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The image is of Bad Ice Cream in a Flying UFO type thing! The image is a ballpoint pen sketch from our new artist Telemachus. We hope you agree it's pretty stylish! I wonder why he was sketching it?

by Mat

Hey Nitromians!

We've decided to choose Dino Run: Enter Planet D, created by PixelJAM, for today's pixel love game!

As with previous Dino Run games, you take control of a dino surfing on the edge of doom which is all beautifully rendered and depicted in low-res, retro style graphics which boast stunning, fluid animations.

In this one, you get to customize your dino with hats (of which there are a good number of recognisable pop culture symbols to choose from) and you can alter your dino's colour.

If you enjoyed playing this game, why not head over to PixelJAM's Dino Run 2 Kickstarter page to see what they are aiming to achieve with that project. Dino Run 2 looks like it could be something very special, so lets hope they meet their target!

Click to Play Dino Run: Enter Planet D

As always, have fun and we will bring you another Pixel Love game next week!

by Tom

Nitrome always tries to put some effort into the run up for Christmas and this year, despite being spread more thinly than ever between flash and iOS, we do have some nice plans for you. Mostly we're keeping things under wraps as to what those plans are for now but lets just say we're working on a very popular sequel!

Before that we're still planning to get Cheese Dreams New Moon out. Because of the sheer size of the project and the timeframe, we have decided to put it out in two parts, one coming soon before the Christmas plans and one soon a little after Christmas. We're sure you will be very happy with both parts and the first one is looking great and you could see in the Cheese Dreams New Moon trailer we put out earlier.

Both the Icebreaker update and the Android build are coming along, with the current plan all going well that we can launch them at the same time. We want to say that there is a slim chance this could be in December still but it is now looking more likely that it might slip to early next year. Unfortunately with something as big as Icebreaker there are endless amounts of bugs and testing that need to be done.

We have a few other top secret things going on at Nitrome. Of special note in this post, the first one should be revealed on the 1st of December! Oh and we should have a new winter skin too... ohhhhhh!

Have a great weekend; we will see you all next week!

by Mat

It's been a little while since we did a memory lane post so we thought it was about time we did another. This time we would like to talk about Chick Flick one of Nitrome's earliest games (3rd to be exact). Chick Flick is noteworthy for a few reasons... Nitrome is known for working in pixel art and this is our only game made in vector art. More strangely, it was originally in pixels!?

First off, for those who don't know what the difference is between pixel art and vector art, pixel art is made up from squares of colour. Vector art is made of shapes of colour with the key advantages of vectors being that you can scale and rotate them as much as you like and the shapes still look crisp and correct. Ok lesson over let's move on. 

Back when Nitrome started it was not the plan to make all of the games out of pixels. We weren't even really pixel artists having spent most of our time before that making client games in vector art. Hot Air, our first game, was in pixels but if you look at two other early games Sandman and Roly Poly they are not strictly pixel art either! Both of those games are not vector art either though so they seem less out of place.

So back to Chick Flick. The other interesting thing about this game is that it was originally supposed to be a mobile game... not for iPhone or smartphones as we have now... I mean back when Nokia was king and colour screens were just taking off on phones. We had a version running on devices and it just needed more levels adding. We gave up on it ultimately as we realised we did not have the funds we needed to market it.

When we gave up on the game we made Hot Air (yes it was before Hot Air!) so in a way this was the turning point for what became Nitrome as you know it today! 

Back on devices at the time, games had to really be in pixel art to fit the restrictions of the devices and this was the reason we tried pixel art for the first time. When it got scrapped we had developed a love for pixel art so did our next game (Hot Air) using it.

Once Hot Air was out we didn't want to be pigeon holed into one style so Sandman the second game had a smoother digital look. When we came to the third game we thought we should bring Chick Flick back as a flash game and because we wanted to vary the styles and because the original art was too small we decided to redo it in vectors. In hind site we think it looked much better in pixels!

The flash version of the game was mostly the same as what we set out to make for mobile but there was one key difference: Multiplayer. The version you all know lets two players play together with the same aim. For the mobile version it was competitive played over Bluetooth. Each player played their own game and when you got a chick in the nest it would add one to your opponents screen. The idea was to overwhelm your opponent to lose his lives before you did. It was a fun mode that unfortunately didn't really work on a single screen and we weren't really up to making split screen at the time.

Click to Play Chick Flick!

by Mat

The new Cheese Dreams remake is going to be arriving very soon now and we were thrilled by the response that the little trailer received from you all.

Some of you seemed to think we were indicating in the trailer that the game is two player. Sorry to those we confused but this is not the case so we thought as a final update we would explain the feature that had you all speculating.

In New Moon there are other planets (or planet type things for those of you that would like to point out that moons are not planets). The planets are trapped on the mouse ship with you and it's your task to free them from their prisons and lead them to safety. Each planet has a different behaviour and you have to figure out how to manipulate that behaviour to get them to the exit!

Get ready for the game soon!

by Mat

This week's Pixel Love game is Dyna Boy created by Neutronized!

In this one, you play as a dynamite-throwing hero, with the main goal of getting him to the exit. You can replenish your dynamite supplies with the crates of TNT that you find along the way. You'll need to use your dynamite in clever resourceful ways to have enough to complete some of the levels. You'll also want to be mindful not to trap yourself!

There is a lot of variety in this game especially with the introduction of diamond and chain reaction TNT blocks. There are also great little parts of the game where you need to explore unlit areas, and to help you, you can find batteries for your head lamp scattered around the levels.

The graphics, music and sound effects all add to the charm of this very polished, very enjoyable platform game.

We hope you all enjoy this as much as we did!

Click To Play!

Have fun everyone!

by Tom

Check out our latest teaser for the upcoming game Cheese Dreams: New Moon!

For those of you that missed it, Cheese Dreams is going to be Nitrome's first remake. I think you'll all agree, as you can see from the video, it's a very different experience this time round and one that we really hope you will enjoy!

by Jon

Today we have chosen VVVVVV (the demo version) made by Terry Cavanagh as our pixel love choice this week!

In this game you navigate through the levels by reversing your gravity to move your hero around obstacles and enemies.

The simplicity in this game's design is what really makes it stand out. It makes full use of the gravity switching mechanic, which has been fully explored to bring the player a wide variety of puzzles to solve.

We really enjoyed the energetic chiptune music too, it fits in perfectly with this game.

Play VVVVVV: Click Here!

Have fun and we will bring you more Pixel Love next week!

If you enjoyed playing through the demo version and want more, you can get the VVVVVV full game on Steam.

by Tom

Hey Nitromians,

It’s been another long busy week here at Nitrome HQ. Next week we will be revealing a bit more info on Cheese Dreams : New Moon. Nitrome's first ever game remake... wha!?!

Don’t expect it to be the same game though. It has an all new engine, new levels,  game mechanics, graphics, replay value and music. We hope you’ll all agree that it’s a much better game all round this time.

Check out the early demo for a taste.

Anyway the game is coming along great and should be Nitrome’s next  release in the coming weeks.

We will also be  bringing you another Pixelove treat on Monday as well as any other news we can dig up during the week.

Until then have a great weekend. =D

by Jon

Now this is really cool!

Frosty Flytrap, an active member in the Nitrome community, has been playing around with the the Enemy 585 sprites making a spin off title called Happy Jump Land.

For those not in the know, Enemy 585 is themed around characters in a traditional platform game. We hinted that the world was called "Happy Jump Land" in the title and the intro to the game showed it as a platform game.

It was mostly a homage to Mario but there were a few nods to Sonic there too. This was just an animation in Enemy 585 (which is actually not a platform game) but it is this that Frosty Flytrap is trying to recreate and we'd say, judging by the video, that he's doing a pretty good job!

We did toy with the idea ourselves of showing the other side of the story but never got to it so it's great to see someone tackle it!

Play Enemy 585: Click Here!

by Mat

Today's Pixel love game is Persist by Jussi Simpanen

This game is a great example of minimal pixel art done very well.

Although only a short game (created in 48 hours for Ludum Dare), it is a very satisfying one to play and has some good variation through out.

We felt that the controls were just right for making those small important adjustments to the hero's movement whilst jumping for platforms.

Have fun!

Click To Play!

We will bring you another pixel love game next week!

by Tom

Hi Nitromians!

We thought we would share some pretty interesting info about Test Subject Arena 2, just in case you'd missed it originally when playing the game at launch. We added some high-score messages to each of the challenges!

Originally, you could read a message on each of the challenge's highscore boards and we even saved screenshots so that we could show you all after the games release... which is now! :)

So for anyone that didn't spot them, here they are!

Blue's Challenge
Blue Rex Suit's Challenge
Professor's Challenge
Professor Rex Suit's Challenge
Dr Nastidious' Challenge
Green's Challenge
Orange's Challenge
Mercenary's Challenge

We thought it would be a bit of fun, our favourite message was for Professor in the Rex Suit!

Did anyone spot them before this article? Let us know if you did!

by Tom

Hi Nitromians,

This week we thought it would be a great idea to introduce you to two pixel love games as a halloween celebration! Although we think that they are both great Halloween game choices, we do feel that they should come with a maturity warning. So... 

CAUTION:

Unlike our Nitrome games, the following titles contain mature themes that may be unsuitable for some audiences. They both contain profanity and violence, so viewer discretion is advised!

Bytejacker

This game was created by the very clever folk at Secret Base. The game will have you surviving hoards of the undead, collecting weapons and also comes with an awesome-o-meter to unleash your... awesomeness. Save survivors, vips, collect money, weapons and power ups. Both the SFX/BMG and graphics in this game are beautifully crafted.

Dead End

Fliptic's Halloween treat comes in the form of a "hold the line" defense game. Dead End will find the strategist within you. You will need to plan your hero's placements very carefully if you want to survive! Adorably drawn cute sprites are something that we almost come to expect from Fliptic by now and the style in this one, although still adorable, has a bit of a creepy edge! Watch out for the spitters and dodgers in this!

We hope this is a great start to your Halloween week!

Play Bytejacker: Click Here!
Play Dead End: Click Here!

Enjoy!

by Tom

Hi everyone,

We have just released a fix for our new preloader.

Some people told us that the preloader was not working properly until they had cleared out their cache. We have added some code and renamed some files on our servers. We feel that this should better help with the issue.

Anyone that had experienced this problem, please try refreshing the games page and let us know if the fix has helped.

Thanks for reporting the bug!

by Tom

Today we want to talk about some advert changes that we have made. You may have noticed over the last couple of years that we experimented a lot with ads? Let's be honest here... you may have noticed about us experimenting in adding more ads to the site?

Firstly we would like to assure you that it was not lead by greed... we only put ads on the site to fund making the games you love to play. In recent years this has been much more of a struggle as both a lot of browser gamers and ad networks have shifted focus to mobile games. The lowest point for us in this is when we reluctantly turned on pop under ads... something we swore we never wanted to do!

You hopefully noticed that the pop under ads are no longer there? We switched them off a few days before the launch of Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage with the hope that it would lead to enough new revenue that we could keep them off. We are happy to say that so far, this has been the case!

So this we hope was the turning point to a better ad experience in the future on Nitrome.com. Today we have launched our next ad based improvement which was made to the preroll ads that show up before the games play. Now don't get too excited, they are still there. We like to think however that they are now a lot slicker and less intrusive. There should be less loading errors with this new system, there are more skippable ads and should now all pull in at the correct size within a new container that better lets the player know what's going on.

We don’t expect us having a new ad system to be something that you all want to celebrate but we hope you approve of the new system and agree that it works better and more slickly than the old one. We will continue to improve the quality of the ad experience where we can. Let us know what you think below!

If anyone experiences issues with the new preloader, please leave comments, email us or private message us. We will look into any problems found.

Have a great weekend everyone!

by Mat