Always nice to see another artist's sketches. It's insightful in many ways.
That, and the masses get to shoot down your concepts
before you spend time pixelling anything, hehe. Saves you time, right? You also reminded me moleskins exist; got one in the mail as a result. Hopefully it'll motivate me to keep a better sketching routine. We all need that. Thanks for the reminder.
Way to go for starting up a game project, it's looking beautiful so far! Love the purple darks. The fundamental concept for Deadbird is really interesting. I was thinking this morning during my mind-numbing drive to work how I'd like to see yer design doc/outline, or at least chunks you care to release. You seem to be operating on assumptions about the game's final state, yet I get the impression that it's still very much clay. It's good to not get too far ahead of yourself. Too much backtracking can be a fatal killjoy for any game dev project. My own previous failures taught me that. So just watch out. Hopefully your current burst of ambition can be sustained.
I have some concerns/thoughts for your consumption here, Ryu. As the guy behind this project, you've probably already thought of all or most of this, but I think right now, the most effective feedback you can get is feedback focused on the core of the game - the gameplay, not the graphics, if you really
are looking for a successful game and not simply an outlet for some pixel art. And I think you
are, considering the good concept.
As for the weapon durability thing, which I hadn't picked up on anywhere except for the sketches just posted, like Helm did too I'm guessing - it's a dynamic idea, but one that seems like it should be kept in check - for instance it may be annoying if all weapons "broke" after a while so only crafted weapons would be subject to the durability thing. As a player, I expect that to be frustrating. Then again, during the day you'll be making lots of weapons, so after only a short while you'll have a crapload of weapons, so it makes sense that they break necessitating the creation of more, which supports your gameplay idea for daytime. But still, if I make a cool weapon, I don't want it to break. In my gaming, I get kind of attached to certain weapons; they become an important element in the game, even if they're not meant to. Case in point - Doom's chainsaw. I certainly used that thing when I wasn't supposed to. It became an improvised challenge to see how effective I could melee everything to their knees with it. If it ever ran out of gas and died on me, some of the game's intrinsic fun would've faded, for me anyway. Is it realistic for the gas to never deplete? No. But who cares, dangit!
How are you balancing the warrior/explorer by night mechanic with the crafting weapons/items by day mechanic? I see them as opposites. I'm a pretty casual gamer, too much weapon making seems like it may bore me pretty quickly. But, in a balanced amount, it could be refreshing.
How does weapon crafting work? I'm a former Everquester and am accustomed to the jewel crafting thing where you throw a certain combo of items into the kiln and hit "combine". You either fail or have success, depending on your skill level. Each prest combo is a receipé for a certain result.
Then, depending on what weapon is currently armed, how is this reflected in the player's character sprite walking around? Again, in EQ1, your character could be seen holding only a few different weapons based on what class of weapon it was - the rusty bastard sword, normal bastard sword, short broadsword, etc all looked the same in your hand.
And yikes, your game clock will render the environment of the game to depict time of day? I've always wanted to see this done well. Hmm, Ocarina of Time did do it pretty well, and hey, that's when the skellies and other baddies would attack, like Deadbird here. Had an idea for a website a while back that would reflect the time of day, depending on the user's OS clock. It may seem really odd for a whole day to transpire in a few minutes. How long do you plan to make one game hour, when there's 24 total? Oh hey just had a thought - Alaska's sunlight schedule is all jacked up due to being close to a pole, what if the criminal containment land where you're trapped has the same thing going on, which makes days
very short. This would offer you flexible control over how long a day is. A day may be so short with this in place you'd pray for day to come so you could finally get recharged and mend yourself and your weapons, do your grocery shopping, etc. I imagine it - you're hobbling along, battling ferocious and mean monsters that have nothing but malice and injustice in their hearts, and in the middle of fighting - the enemies you fear are becoming so many they'll overrun you and your weapons are all busting on you and you're really far from a savepoint -
Khaaaaa kuhh kaaaAAAHHHHhhh - the rooster crows and daylight cracks, all enemies suddenly vaporize or run for cover like vampires or those awesome creatures from
Pitch Black. Tell me you've seen Vin Diesel's first good movie.
Well, there's more, but don't want to bore anyone. I'll try and keep up with this thread. I'd appreciate some comments from you in mine, as well. Granted, I
am just bored at work.
To better understand Deadbird:1) What age/time is this game set in? Is it alternate reality or does it take place in our linear past, present or future?
2) What culture is this? It's surely not stone age, your character doesn't look neanderthal, and the reason there are such basic weapons is because that's all there is. This could be futuristic for all we know.
2) Is this a one-man team project? Like Cave Story was. (finally got around to playing it, what a well done little game, wow)
3) What dev kit are you using? You're coding it as well I've gathered. (frightening!)