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Pixel Art Feature Chest / GR#224 - Castle of the Winds - Gameart Revamp
« on: January 13, 2014, 08:21:19 pm »
...is a fondly remembered shareware roguelike for windows, probably a bit dated looking on launch! (in 1991), 16 colour windows icon palette and quite basic ‘programmer art’ no real detriment to its playability (procedural dungeons help as does a pretty sweet bestiary and breadth of items and magic). The game’s about beating up hordes of monsters, taking their lunch money and exploring the great unknown; pretty addictive.
I think the sprites are an interesting challenge for a remake in terms of presentation: not scaled with size or related in space to the map, (almost) static; potential for playing with perspective and cropping. I'm sticking to approximately the original restrictions here for the authentic experience.
Screens on Mobygames
Youtube playthrough
Pretty great breakdown on Strategywiki
Download (now released in full as freeware, should be fine on XP, not so much Vista+)
Player avatars: not at all tempted to give them any more clothes, I think the blue underwear is quite iconic. Wasn’t sure about the Simpsons skin (also tried dither as the original), but I think it works dampened by the grey midtone, and in context of the colour limitations. I’m trying to avoid outlining everything despite the palette. Thinking now that the female version was supposed to have braids so might try that later.
No animation for the guy because I couldn't settle on a nice anticipatory resting frame at the time, and I’m a bit sick of him right now. I sort of stumbled onto doing the attack frame animations while sketching alternate poses and I’m really glad for it. Quite aside from the characterisation opportunities it really helps to get a better feel of the character in space, and to break out of more obvious solutions on corresponding frames, I’ll be doing this more in future.
First bunch of monsters! (there’s about 60 or so in the game, aka more than I’m realistically going to have a go at). I’m quite pleased with the giant rat and little humanoids (Goblin/Kolbold), despite some suspect footwork goblin wise that I may revisit (it being retroactively designated animation), not quite convinced with the neon snake yet; maybe it needs some markings/colour variety. The bat’s flapping is a poor excuse for an attack I know but I dunno where to go with that; darting forward a bit? A little red mouth would contrast alright. Monsters are only ever seen on the white dungeon background so any colour combo is fair game.
I think the sprites are an interesting challenge for a remake in terms of presentation: not scaled with size or related in space to the map, (almost) static; potential for playing with perspective and cropping. I'm sticking to approximately the original restrictions here for the authentic experience.
Screens on Mobygames
Youtube playthrough
Pretty great breakdown on Strategywiki
Download (now released in full as freeware, should be fine on XP, not so much Vista+)
Player avatars: not at all tempted to give them any more clothes, I think the blue underwear is quite iconic. Wasn’t sure about the Simpsons skin (also tried dither as the original), but I think it works dampened by the grey midtone, and in context of the colour limitations. I’m trying to avoid outlining everything despite the palette. Thinking now that the female version was supposed to have braids so might try that later.
No animation for the guy because I couldn't settle on a nice anticipatory resting frame at the time, and I’m a bit sick of him right now. I sort of stumbled onto doing the attack frame animations while sketching alternate poses and I’m really glad for it. Quite aside from the characterisation opportunities it really helps to get a better feel of the character in space, and to break out of more obvious solutions on corresponding frames, I’ll be doing this more in future.
First bunch of monsters! (there’s about 60 or so in the game, aka more than I’m realistically going to have a go at). I’m quite pleased with the giant rat and little humanoids (Goblin/Kolbold), despite some suspect footwork goblin wise that I may revisit (it being retroactively designated animation), not quite convinced with the neon snake yet; maybe it needs some markings/colour variety. The bat’s flapping is a poor excuse for an attack I know but I dunno where to go with that; darting forward a bit? A little red mouth would contrast alright. Monsters are only ever seen on the white dungeon background so any colour combo is fair game.
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