspired web comic Brawl in the Family. Michael manages the restaurant Jasmine’s on the Bayou. They plan to release the demo on the Brawl in the Family website: BrawlInTheFamily.KeenSpot.com.
Though they’ve had the idea for Tadpole Treble for years, it wasn’t until mid-2011 that the Taranto brothers could put their idea into production.
Matthew composed the music and created the artwork, while Michael created the game’s sound effects and level design. They then began looking for a company to help program the game. After a Craigslistposting, Michael and Matthew found Pixel Dash Studios, a Baton Rouge digital media developer.
The game runs on Unity, a free game engine available through Unity3D.com, and, according to Michael, is becoming easier to use. He and Matthew can make simple changes to the game without going back to the programmers, Pixel Dash.
“There were a lot of problems we didn’t expect to crop up,” Matthew said. “For instance when we got the first demo, Baton was way too close to the screen, so when you played the game it would go by too fast. It was a strain on the eyes. We just pulled the camera back and it became much more playable.”
Once the one-level demo of Tadpole Treble is released, Michael and Matthew will monitor feedback and hope to release more levels quickly. It’s been many hours of work, but it’s been worth it, Michael said.
“It’s always ever changing. This is a field we’re new to,” he said. “First off, it’s exciting, and second, it’s always changing. I will say math is very important.”
Beginning in September, you can find Tadpole Treble on the Brawl in the Family website:BrawlInTheFamily.KeenSpot.com.