Johnny J

[wzl]

Hey people, long time!

I've been working on a game for some time now, on and off. I guess it started around 2 and a half years ago just to play around with flash. I've been fiddling with it ever since, never being happy enough with its art style. I've swapped tilesets a lot, always getting more where i wanted to be, but it never quite clicked until just last week. But let's start from the beginning:

At first there was Johnny


i wanted to go for a low res design to begin with so i can animate fast, turns out that was the right choice for me.

Except when it came to tilesets. To make the environment responsive enough for a sprite that size i went for 8x8 tiles. Which makes it really difficult to place a lot of detail, while remaining tile-able and not feel ridiculously gridded.


After that i tried to embrace it and go for a more abstract approach but after not too long i got sick of looking at it


Some time passed and i picked it up again, desperately trying to figure an artstyle for the game.
The first attempt was to give some color to the sprite in hope to gain some inspiration for the environment aswell. It was quite a challenge to choose a palette that doesn't look ridiculously bad, and i think there's still ways to improve it


Interestingly enough, while i introduced colors to the sprite, i removed them from the tileset, resulting in an interesting esthetic, but still not quite what i was looking for


Pause again, for close to a year. Then, few weeks ago, when AGDQ2015 were airing i felt it again. The urge to create. Remembering what state i left it in had me hesitate a bit but i kept thinking about it. Finally, last week i decided to give it another shot. I sat down and took a couple days to work on a new tileset, trying to use photos as reference to get a more... seizable feel. It turned out ok, but it still left me empty. This is not what i wanted.


Then, this weekend it hit me! I was showing a friend Irkalla, which in my eyes has a quite amazing design. Why does it look so much more awesome? It seems like a world that has structure, and and depth, yet it is not bloated with details and colors. It's not flat! That was it. It has an actual floor, layers seem actually distanced. So simple, yet it was so far away from me for such a long time.

As usual, i'm still having trouble getting a decent color palette, but the general style is developing towards where i actually want to have it. I'm very pumped about this

After putting some work in it over the weekend i made some realisations:
1. Making this mockup was tremendously enjoying, putting little things here and there to make every corner look a little different
2. But this will not something feasable for a tile-based game.
3. Or is it?
I loved the hand-drawn(hand-inserted?) details so much so i ended up wanting to draw my levels. Not all of it naturally.
Luckily enough i've also been working on a tile-map editor (which started around the same time as the game), which now has the ability to create tile-sheets dynamically, so i can roughly tile my map using basic shapes, and use a pencil to draw all those little nooks and wedges and boulders wherever i want!

This is, so far, my journey with this game. It's been delightful working with different styles throughout it, especially since i discovered one that really hits the spot. Of course this is only a stepping stone as well, and there will be hurdles (like that water over there) which i wont quite find comfortable with, but this is a big step for this project!

Thanks for letting me share this


After a couple long days of only coding i eventually got around working on the mockup some more, to get a better feeling for the shapes and shades.


I added more shades and highlights. It helps especially in the water area, to get a better feel of submergedness.
I saturated the palette and brightened it up a bit. But after looking at it when it is not at 800% zoom makes it feel pretty dark still. It's tough to get the atmosphere just right.

The background so far is a mystery to me. Should it be darker? Less saturated? Brighter even? I cant manage to find the color that still makes the fore- and background readable enough while still implying a dark desolate place.

I also added a bit of perspective to the ceiling to give it a more roomy feel. not quite sure about adding details to it yet. maybe its not even necessary, as it might grab too much attention.


I tried to explore more ideas with this style last night.


There is still a bunch of issues i have with it. For one thing i'm not certain about the level of detail on it. That's something which needs to be proven when tested in actual production, but for a mock-up it's fine i reckon.
One thing i liked about this style is that you can get interesting results by using basic strokes and suggest interesting shapes with it. As it turns out, it just isn't that simple.

With the current use of the palette it is hard to differentiate foreground from background, see the little descent above the lava pit.

Liquids are tough! I don't even...

Glows...urrrrgh..

In the lower part of the cave i tried to blend the background with the floor and ceiling, but it turned out more chaotic than it should be. especially the ceiling doesn't read well like that.

Here's the thing with collision in case you're wondering how that would work



Still cant leave that palette alone. Gave it a slightly bluer touch. Removed the arbitrary highlight color and replaced it with the floor color. Feels more settled somehow.



When trying to create a basic tile sheet out of it i got a little confused. drawing by hand makes it so easy to not abide any rules and just go with the flow. I tried to make some sense out of it and came up with a simple basic outline for it



Tilesets consist of the floor, left/right walls, fore(back?) ground with a lighter and a darker greyish shade, and either a blueish shade when ceiling or the dark grey shade when being used as a crevice.

I am still confused as to when and where to use each specific shade. Its easy to overdo it and just go crazy on this thing. otherwise sometimes less is indeed more. I guess balance is the key.

[TheWing]

..In the lower part of the cave i tried to blend the background with the floor and ceiling, but it turned out more chaotic than it should be. especially the ceiling doesn't read well like that...

Yeah, the ceiling at least shouldn't be blended like that; the "border" of the ceiling and the background isn't really visible in that perspective (shouldn't be). That being said, I hope J goes under the bit of that ceiling ;PP

[wzl]

Actually i like the under-view of the ceiling 

Parallax to the rescue

[TheWing]

It works way better in game, no need for parallax

But guess the blending (the ceiling) should be of some different color? maybe darker than the actual wall?

[wzl]

Earlier today i was talking with ptoing in a hangout and he gave me some interesting pointers. mainly to reduce the noise and only add highlights with context.

I was browsing for some references, how rocks and cliffs actually look like. I'm quite happy with the result. except the left column. I tried to imply that you could climb that, but it feels too busy.


Here's a comparision of old and new.


Do you know any interesting rock formations in the vein of giants causeway?

[ErekT]

Oh wow, this was a difficult edit! Hope you can still get something out of it (never mind all the anti-aliasing, I went ape)

There's a bit of noise and banding business going on. Given the low resolution, you could probably simplify more here and there and focus more on shapes like you did in the old version. Come to think of it I may prefer the direction of the old version as the rock formations look more natural in that one. The columns in the latter look kinda man-made with the rocks all aligned.

Did a little color experiment too.

[wzl]

wow. i love what you did with the palette. This captures even more the kind of atmosphere i'd like to get. But alas, my color experience is so-so, as you probably can tell by the last couple posts
The only sort of complaint i have is that it removes the dark feel from it, but it feels so much more uniform.
I realized you optimized one color (the left facing wall blueish tone) and i think that does a good job at not having it stand out too much. At this point the shape does a good job at making it recognizable as an edge though.

The anti aliasing looks really great, i love the rounded off corners. I will have to see how much of that i can apply in production x)

If it comes to the structural shape i was actually looking at real life references:
I found a kind of rock that would reflect the look i'd imagine for this environment:
Spoiler

I don't know how many are interested, so i will stuff the upcoming wall of text in spoiler tags.

Research/References
Spoiler

I did not find out what kind of rock this is in the small amount of research i did on rocks. What i found is (even though i probably should know that) that different minerals have different structural representations, which is also depending on environmental circumstances.

Basalt for instance for forming the famous giants causeway in its majestic hexagonal patterns, or dolerite which has similarily right-angled but more irregular patterns.
It is amazing what kind of formations rocks can have and i will try to bring a few of those into the game.

I'll look deeper into rock formations (hehe, get it) to get an understanding of how they work.

When it comes to caves, having watched a bunch of documentaries so far, it seems a mixture of earthquake heavy areas and wet climates as well as soft(yeah right) rock are really beneficial to that.
The largest cave discovered for instance (in length i believe, not depth), Hang Son Doong in Vietnam. So inspiring!
In one point the ceiling collapsed (forgot the term for that occurence and cant dig it up) and there formed a forest. In the cave. 400 meters below groundlevel. with a frickin skylight atop. its so gorgeous! (pic 13 in that slideshow shows a bit of that)

Otherwise a really interesting cave is the crystal cave below naica mexico. The materials, atmosphere and temperature in that cave were just right for the crystals to form (i think its around 60 degrees in there, so in order to explore it the scientists had to wear water-cooled full body suits and i think it was quite poisonous in there). The crystals are huge, but interestingly they're of ordinary nature.

The cave's largest crystal found to date is 12 m (39 ft) in length, 4 m (13 ft) in diameter and 55 tons in weight

I'd love to bring such elements, authentic(but still artsy) caves, structurally as well as functionally into the game. But let's take one step at atime

Also when looking for image results i just stumpled upon this: Kailasa Hindu Temple
Wow mad inspiration! If you know any more of those sites, lemme know!

Plot/Story/What is going on!?
Spoiler

Initially the idea was that you fall down a cave for whatever reason and cant get back up, the only way is deeper down where you find movement upgrades, very metroidvanian, but at the same time arbitrary.

Since i'm a big fan of mystery, legends and ancient cultures i wanted to integrate that so you would stumble upon the remains and ruins of a lost civilization, very much in the vein of chrono-triggers ocean palace. That again felt kind of arbitrary and not very well thought out. Having a culture that advanced hidden away in such depths doesn't make a lot of sense.

My current take on this, very much inspired by lovecrafts mountains of madness and shadow out of time, is that the remains you find are both very "not sophisticated" (for lack of a better term) architecture, with some mysterious devices. I.e. in shadow out of time the great race lives in cities made of giant stone blocks, but they have the ability to travel in time also. its a very interesting premise, both highly advanced and antique.

It's a similar design to what they had in indiana jones - the fate of atlantis. A city built of, and with, primitive (ha, thats the word i was looking for! thanks brain) tools and materials, yet they have a machines miraculously drawing power from oricalcum and even transcend the form of people.

I'm still not sure how all of that will form the game. its not much more than a blurry image at this point.

The general premise is that you're a geologist, journalist or something along those lines doing research in an area with recent seismic activity where you're caved in, or get lost in a cave, driven by your desire to discover and explore.

One thought was, with the afore mentioned high-tech ancients, that you find pieces and devices that would allow for certain mechancis. Respawn for checkpoints for instance. (i just love giving mechanics a reason )
With a more mystified approach i thought it could be interesting that you find a device of whatever description. It is used to store knowledge and experiences from previous owners, so when you respawn, your previous death was more of a premonition.

This device could have led the ancients to increase their knowledge and capacity far faster than the actual technological process (nevermind the existence of that device to begin with, magic, aliens or whatever ). This results in a very primitive state of existence, but the ancients themselves being highly intellectual and knowledgable, probably more on a psychological or social level.

I know it could use some more thought and fleshing out, but it's just a draft, as most things at this point.

Gameplay/Mechanics
Spoiler

As previously mention, initially it was a metroidvanian platformer with arbitrary upgrades lying around, ready for you to collect to advance to new areas by increasing your movement repertoir, wallruns, doublejumps, airdashing, etc.
As the idea developed (which it did more in the last 3 weeks than the last 2 years actually) I tended to stray away from the idea to make it a precision platformer but a more narrative and urr..emotional? atmospheric experience. I want to tell a story, not by a lot of words, but by imagery, locations and exploration of the unknown depths.
This led me to a more authentic approach, both in environmental design and game mechanics.

I mentioned the frame/animation-based movement like rotoscoped games did in the animation thread before, and thats a path i want to take, or at least try to see how it feels. I want the player to feel that the character has limits. a 3 meter high wall cannot be easily scaled by an ordinary person.

Obviously the environment design needs to accomodate for that. There needs to be some kind of challenge. I'm still struggling with that part.
I want to have environmental puzzles.
You'd need to loosen rocks by causing some chain reaction to advance instead of just power-dashing through brittle walls.
It might be a little like a point and click adventure in that sense.

Use rod with boulder > boulder smashes onto large stone plate > plate levers a bigger boulder out of the way.

I'm still uncertain about combat.
I wasn't a fan of combat for this game from the very outset, and given the current setting it wouldn't very well fit it.
I could imagine the occasional critter or monstrosity blocking your way, but you'd have to get by it in a cunning way, by tricking it, more so than directly fighting it head on.

This game should feel like an adventure, an exploration into the unknown where you find unusual but intriguing places, where you feel lost but at the same time are driven forward by curiosity.

A vague image, but an image non the less.

Wall of text mode over.
Just writing this helped me get a better vision of the whole, but i'd still be curious about your thoughts on it.
If you have any pointers, ideas or remarks, let me know


Quick edit since i forgot to mention:
I am fond of the previous approach to the rock design. the irregularity would tickle the mind, suggesting shapes, ridges etc.
At the same time though, a lot of manual paint-over would be required if i apply that treatment on the whole environment. Additionally, i felt it too distracting.
That, plus the tile count would be far less with this method. A limit i'm quite uncertain off where it is at this point, so i don't wanna overdo it just yet (if it at all exists for a game of this scale).

[Ai]

I think realistically, Erekt's edit is much closer to a 'comfortable' level of light; I don't really want to look at your colors for very long to be honest.

It's about interactable surfaces being readable. AFAICS. It's fine to have your background all black/blue and really faint, but you need highlighting on surfaces that the player's eye needs to pay attention to. (don't have to make the entire base color brighter, but the edges, at least, need to be clear.)

Stylistically you are going fairly close to Flashback / Out of this World, that might be a good research path -- they manage both bright and dark feeling environments while keeping things very readable. Prince of Persia is another good example with similar perspective setup + dark but readable environment.

[wzl]

Thanks for being honest but it!

I agree, looking at it in comparision, it feels much more readable and you dont have to squint or zoom in to determine whats going on.
I still have to learn a lot about how colors work, especially how they interact with eachother.

I'll look some more at another world specifically, since i've heard it being compared to that quite a lot. I'll try to recognize what they did to make it feel dark without using actual (and more importantly only) dark colors.

[ErekT]

I'll look some more at another world specifically, since i've heard it being compared to that quite a lot.

That was my thought too especially looking at the level layout above. "Mmm, this has a pleasant Another World-ey fizz to it".

No hocus-pocus to the color tweak. I just upped the contrast, hue shifted more between green and blue, and lowered saturation for darker colors. This mimics the way our eyes pick up colors; the less light a surface receives the less color the eye is able to pick up. Which is why everything appears undersaturated during night time. Also, blue suggests cold. Green can suggest dampness but it can also suggest organic. Too much green gives your cave almost a mossy look.

Ai is right about readable surfaces, the backgrounds need to play a double role of aesthetics/mood and gameplay functionality.

Here's another with lower contrast. Lots of room for tweaking. Experiment with those colors and light levels, go wild What software are you using btw?



Plot/premise sounds good. The details of the plot is something I think you don't have to worry too much about beforehand as long as you have a clear enough idea to act as a general guideline. Imo the details can emerge naturally as you hammer stuff out. You'll avoid the contrived "three act"-whatever feel to story structure too.

Cool talk about development from the sole creator of Another World here:
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014630/Classic-Game-Postmortem-OUT-OF