Another Year!
The 17th of August marks 5 years since the launch of Coloring Pixels, and 6 years of ToastieLabs! With your help we have managed to put everything in place to make Coloring Pixels bigger and better than ever, we cannot thank all of you enough for helping us get this far! <3
It has been yet another milestone year for us here at ToastieLabs! Since the last anniversary, we have managed to make a new DLC each month Coloring Pixels even though we have added a whole new game WooLoop, with monthly DLC to our portfolio! Jack has drawn 12 new books for you over the course of 2022/2023 with even more yet to come! On top of all that, we have also released two new Coloring Pixels Collections on Nintendo Switch!
Just like last year, your support has allowed us to expand once again! We have hired the mysterious Level Designer "Icy" who helps create and test content for our games. Our small team of 3 is now a not-as-small team of 4!
To celebrate yet another huge milestone: We have added a new free bonus image to Coloring Pixels, we are hosting the 5th annual pixel art competition, and all* available ToastieLabs games and DLC on Steam will be at least 20% off all week long!
DLC that is within a month of release is not included in the ToastieLabs sale*
A Huge Year For ToastieLabs
We are still a growing Games Studio as we are approaching 3 years of full-time ToastieLabs this September. We are excited about the direction of our little studio and what we have achieved in this short time with your help!
4 Huge milestones!
- New Office (since the last post) - We moved into a new, much bigger office! This place is a lot more personal to us and we have decorated it to look like a Game Studio instead of just an office with the addition of chalkboards, Televisions, and Arcade Machines!
- WooLoop - A whole new game that we released in January, going very strong with monthly DLC releases similar to Coloring Pixels!
- Icy - The Mysterious Game Designer with no name, works hard and has been a fantastic help to our increased workload.
- Skystead Ranch? - A not very well-kept secret, although it's not yet officially announced, we are well on the way to producing a Game Demo and getting ready to show off our biggest-ever game this October! After being in development for over a year, we can't wait to show it off to you all!
Coloring Pixels
Coloring Pixels has continued to be your favourite game and that's mostly thanks to our artist Jack who has worked tirelessly to ensure you are provided with a new, handmade DLC every single month!
We want to take this moment to thank Jack for his hard work to bring you hours of enjoyment.
And, of course, thank you as well for buying the DLC month after month and supporting us to make even more!
Nintendo Switch!
Due to your love of Coloring Pixels on the go, we have released not 1, but 2 more collections of books to the Nintendo Switch with Coloring Pixels: Collection 2 and Collection 3!
As the love continues to flow in, we will be sure to work out the schedule for more Collections for the Switch in the future.
hexceed year 3!
Another small mention on hexceed. Your love for hexceed hasn't faltered and we are very thankful and humbled by this! Our first little creation as a Full-Time Game Studio has grown into a huge game with hours and hours of content!
Year 3 of hexceed is nearly done with 6 more DLC and 2 more exciting mechanics!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1463920
WooLoop!
We wanted to provide a new game that scratched the same creative itch as Coloring Pixels. Mix this with Rob tinkering around over Christmas to see if he could create a fun bit of controllable rope and WooLoop was born.
A complicatedly simple game where you wrap wool around various pins in order to create beautiful pieces of string art! Sit back and be relaxed whilst you unwind and weave various works of art with a brand new DLC every month bringing even more satisfaction in the form of brand new themed levels.
If you haven't already, check out the store page here and give it a try!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1878910/
Skystead Ranch!
Skystead Ranch is the first ambitious game title that we have been "secretly" working on over the past year.
Since you allowed us to bring on Jack last year as a full-time Game artist we realised he is more useful than just making pixel art for Coloring Pixels! Together we have learned how to create 3D assets, characters and animations to be used in our first-ever big 3D game title!
Skystead Ranch is an adventure, building, farming simulator where you improve, expand and explore your very own Sky Island to discover and befriend a variety of exciting and adorable creatures we call "Skylets"!
Check out the game on Steam now and wishlist it to be kept up-to-date with our plans and progress, and most importantly, be notified when the free Demo goes live in October!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2399570/
Community
As always, every Coloring Pixels Birthday is dedicated to you, our community.
Since last year, our community has continued to grow and develop and we are very excited about what we have achieved together. You guys are amazing <3
Meet us at MCM Comic Con London this October!
We are doing as much as we can to ensure Skystead Ranch gets elevated and promoted onto as many people's radar as possible - as such we have invested in hosting Skystead Ranch at a couple of different conventions, the largest being MCM Comic Con!
We will be attending MCM Comic Con in person this October to showcase Skystead in our own booth. If you can attend, make sure you come along and say hello and more excitingly, pick up a free Skystead Ranch-themed goody bag with games, information and even branded sweets!
- Social Media - Twitter was already a good place to go for interaction between us and the community but it has been exciting to see the continued growth of our Twitter, thank you!
- Discord - Our Community Discord server has continued to grow beyond what we expected. We now have over 1100 of you in our Discord and chat with us and each other every single day! It really makes the work we put in worth it to get instant interaction with you, from your suggestions and feedback to jokes and special server roles! A huge thank you to our moderators, helpers, and community as a whole for keeping this a safe space for everyone to hang out.
- Reddit - We have a ToastieLabs subreddit! Still small and cosy but we post regularly with updates for those of you who prefer this format.
- YouTube - We have kept the Dev Blog going all year due to your support and love of the weekly videos! Drop by to see the inside of the development process from week to week. We've just achieved over 3000 subscribers! That's a whole 1000 more of you since last year!
- Patreon - A huge thank you to everyone on our Patreon, the love and support from Patreon has grown and grown with every year it's been live - approaching 3 years of support from you means so much to us, and we cannot thank you enough <3
- A special mention to our Patreons for their contribution to Coloring Pixels by voting on what DLC they want to see each month!
- Merch - We have kept this going since last year and have since expanded our range! New hats, new mugs and new posters! Thank you to everyone who has purchased merch and is representing our Games out in the real world!
More to Come!
This is just the beginning. Coloring Pixels will see another whole year of DLC, hexceed is finishing up Year 3 in December and is looking strong for Year 4, WooLoop is reaching its DLC Finale in December too and we will be checking with our community for the direction of Year 2.
Most exciting is our Skystead Ranch news!
October will be a massive month for Skystead Ranch.
Our game will have a playable demo included in the Steam Next Fest.
Skystead Ranch will be featured and playable at the EGX gaming convention in London
We are attending MCM Comic Con in London with Skystead Ranch where you'll be able to meet us in person and grab a goody bag!
Make sure you keep your eyes on our Socials and your Toasters at the ready to keep up-to-date with what is coming next!
The Annual Pixel Art Competition
Continuing the tradition! The 6th annual Coloring Pixels art competition is here! For anyone who isn't aware, this competition is the chance for you to get your own pixel art into Coloring Pixels! The winners of our previous competitions have their art in the Community books which you can play right now!
For more information on the competition and how to submit your art, follow this link:
https://www.toastielabs.co.uk/post/coloring-pixels-5th-anniversary-pixel-art-competition
Anniversary Sale!
All ToastieLabs games and DLC are on sale this week to celebrate the anniversary!
Don't miss out: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/21241/ToastieLabs_Collection/
New Birthday Level!
It's not a Birthday without a cake! We have added the 5th bonus book Birthday Cake to Coloring Pixels for you to enjoy for free!
5 candles and beautiful fireworks! What's the flavour? We'll let you decide!
Come and celebrate with us!
Coloring Pixels Patch Notes V1.19.0
New Features
- Re-re-re-re-re-added the competition button! - The yearly pixel art competition is back! We added a button to find more info and have shifted the exit button a little to make room for it. Get submitting if you want your art to make it in the Community 6 book!
- Added content for the "r/Place 23" book! - Thanks again to all those who took part in getting the ToastieLabs Logo onto this year's r/place. We hope you enjoy this free DLC book of some of this year's highlights!
- Added a new free Bonus Book Image! - It's not a birthday without cake!
- Added Book Searching - Click the magnifying glass icon in the main menu to bring up the new Search Box. Type to filter which books are visible, try using a few keywords like "Free", "Owned" & "Seasonal".
- Added "Are You Sure?" check for closing the game - A feature we have been bringing to our other games and didn't want Coloring Pixels to be left out.
- Added new setting "Disable Exit Game Check" (Default Off) - If you don't like the change to closing the game, enable this and be able to close the game faster.
Bug Fixes and Misc
- Renamed the "r/Place" book to "r/Place 22" to differentiate it from this year's edition.