Pixel Press isn’t just a gaming app—it represents a new, innovative hybrid of gaming and design. With 31 hours left in its Kickstarter campaign and a bank balance well above its fundraising goal of $100,000, Pixel Press has quickly gained notoriety for allowing users to create a game without learning to code.
Roundthird, the creator Pixel Pressed based in St. Louis, Missouri, is no stranger to the world of iOS applications with games such as Radial50, but Pixel Press represents a new frontier. Pixel Press allows the user to draw, upload , and play their very own video game. It is a four-step process that gives you an in-depth idea of how video games are conceptualized, but doesn’t overwhelm you with heavy technical jargon or code. It asks you to create five floors of a video game level similar to those found in the original Super Mario Brothers games.
Using a free designed graph paper, you can create the general layout by drawing in various obstacles like spikes and portals. You draw with the help of a guidance outline that also comes in the Sketch Kit with the graph paper. Once complete, use the app to snap a picture of your level. It then becomes digitized and playable. You can then move on to testing it out, and when satisfied, you can add colors, textures, music, and more. Then you can share your created game with others as well as play other users' games. With this process, Pixel Press has great appeal for adults as well as kids and has already helped it in gaining notoriety.
Pixel Press employs a great deal of video game nostalgia with the app as well as in its Kickstarter campaign. One example is the "Teacher King Hippo" pledge package, which is a nod to Nintendo’s "Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out" game.
This nostalgia, combined with the outreach to educators who wish to use the game to teach students about coding, has made the campaign highly visible. It may be a welcome yet productive distraction for the gamers in your family young and old. Find out more at pixelpressgame.com and at its Kickstarter page.