Hey all! My name is Stewart ‘Stu’ Jones and I’m the CG Supervisor here at Relentless Software down here in sunny Brighton, UK… Well, I say ‘sunny’, but right now it’s grey and rainy outside. Boo!
Anyway, with the festive season and Blue Toad Murder Files first birthday approaching we wanted to have an extra ‘Christmas Present’ in the shape of a theme to hand out with our game. Please have a read to hear what we’ve done!
The idea of a Blue Toad Christmas Theme was discussed; we’re all big fans of Christmas! As a result a brief was created in which we needed to take the village of Little Riddle and add some festive spirit to the design… Oh, and any reference to an advent calendar would be appreciated too!
We decided that the background should stay the same throughout; however, we wanted to use the iconic detective’s magnifying glass to show a different image each day during December leading up to Christmas Eve. Having the number of images in the theme limited to 24 which spookily coincides with the number of windows in a traditional advent calendar seemed like a good omen!
At first we had an actual advent calendar displayed over the whole screen, but in practice this obscured the XMB and no one could easily navigate the options… Fail! In the end we decided to keep the magnifying glass and the images in one location, and simply have the opening doors of the advent calendar appear at the side. In turn this cleaned up the theme, and kept the XMB options readable and usable.
With everything in place we had to make the theme more festive. Dom Clubb, one of our Lead Artists, came on board to help me out by painting the background image with a covering of snow. He also added holly to the magnifying glass and generally made everything look pretty!
From there we styled the icons to match the theme, deliberately not changing them to avoid any confusion to the player.
With the theme almost complete, I felt that I wanted to add an extra ‘something’ each day. I’m not going to spoil the surprise today though, you’ll have to wait and see the theme in action! After that the art was complete, and all that was left to do was get our images to change out during the days of December. Luckily, this only required some editing to some scripts. From there we did some testing, created some store icons and packaged it up ready for release.
That’s it! All ready for Santa to make it a Little Riddle Christmas for families all over the globe! The theme is released on November 24, so be sure to grab it before December and you can watch the changes all the way until Christmas Eve! The theme comes free with Episodes 1-6 of Blue Toad Murder Files: The Mysteries of Little Riddle or it can be purchased individually for £1.19 or €1.49.
37 CommentsAdd Yours
1
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:02 pm by ActuallyR
What a cool sounding theme
2
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:03 pm by vicheous
Oh
very cool guys. I knew there was a reason i was wearing my BTMF t-shirt today. Sadly my extra box of toad chocolate is no longer any good send me more to put in the calendar plz 
3
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:06 pm by ActuallyR
Need moar episodes
4
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:07 pm by Stewart Jones
Thanks guys. That would be so cool if we could make a virtual dynamic theme with real chocolate. We’ll work on that for next year.
5
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:07 pm by DANTHEMAN121
Sweet looking theme i’m having that.
any news on BTMF 2?
cheers
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:15 pm by Stewart Jones
More episodes, that’s another mystery and one that Production don’t share with me
6
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:09 pm by djhsecondnature
Congrats guys! Loved the PS3 version.
Now when do we get more episodes?
7
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:09 pm by vicheous
I’ll adjust my PS3 clock to open them all on day one if we get chocolate
8
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:13 pm by Aurora_Bliss
Can’t wait! Will get this on release day! x
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:15 pm by Stewart Jones
Thanks!
9
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:13 pm by whereismax123
what about if you have allready bought episodes 1-6
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:16 pm by Stewart Jones
We’ll be doing a competition on Twitter to give away some copies next week so maybe you’ll win one?
10
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:15 pm by Clxmj
Sounds bloody marvelous, good to see some of you guys working on Dynamic Themes.. There needs to be more support for this. Will make a purchase as soon as it comes out \m/
Oh, Merry Christmas ^_^
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:16 pm by Stewart Jones
Merry Christmas to you too
and thanks for appreciated what we’ve done. Hope you like it.
11
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:22 pm by Rytteren
loved the game.. so sad, no replay value..
12
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:23 pm by vicheous
Hm so only people who buy BTMF after the theme is out get it free? Bummer… Oh well i’ll take one of the free one’s on twitter then
13
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:24 pm by xchris2008x
Already bought the games on release day, guess i dont get the theme
14
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:25 pm by anonymus212
You replied to the comment above about already buying the episodes with a competition. So, people who have waited this long to buy the blue toad episodes at the discounted price will get the theme for free…
however, people who bought all the episodes seperately,spending a lot more on the episodes have to buy the theme.
seems VERY unfair to me…. I love the look of the theme and i have bought episodes 1-6… so, why don’t i get it for free ?
15
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:29 pm by xchris2008x
@14
We should be given a code or something, surly purchases are logged somewhere so they know who to send a code or make it avaliable for free on the store (only if they have bought the game)
16
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:31 pm by crusher915
is this game similar to sam and max?
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:39 pm by Stewart Jones
Sam and Max are ace! Blue Toad is similar in the sense that it’s a murder mystery episodic game but the gameplay is different – each episode has 12 puzzles and a ‘whodunnit’ at the end.
17
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:34 pm by xchris2008x
Any blue toad psn avatars in the works?
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:40 pm by Stewart Jones
Not at the moment, do you think we should?
18
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:37 pm by cthulhu85
I really loved BTMF1-6. I really hope at some point you’ll make more episodes or a new game!
This looks great, I’ll need to pick it up on the 7th when I get home
Cheers
19
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:39 pm by anonymus212
They should, they were able to record the first 10,000 people to download the KZ3 theme and they can tell who has purchased Playstation Plus and let them download the content so it should be easy — but look at comment #9 … it doesn’t look like they will be doing so…
20
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:44 pm by Stewart Jones
Hi guys – we’ll have a word with Sony and see whether we can do anything with entitlements for those that already have the 1-6 bundle. We’ll keep you posted. Glad you’re all so keen to try it!
21
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:44 pm by greyness123
not everyone uses twitter u know so basically loyal buyers who supported your game from day 1 and dont use twitter are shafted ? pathetic and will not be supporting any of your future games
22
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:45 pm by xchris2008x
@ Stewart – Yes
23
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:50 pm by mightyquin
I also bought all 6 episodes as they were released on PSN – don’t begrudge those who waited getting it at cheaper price, but seems unfair that the original supporters of the game are being charged for this excellent looking theme whereas new customers get it for free.
24
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:50 pm by greyness123
give the theme to ps plus users?
25
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 4:53 pm by seany1
Blue toad avatars please m8 sort that out for us
26
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 5:01 pm by divine1000
Looks great. I’d definitely like to see BTMF PSN avatars too.
27
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 6:02 pm by TAKE-AWAY
I hope you and Sony can sort something out for loyal customers.
28
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 7:04 pm by Aurora_Bliss
I would absolutely use a Mrs. Gossip avatar! lol
29
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 7:52 pm by TalllPaul
Pretty awesome i must say, great idea
Looking good.
30
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 8:14 pm by Sandsman
Sounds alright for the kids… Not one for the hardcore
Bit unfair charging people who have already purchased the series (bit of a PR faux pas from Relentless Software)
31
Posted on 16 November, 2010 at 11:19 pm by TheDevilsJoker
I wonder how many people have bought Blue Toad, I had no interest until I tried it because the first episode was free. Me and my girlfriend love it. It’s a great little game, and i’m better at the puzzles so it’s win win.
32
Posted on 17 November, 2010 at 3:34 am by SpiderMike_X
“we’ll have a word with Sony and see whether we can do anything with entitlements for those that already have the 1-6 bundle. ”
Yeah good luck with that…
33
Posted on 17 November, 2010 at 9:20 am by ruinereraser
Hi, this one sounds great, I’ll be picking it up just in time for December!
Anyway, is there any chance you could ask why is the latest Buzz game (the ultimate Music Quiz) is UK only (previous three games were localised)?
34
Posted on 17 November, 2010 at 11:53 am by X201
A great idea
35
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36
Posted on 2 December, 2010 at 6:47 pm by rodrigo__
i bought it, but it’s stopped in the 1st image. what should i do?
37
Posted on 14 December, 2010 at 9:46 am by Smirnik
The calendar doesn’t seem to work. It only shows Dec 1st all month long…
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