Johnny J

[wzl]

It's interesting that so many are reminded of another world. It wasn't a (conscious) inspiration at all. I barely played it and only seen some screenshots of it over the years. Yet the more i learn about it, the more i realize how close this is actually becoming.

The talk was amazing. Really interesting topics, especially about the ups and downs in the tension. It was quite insightful.

Thanks for the input with the palette. I've been reluctant to change the colors too much, as you can see in the history of this thread. I don't even know why, if it's not good, ctrl-z that stuff. I've opened up some more to experiment with more drastic palette changes Also it is quite fun to do! Hooray for learning!

here are some variations i've come up with just for fun's sake. Not saying they're awesome or i'll use them, but i found they have an interesting feel








I'll keep playing with it, but so far 1 is my favorite. The second one has an interesting feel on its own but applied to the bigger mockup it felt so lost.


Oh yeah, i'm using aseprite. Ptoing showed me some pro motion features some time ago and ppd was advocating graphicsgale. I'll check those out some time aswell, but for now i'm ok with ase's feature set, and i like it's workflow.

[TheWing]

As far as I recall, Another World had is palette be quite exclusively different shades of grayish blue, which made it feel more desolate than dark (at least in my mind)... Ofc it has other colours, and to support the feel, those other colours are brighter and generally a bit more saturated.. the general palette being blueish and rather gray. In many screens Another World also has a lot of empty space, which is usually quite dark, making it feel darker without obstructing the view too much; no actions happen in the dark outsides. And to top it off, the game has very flat shadings and sharp shadows, eliminating some borders of stuff.. at least in cutscenes I believe?

I really like the jacket, makes up for good spelunking-gear !

[ErekT]

Nice!

I'm drawn the most to the second and fourth I think but the first one looks cool as well. They're all good tho. Least interesting is the bottom one imo. Good call on downing the saturation.

Aseprite? I need to check that out. I'm using GraphicsGale myself. ProMotion seems very very good as well, probably better in fact, but the interface is something I'll need to get used to.

[wzl]

Did some modifications to the mock-up, using the first palette and slightly tweaking the brightness and saturation.

Did some work on the lava part and lower level cave. not sure about either. doesn't feel quite right yet.






Minor palette changes




Some more work on the lava.
Fixed the waterlevels to not be physically impossible 

I thought it's cool to have different collision layers even, so in the rightmost part you could decent or go the upper route. Splitting the otherwise flat gameplay up a little.

And again more palette mods

Also played around with palette cycling. Mostly just to try it out for now. Pretty cool, if somewhat unpolished, result i think.

[Decroded]

added a few colours for some messy rock texture experiments...


i'm big on establishing trust with the player through clear visual language.
a general rule for this is to establish a hierarchy that when u blur ur eyes u can still clearly see things that r important to gameplay.

some ways i attempted this:
- aligned everything to a 16 pixel grid
- there is a roughly 2 pixel highlight where the solid edge is rather than a vague large flat area
- climable rocks use a similar but slightly darker shade than the solid edges to make them stand out and appear interactive. the texture here is also more detailed (made of more smaller bits) and regular than surrounding parts, which further attracts attention.

not sure i like the climable rocks but just wanted to mess with the idea.
the other perhaps more typical option was to put holes and small knobs in pattern.

[TheWing]

added a few colours for some messy rock texture experiments...


i'm big on establishing trust with the player through clear visual language.
a general rule for this is to establish a hierarchy that when u blur ur eyes u can still clearly see things that r important to gameplay.

some ways i attempted this:
- aligned everything to a 16 pixel grid
- there is a roughly 2 pixel highlight where the solid edge is rather than a vague large flat area
- climable rocks use a similar but slightly darker shade than the solid edges to make them stand out and appear interactive. the texture here is also more detailed (made of more smaller bits) and regular than surrounding parts, which further attracts attention.

not sure i like the climable rocks but just wanted to mess with the idea.
the other perhaps more typical option was to put holes and small knobs in pattern.

That's damn neat pix-art, but looking at what wzl has been going towards I don't really see the link between these.. to put it shortly, to me that doesn't fit the style he's been going on with.

I also can't imagine anyone drawing a whole game worth of scenery on that level of detail.. tho I do like longer projects more, and this would of course lengthen the project

Great work anyhow, looking really awesome !

[Helm]

Don't be afraid of it, do it. It doesn't take as long as it seems. It's just a matter of systemization.

The animation style for this game, I simply adore. I love sprites that walk the proper amount of pixels for their animation, that don't glide. This attention to detail should be present to every pixel of the tilework as well. Don't be afraid, do it.

[wzl]

Wow, just wow. That is damn sexy decroded, thanks for taking the time!

And also i feel like 

That is some impressive work and i feel a little overwhelmed here. I've been looking at it for the past half hour, trying to figure out what happened.

I really dig the floor, how you added the highlights front to back, how it transitions into the wall below.
The color ramp is really atmospheric, and placing the highlights on the climbable area really helps making it more obvious.
I find it interesting that the far background is sort of bright and desaturated. it works really well and the mid-background really helps breaking it up.

I think the biggest part of it is the amount of shades you introduced. It helps so much breaking things up into just-environment and actual important parts, without being too obvious with it.

Also, damn you! Now i want to apply that level of detail to everything! Oh boy. And here i thought i could get away with the simple and easy route. No sir. I think i can't now
I'll place this into the mockup as reference and see what i can make of it.

I'll be firing up my stream and play around with it.

[Kazuya Mochu]

as a sugestion, if I may, I think that on the rock faces that you have on your level, and considering the flat colors on your character, I would remove the highlights from the cracks.
The highlight sugests a chanfered face, wich doesn't seem to me to fit the style.
Something more in the style of "Another World" would make more sense with the character. Im not saying remove the highlight all together, but if you have one, take out the other. SO either shadow, or highlight. not both.

edit with sugestion



but something like this


notice rocks in the back

[wzl]

ah good point kazuya. I wasn't quite sure where to shade or highlight, so i did both x)
I will try to pay more attention to how light behaves.

So i was working on the mockup tonight. After trying to ape decroded's style i realized it is not all too different from what i was doing in the earlier stages of the mockup, except tons more detail and rendering! (also purpose and not randomly thrown in boxes)



After simplifying to my latest design i felt alright with the new style at first, but it lacked character, at least in the stage it was.
I feel kinda glad being back to a more detailed approach, even if it is more work. It pays off since its more fun, for both me and the player eventually

Here's my rework.



I removed the ceilings as well. While i liked the idea of having ceilings in a cave they serve no actual purpose, since you will not be able to reach them anyways. I'll still use them where necessary though.

I guess i won't get around creating actual tile-sheets now. Oh well. I guess bits of repetition aren't all too bad

Thanks again for the inspiration