Posted

Sep 14th 2008

Remember my concept of SPECTRUM, the colorful puzzle game? It went through its fair number of changes over the years, one of the biggest being its playfield design. It was originally a rectangular field with six vertical columns; the Swatches would emerge from the top and your color wheel was positioned at the bottom. You had to position the ball under the proper columns and press the button to roll. The newer playfield, an octagonal field with eight paths, places the color wheel in the center. You just choose the direction with a joypad and press the button to roll. It was designed to allow a more frantic and streamlined gameplay experience.

But later I realized that not *every* gaming platform could benefit from the design of this "Radial" Spectrum. The PC, for example, has a fair number of ways to make use of the radial playfield, but nothing can really fit properly. iPod touch would have problems with this playfield as well. What's to be done?

I decided to look into the original playfield once more...the "Linear" Spectrum. The riginal issue was the process of positioning the color wheel before firing, which would slow things down. Now, I have another idea in mind: six buttons. The buttons will function as both the position and the fire button, and retains the streamlined intentions of the original.

This being said, the linear Spectrum would not be toted by Pepper & Co. At least, not directly. Instead, it would utilize the world of NML, a virtual world in a computer populated by nanofiles called .NML's. (I put up a few drawings pertaining to this universe in my gallery). I chose this world not only because of a more interesting theme, but also to pay tribute to what I think is the REAL origins of Spectrum's initial design.

Permit me to explain.

Before the initial Spectrum where Pepper originated, there was a game that played very similar to Spectrum called "B1N0MBERS," themed after the NML universe. It was meant as a one-player experience, and incorporated items were made that could be usable when a certain number of the colorful objects were cleared. These colorful objects were in fact "binomes," and continued to switch back and forth from 1 to 0, although the color remained the same. The purpose of the switching numbers made for a more luck-based form of bonus when you cleared two at once and they both showed the same number. Also, higher difficulties incorporated an individual black binome, or that with a sole white binome, to make things tougher. "B1N0MBERS" wasn't exactly the most polished, but the idea reemerged in a different light with a new versus mode, and that was the Spectrum precursor where Pepper was created. And the rest is history, I guess. ;3

This reinvented linear Spectrum goes under a different name at the moment, "Spectrum: Raytracer." The radial Spectrum, on the other hand, is still called just "Spectrum."

Brainstorming happens for me when I least expect it... X3

--Malamite Ltd.
"Post no bills"