The Pixel Love blog image posted on the announcement post for Pixellovegames.com.
Pixel Love is a weekly feature on the Nitrome blog. It aims to feature one game created by developers outside of Nitrome every Monday.
The first Pixel Love post was released on Monday May 14, 2012, featuring Andrew Morrish's Super Puzzle Platformer.
Hosting
The old layout for hosting Pixel Love games on Nitrome.com
Games were once embedded on an area of the Nitrome.com site with the prefix "http://www.nitrome.com/games/pixellove/" and the game's unique URL following the last forward slash. Titles in the URL would often be in their short form, without any spaces.
This area of Nitrome.com featured a background specially made for hosting Pixel Love games. The regular Nitrome.com site buttons were also available on the top bar and could be clicked. The site layout did not change with the rest of the Nitrome.com domain, even when adjustments to Nitrome advertisements and the addition of buttons to the navigation bar were made.[1]
Pixellovegames.com
Main article: Pixellovegames.com
On July 25, 2014, Nitrome announced the launch of Pixellovegames.com. The site featured a list of Pixel Love games players could click on to choose. An option to heart games and dim the lighting of the site was also made available. The list of games is always displayed below the game module. Along with the new domain, the Pixel Love banner for the blog was redesigned.
Banners
Suggestions
Nitrome accepts Pixel Love suggestions from other players. Suggestions can be submitted through their "fans" email or through a suggestion form, which can be accessed directly on the Pixel Love Games site.
To be considered for the Pixel Love feature, the suggested game must satisfy the following requirements:
- The game's art must be pixel-based and not use vector graphics.
- The game must be free and playable on a browser.
Previously, Pixel Love games had to be built in Flash[2], but that restriction was lifted upon the launch of the Pixel Love Games website. Nitrome then allowed multiple platforms, particularly Unity and HTML5 games, to be contenders for Pixel Love. Prior to the site's release, Nitrome was already considering broadening their requirements to include more browser-based platforms besides Flash.[3]
Five was the first Pixel Love game recommended to Nitrome by a Facebook user and explicitly stated on the post.[4]
Missed Mondays
Some Pixel Love Mondays are missed, resulting in no Pixel Love games featured that week. This often occurs during holidays, or when another occasion to do with a Nitrome related event has happened recently.
- December 24 & 31, 2012: There was a gap between Space Odyssey and Planet 161's feature as Nitrome took a break for the winter holidays.[5][6]
- May 13, 2013: Due to the positive reception of Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage, Nitrome skipped the week after featuring Aqua Boy and featured This Is Not A Minimalist Game the subsequent week.[7]
- July 15, 2013: After the sudden takedown of accounts on Nitrome.com, there was no Pixel Love game featured.
- December 9, 2013: Issues with the blog prevent Nitrome from creating a Monday post.
- June 2 & 9, 2014: Nitrome missed two Mondays due to the Nitrome Jam. On the following week, they featured two games on the subsequent Monday.[8]
- August 26, 2014: Issues with getting the game icon to show prevented Nitrome from writing the blog post for Steam Rogue GB's feature. The game was launched on Pixellovegames.com on Monday, but the post was written the following day.
- January 26, 2015 - No Pixel Love game was featured for unknown reasons. On the proceeding Monday, Nitrome featured two Pixel Love games in the same post: Puzzle Legends and Boomerang Chang.
- July 27 & August 3, 2015 - No Pixel Love was featured for two consecutive Mondays after Nitrome's new web developer suddenly left the staff.[9] The unexpected change caused some changes in schedule. To compensate, Nitrome featured Tough Love Machine on Thursday, August 6.[10]
Promotion on site
A Christmas Pixel Love advertisement
When a game is featured on the blog, an advertisement is placed in the "Nitrome" advertisements section of Nitrome.com. All Pixel Love games feature a screenshot from the game in between the "Pixel Love" heading, and the game name at the bottom of the image. Both headings have jagged line borders closing in on the game screenshot. Clicking on this advert leads to the playable version of the game embedded on Nitrome.com.
Sometimes, games featured in previous weeks will also be seen in the Nitrome advertisements section, even if another game has been featured in the current week.
Christmas advertisement
A Pixel Love "Christmas" advertisement can be found on Nitrome.com in some cases. This advertisement has the text "Christmas" where the name of a Pixel Love game is typically. The image features the personified heart from the Pixel Love banner wearing a Santa hat atop an icy cliff. Snowy mountains with faces can be seen in the scenery. Clicking on this advertisement leads to the url 'http://www.nitrome.com/games/pixellove_redirect.php'.
This promotional picture was featured in place of the regular Pixel Love advertisements displaying a specific game. As Nitrome went on break for the winter holidays, Pixel Love games were featured automatically on a Monday. The URL provided on the Christmas advertisement would always redirect to the latest featured Pixel Love game.
References
- ↑ Slayin on the Wayback Machine, archived May 16, 2013.
- ↑ Nitrome Facebook post, 27 August 2012
- ↑ Play Killer Corral! comment posted 14 April 2014 by Tommy m (retrieved 26 July 2014):
We are looking into opening up the formats of games that we accept and place on the Pixel Love section. There are lots of awesome games that all deserve attention that live outside of the Flash domain. So in the future we plan to support and highlight HTML5 WebGL/2d and Unity titles.
- ↑ Nitrome blog post: Play Five! posted 24 September 2012
- ↑ Game Developer's Blog - Nitrome: Happy Christmas! Fri 21 Dec 2012, retrieved December 9, 2013
- ↑ Game Developer's Blog - Nitrome: Friday Update! Fri 4 Jan 2013, retrieved December 9, 2013
- ↑ Game Developer's Blog - Nitrome: Friday Update! Fri 17 May 2013, retrieved December 9, 2013
- ↑ Nitrome Article: Play Hare's Harvest, Mon 16 June 2014, retrieved July 2, 2014
- ↑ Nitrome on Twitter: [1], August 4, 2015, retrieved August 7, 2015.
- ↑ Nitrome Article - Why Pixellove so late?, August 6, 2015, retrieved August 7, 2015.