Hi, Jens! You’re the founder and creator of Colors!. Let's talk about Colors Live!
doodle by Jens
Thanks for having me! Colors Live has always been my passion project and something I’ve always come back to between other projects. For the last couple of years, I’ve been super busy working as Design Director at MachineGames. We recently released Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Now that the project is mostly done, I expect to have a lot more time for Colors Live this year.
Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark by Weapon
How did Colors Live start in your head? What made you dive in?
It's almost ancient now. It started in 2007 as a prototype on the original Nintendo DS, where I wanted to try and create a simple painting app. I'm not a painter, but I was curious about the process of creating beautiful artwork. Because I wasn't an official developer then, I used the available homebrew tools and managed to get pressure sensitivity working on it. It was a simple and fun project, and it turned out great. I had no idea I'd be working on it almost 20 years later! :D
v1.1 test2 by Jens
How long have you been coding? What kicked it off, and what keeps it fun?
I usually call myself a designer/programmer. I put designer first, because that’s what I feel prouder of. Design is also harder than programming for me. Programming is second nature. In a way, it's like painting. Once you’ve learned the tools, you can do anything. You add, remove, and rework—everything is possible. Programming is where I go when I feel frustrated or down. I just enter that space and start creating. I really enjoy it.
How did designing Indiana Jones tweak your Colors Live ideas?
Hehe, I think they are projects that are too different to have much overlap. But design is design, and there are many ideas and processes I applied to Indiana Jones that I also apply to Colors Live: The player being in focus, not wasting the player’s time, allowing the player to discover things on their own, etc. But it's quite different with a tiny team like Colors Live and the huge AAA team on Indiana Jones.
How do you decide on feature updates for Colors Live? What’s on your wishlist of features you hope to implement someday?
That's a hard one. I tend to avoid answering that question in too much detail, because I constantly change the priorities. Better blocking functionality is a given, though, as there’s a lot of unnecessary drama in the gallery that also creates work for our moderators.
But looking beyond that, for social features, I want to improve remixing and combine that with community-created challenges, as well as better sharing features and notifications. For the painting mode, I want to improve the brush engine to allow for new and more advanced brushes and keep refining the basic painting experience. There are also some ideas on how to make Colors Quests newer and better that I want to try.
I don’t know what features will make it or in what order, but there’s always a ton of stuff that I’d like to try. Keep checking #build-status for the latest info. :D
Will we ever see Colors Live on Steam Deck? If no, why not?
Colors Live is kind of available on Steam Deck already. If you are a Patron, you get the Steam version of Colors Live, which runs on Steam Deck. The reason we’ve not released it properly is because the Steam Deck is currently not a great console to paint on. There’s quite a bit of lag on the touch screen, so it doesn’t come close to the Nintendo Switch in responsiveness. I haven’t found a way to fix that yet.
Error message by Jens
We’ve got moderators, a designer, and a web dev—think an extra coder could boost things?
Colors Live is a very odd project in the sense that it's a small project that’s been active for a very long time. It's the opposite of a one-and-done project, unlike most other games I’ve worked on.
The amazing Colors Live team reflects this. It consists of people who spend most of their time working on other things, but through their love of the project, have stuck around for a long time. I’m so grateful to the team for this. Colors Live very much goes in waves where sometimes almost nothing happens (like last year), and sometimes we’re doing a ton of stuff. It's also hard to find people like that, and almost all the people who have helped with the project have come through the community.
I’d love to have another programmer onboard, and we’ve had a few over the years, but there aren’t too many people out there with a great C++ skillset who are into painting. Let me know if you know someone!
Boxy-0U0: If u guys didn't make Colors! back in 2007, where would u guys be now?
Hopefully there would have been some other passion project that would have been almost as cool. Maybe an animation tool. ;)
Kersephomy: What inspired you to create colors?
I had a friend and colleague who was a concept artist. Watching his process was always amazing. He made it look so easy to create amazing artwork, and he showed me how few tools you needed to do what he did.
https://mattiassnygg.weebly.com/
ThatChurro: How did the idea of making colors happen? Like what led to the idea of making the platform?
Initially it was a just a fun experimental project to try to make something cool for the Nintendo DS. Then that project grew and grew.
duck by Jens
How long did it take to release the first Colors! game from when you first started production on it?
The first prototype I released was done in a week or so, if I remember correctly.
What was/is the most difficult part about each of your guy's job dealing with colors, like if it be in code or glitches and bugs and whatnot.
I can only speak for myself, but I think the hardest part is to create great UI/UX. It’s such an important part of Colors Live, and you really need to try things out before you know if it will be good or not.
Ember Shallows: What's the greatest part of working on Colors!?
Easy one. To be able to go to colorslive.com and see all the amazing stuff that everyone is creating using Colors!.
How do you feel about the Nintendo Switch 2 news, and does it influence your Colors Live plans?
It was exciting to see the Nintendo Direct the other day. I’ve been trying to get inside information directly from Nintendo for a while, but they’ve been very tight-lipped.
After watching the presentation, I must say that the Nintendo Switch 2 looks pretty awesome. The thing that stood out for me is the new screen. 120Hz and HDR will both be instant improvements to the experience of painting in Colors Live. The increased performance and higher resolution will make things just better. We’ve also discussed a potential Colors SonarPen 2 internally, and the inclusion of an additional USB-C port opens up a lot of new possibilities.
So, it was everything I hoped for, and I will keep bugging Nintendo to try to get my hands on a devkit as soon as possible. I definitely want to create a version of Colors Live for Nintendo Switch 2. I’m not sure yet exactly how it will look, but we’ll of course keep making sure Colors Live for the original Switch works great along with it!
So, exciting times ahead!
Next week read the interview of @-zyik-
doodle by Jens
Thanks for having me! Colors Live has always been my passion project and something I’ve always come back to between other projects. For the last couple of years, I’ve been super busy working as Design Director at MachineGames. We recently released Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Now that the project is mostly done, I expect to have a lot more time for Colors Live this year.
Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark by Weapon
How did Colors Live start in your head? What made you dive in?
It's almost ancient now. It started in 2007 as a prototype on the original Nintendo DS, where I wanted to try and create a simple painting app. I'm not a painter, but I was curious about the process of creating beautiful artwork. Because I wasn't an official developer then, I used the available homebrew tools and managed to get pressure sensitivity working on it. It was a simple and fun project, and it turned out great. I had no idea I'd be working on it almost 20 years later! :D
v1.1 test2 by Jens
How long have you been coding? What kicked it off, and what keeps it fun?
I usually call myself a designer/programmer. I put designer first, because that’s what I feel prouder of. Design is also harder than programming for me. Programming is second nature. In a way, it's like painting. Once you’ve learned the tools, you can do anything. You add, remove, and rework—everything is possible. Programming is where I go when I feel frustrated or down. I just enter that space and start creating. I really enjoy it.
How did designing Indiana Jones tweak your Colors Live ideas?
Hehe, I think they are projects that are too different to have much overlap. But design is design, and there are many ideas and processes I applied to Indiana Jones that I also apply to Colors Live: The player being in focus, not wasting the player’s time, allowing the player to discover things on their own, etc. But it's quite different with a tiny team like Colors Live and the huge AAA team on Indiana Jones.
How do you decide on feature updates for Colors Live? What’s on your wishlist of features you hope to implement someday?
That's a hard one. I tend to avoid answering that question in too much detail, because I constantly change the priorities. Better blocking functionality is a given, though, as there’s a lot of unnecessary drama in the gallery that also creates work for our moderators.
But looking beyond that, for social features, I want to improve remixing and combine that with community-created challenges, as well as better sharing features and notifications. For the painting mode, I want to improve the brush engine to allow for new and more advanced brushes and keep refining the basic painting experience. There are also some ideas on how to make Colors Quests newer and better that I want to try.
I don’t know what features will make it or in what order, but there’s always a ton of stuff that I’d like to try. Keep checking #build-status for the latest info. :D
Will we ever see Colors Live on Steam Deck? If no, why not?
Colors Live is kind of available on Steam Deck already. If you are a Patron, you get the Steam version of Colors Live, which runs on Steam Deck. The reason we’ve not released it properly is because the Steam Deck is currently not a great console to paint on. There’s quite a bit of lag on the touch screen, so it doesn’t come close to the Nintendo Switch in responsiveness. I haven’t found a way to fix that yet.
Error message by Jens
We’ve got moderators, a designer, and a web dev—think an extra coder could boost things?
Colors Live is a very odd project in the sense that it's a small project that’s been active for a very long time. It's the opposite of a one-and-done project, unlike most other games I’ve worked on.
The amazing Colors Live team reflects this. It consists of people who spend most of their time working on other things, but through their love of the project, have stuck around for a long time. I’m so grateful to the team for this. Colors Live very much goes in waves where sometimes almost nothing happens (like last year), and sometimes we’re doing a ton of stuff. It's also hard to find people like that, and almost all the people who have helped with the project have come through the community.
I’d love to have another programmer onboard, and we’ve had a few over the years, but there aren’t too many people out there with a great C++ skillset who are into painting. Let me know if you know someone!
Boxy-0U0: If u guys didn't make Colors! back in 2007, where would u guys be now?
Hopefully there would have been some other passion project that would have been almost as cool. Maybe an animation tool. ;)
Kersephomy: What inspired you to create colors?
I had a friend and colleague who was a concept artist. Watching his process was always amazing. He made it look so easy to create amazing artwork, and he showed me how few tools you needed to do what he did.
https://mattiassnygg.weebly.com/
ThatChurro: How did the idea of making colors happen? Like what led to the idea of making the platform?
Initially it was a just a fun experimental project to try to make something cool for the Nintendo DS. Then that project grew and grew.
duck by Jens
How long did it take to release the first Colors! game from when you first started production on it?
The first prototype I released was done in a week or so, if I remember correctly.
What was/is the most difficult part about each of your guy's job dealing with colors, like if it be in code or glitches and bugs and whatnot.
I can only speak for myself, but I think the hardest part is to create great UI/UX. It’s such an important part of Colors Live, and you really need to try things out before you know if it will be good or not.
Ember Shallows: What's the greatest part of working on Colors!?
Easy one. To be able to go to colorslive.com and see all the amazing stuff that everyone is creating using Colors!.
How do you feel about the Nintendo Switch 2 news, and does it influence your Colors Live plans?
It was exciting to see the Nintendo Direct the other day. I’ve been trying to get inside information directly from Nintendo for a while, but they’ve been very tight-lipped.
After watching the presentation, I must say that the Nintendo Switch 2 looks pretty awesome. The thing that stood out for me is the new screen. 120Hz and HDR will both be instant improvements to the experience of painting in Colors Live. The increased performance and higher resolution will make things just better. We’ve also discussed a potential Colors SonarPen 2 internally, and the inclusion of an additional USB-C port opens up a lot of new possibilities.
So, it was everything I hoped for, and I will keep bugging Nintendo to try to get my hands on a devkit as soon as possible. I definitely want to create a version of Colors Live for Nintendo Switch 2. I’m not sure yet exactly how it will look, but we’ll of course keep making sure Colors Live for the original Switch works great along with it!
So, exciting times ahead!
Next week read the interview of @-zyik-
