AuthorTopic: Exploranaut Game Project [WiP] :: feat. mockup  (Read 6013 times)

Offline Grimsane

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Exploranaut Game Project [WiP] :: feat. mockup

on: March 24, 2010, 02:42:10 pm
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//i may start posting some of my game mock up stuff here ow wait rephrase its actually playable i am building it in engine after a mock up actually it won't hurt to post a primitive early concept

the colours are ugly though i reckon, and that background was kinda hap hazard maybe too busy, and the screen resolution is now 320x240, the mockup is GB res, because i was actually making it in 4 colours and 8x8 tiles full GB restrictions but soon just broke away from it. so um yeah some feedback on that will be nice too
copypasted from previous post,
moved here as to Jad's advise and this is a brief description i posted on PixelJoint
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and i am working on a game project, i started with a 4 colour palette wanting to do a original GB style game, but soon found myself going into colour, and seems I have no colour restrictions at the moment but i will possibly create and retroactively impose a colour palette. this mockup was mainly testing my tileset.

I have a set of animations for the main character, well basic and kinda lame but i am working on it, i have a playable build too i am working on implementing features at the moment its just the basic mechanics jumping collisions and such, nothing fancy yet. oh might add that early mockup was still at the GB rez it's now 320x240.

premise: you play as a bounty treasure hunter who flies his starship to locations; ruins, wrecks, ancient dead cities of once prosperous alien races etc. and are given a list of artifacts to recover by your client, if it goes to my plan there will be some RPG elements weapons,handy kit and possible armour upgrades. some loose greater plot elements to tie it together, and possibly some sections later where you are pitted against rival treasure hunters, might work well as multiplayer 'get the treasure first' kinda thing, but i am not ambitious or confident enough to even imply i am going to do a multiplayer mode (unless someone wants to do some net code/or develop a splitscreen plugin for the engine) oh  ::) ramble ramble..
« Last Edit: March 25, 2010, 09:12:17 am by Grimsane »

Offline Grimsane

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Re: Exploranaut Game Project [WiP] :: feat. mockup

Reply #1 on: March 25, 2010, 09:16:13 am
Update:

here some additional art.

really rough character concept, needs detail refining but I've also left it basic so it doesn't influence the sprites too heavily.


here is a collective gif of most the animations i have, very simple very low frame rate, still very close to the original game boy idea (especially the size) obsolete going to re-sprite at higher res feedback still welcome.


and this is my latest meddling i am upscaling/repixelling them to better suite the 320x240 resolution i am now using.
very wip and alot of minor variation i really need help with the direction, would appreciate ideas feedback on which direction looks more aesthetically pleasing, i have a bunch of arm cannon variations but i decided the one i included was the best all round but it is a tad big  ::)

also would like feedback on colour, i could just go blue all the way but i wanted to include variety of armor (even if they are just recolours)

and yeah it is kinda going in a metroid/megaman direction it seems (arm cannon and armor changing)  ::)

//snip yeah i know sorry just having a hard time with alot at the moment, no excuse though really.

(i did have this edited onto the bottom of my first post a few hours ago but I'm posting seperate now seeming as edits don't bump your thread and i don't want it to be overlooked, hope its not a double posting offence...)
« Last Edit: March 25, 2010, 04:16:33 pm by Grimsane »

Offline Jad

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Re: Exploranaut Game Project [WiP] :: feat. mockup

Reply #2 on: March 25, 2010, 10:36:35 am
Dudelydude, you say that, yet you have only posted once in a thread that wasn't yours! And I don't even think that's a bad ratio - but the demotivated rant is very sulky.

But sure, begging can work once in a while.

I'll go quickly: Everything has its own distinct color and nothing unifies the different colors in the scene. Since everything else shares a blue-gray-violet color scheme the eye is immediately drawn to the lower right because of the saturated yellow that is there. Think about what you want your scene to convey, and then try to give it colors that help with this feeling. Try to give all shadows and highlights a certain tint, that will make everything seem more a part of the same world.

In all its simplicity I think the little sprites you made are very efficient. I think that you're issuing highlight a little too sparingly, with single pixels or lines - try to blob it up a bit. This is course my personal preference : D

Also your 3d models are pretty sweet ' 3 ' they show a good understanding of form and lighting. Of course you have the talent, you silly billy. Not a lot of comments often means that your stuff is so solid that it's hard to find immediate flaws with them. Keep hanging around, give some of that sweet critique and believe in yourself. But no comments about them here, this thread should be about your mockup.
' _ '

Offline Grimsane

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Re: Exploranaut Game Project [WiP] :: feat. mockup

Reply #3 on: March 25, 2010, 05:09:31 pm
thanks I'll take all that into account, good points all round.

the mockup itself was really a rather rushed re-colour of my initial GameBoy idea and I now notice I've not taken any of the important factors into making the palette or overall feel, i think i will most likely make a brand new tile-set, and a more 320x240 friendly one to boot.

and thanks for giving me some moral support I really appreciate it, and i know no one is obligated to so thanks and an extra thanks for being the only one to comment on both my threads so far, but i will be patient and just appreciate the replies i do get, actually you've given me some much needed motivation which I'll apply right now! :)

sorry about the 'sulk' just been getting stressed out lately a lot of things happening and a lot of unfortunate events... and seeing the page count on both in the hundreds is a bit daunting seeing [views 276][replies 0] on this one kinda made my sanity implode :sry:, also wasn't much to reply too i suppose  ::) ,thanks for your patience, hope those that read it didn't judge me too harshly, because i did come across as a bit of an ass...  ::)

Offline Jad

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Re: Exploranaut Game Project [WiP] :: feat. mockup

Reply #4 on: March 26, 2010, 10:07:02 am
A great deal of people lurk the forums, I don't even check the 'views' number, because it basically signifies nothing. Simply because nothing will get FEW views ever on the forums. Views can go up to 500ish before the first reply, it's normal.

Also a possible explanation is that single line 'wow, that looks great' type comments are discouraged on this forum and your piece is actually quite solid except from that it would benefit from more color unification and that the pattern in the BG steals attention. It's easier to comment on something that's got some glaring eyesores : D
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Offline zez

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Re: Exploranaut Game Project [WiP] :: feat. mockup

Reply #5 on: March 28, 2010, 10:31:32 am
Im really digging the direction this is going in, but there where a few minor things that caught my eye. On the darker one, with shoulder pads (top right) the left (my left, his right) shoulder looks a little off, like its coming out of his neck almost. I would move the arm (and shoulder pad) back one pixel, or possibly make the arm bent inwards, covering his body, as apposed to outwards. In the bottom sprites of the blue one (Im assuming the player, as it looks the friendliest, and was the only one in the mockup,) I cant really read whats going on with his hand. Im assuming the middle one is it turning into some sort of megamen esque blaster, and if thats the case it reads okay, but the other two, I honestly have no idea whats going on. If its a melee weapon of some sort, Id face it in to the body, and have it slightly obscure the leg, to make it look at least somewhat readied, otherwise Im totally stumped. Lastly, in the brown sprite, when he is facing to the right, his blaster arm disappears, and although that is correct with the angle (and actually kind of cool, Im way to used to left and right sprites just being flipped) it makes the blaster itself appear more phallic then (I imagine,) you intend it to. You could probably remedy that by making him reach across his body with his other arm and grab the barrel (although, as soon as I typed that I realized how much worse that could be,) like he does in the facing left animation. If you want, I can do an edit sometime when it isnt 4 in the morning.

Offline Grimsane

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Re: Exploranaut Game Project [WiP] :: feat. mockup

Reply #6 on: March 31, 2010, 08:58:58 am
Frustration levels are really high at the moment, my phone sucks and keeps deleting everything so I've tried posting this 4 times, having to completely rewrite it everytime.....
So bare with me if it gets incoherent,  I'm still trying because i see it as important to update everyone on What's happening and reassure you all I've not just abandoned or forgotten about this thread or the community on a whole (had some feedback and an edit to post at the time my net stopped),

okay firstly the reason why I've been absent a week, I've had some gripes with my internet provider some rather adverse issues, that they have failed to aknowledge or even attempt to remedy them, due to this and the fact the issue was contributing to that i couldn't get online, and not to mention the outsourced indian customer service who obviously couldn't care less, i cancelled the service, i should if i can deal with the amount of follow up and hassle, be making a complaint to the telecommunications ombudsman, other than that, the culmination of recent events has led to the decision to move into a new place, so I'll be dealing with all that that entails.. And right now i'm struggling to get this darn phone to do what i want it too, i'm posting from mobile if you hadn't already figured that, actually first chance I've had to read the replies too,

okay, now on-topic;

@Jad thanks for clarifying the situation on the page views, now that i know its normal its not as worrying, also thanks for your explanation on why you think not many people have, and i'm pleasantly suprised at the conclusion that my stuff is reasonably solid, coming from someone with a portfolio such as your own thats quite a confidence boost especially with how amateur I consider I am. And yeah that purple diamond eyesore was emitted pretty quickly, it never even made it into the game assets I've been systemattically compiling,

@zez thanks for taking the time to critique, that sheet was mostly experimenting, the mid row with indistinguishable objects in hand was just me experimenting on what type of weapons and items i could do in such a low pixel space, most fall flat and just don't read well, as for the far right, that started as an experiment to see how i could change the look of his armour without just a simple palette change, it was actually the armor of a milatant organisation the player later infiltrates in guise, the overall design of their outfits have changed, I've since adjusted alot and a few things you mentioned have probably been solved but I'll be sure to experiment with your suggestions, and lastly your the first of to perceive his cannon as phallic although i should have seen it as inevitable, in game with the swaying animation and while seen being tilted in the turn transition which i somehow nailed, in game its hard to see any phallic resemblance as It's establshed in 3 dimensions by the time your in that view,


also seeming as i can't upload anything from my phone(not through a lack of trying) I'll give a brief run down on some the assets I've created, some NPC sprites, (including an amphibian alien race with an unnatural obsession with headwear, most everyone will have a different hat or cap or form of headhear, even a Zelda-esque item trading side quest involving hats xD might even open a thread when i get internet back, doing some form of collab attempt to sprite as much unique hats as possible for them :crazy: )
also another NPC worth mentioning is the biologist who later accompanies you in your travels, and gives you a device to incapacitate alien wildlife from the various planetoids so you can capture and bring to him for analysis and suitable compensation for your efforts,  I could keep going on about the concept and ideas, but I'll try not too, also done a multilayered parallax background, and the space ship itself, which Is 80-90% done and no matter how much i redesign usually ends up looking like Samus's smart ship, which i guess isn't inherently bad, has a descending elevator, tried 3 main ideas, steel hydrolic shafts but looked too clunky, some steel tethered cables, and a tractor beam, the latter a are decent, its the wires at the moment, and I've done some other misc tiles and props, would be better if you could see but regrettably seems i won't be able to for awhile,

probably forgot to rewrite some stuff, and sorry if the formatting is horrible hard to do on my phone, also the memory doesn't allow me to store more than 1000 characters so I've had to do write 4 individual txt files through a java app, or i would have lost it all again,..... i need a new phone :roll:

Offline zez

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Re: Exploranaut Game Project [WiP] :: feat. mockup

Reply #7 on: March 31, 2010, 09:01:54 pm
Yeah, I spose the brown guy's gun wouldnt really register like that nless the first time I saw it was it facing that way (It totally was, seeing as I read left to right, so my brain kinda went 'huh whats coming out of his crotch, OH its a gun.... heh... heh....' and it probably doesnt help that I am about as mature as the average 6th grader.) It sucks that your internet and housing situation got owned, Id be really into seeing more of your work on this, it kinda makes me want to do a platformer, but I think Id honestly rather just play yours XD.

Offline happymonster

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Re: Exploranaut Game Project [WiP] :: feat. mockup

Reply #8 on: March 31, 2010, 09:20:45 pm
I also really like the style of this. Perhaps some of the patterns in the the tiles and backgrounds are a little distracting to the eye, but it certainly has a retro charm which I like. I agree with Jad that the colours are design aren't consistent, but you explained why that is and is something that can be rectified.

Hope to see more work like this.. Good job! :)

Offline Grimsane

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Re: Exploranaut Game Project [WiP] :: feat. mockup

Reply #9 on: April 08, 2010, 11:46:59 am
Thanks guys :) glad people are digging the style I've found a primative way of uploading something, my phone's memory stick registers as corrupt on PC so i can't do that bluetooth don't work data cable drivers don't work either hmmm, so i took some snaps with my crappy mobile camera so you guys could take a look at some of the progress, forgive the blasphemy that is uploading images of this poor quality, especially on a pixel art forum...
landing site:

Imporium of fame and curiosity on the city space station Uboreus:

assorted NPC sprites and Gamble frames:


The character now also has a name Gamble
also a rival exploranaut Strife is featured as a hall of fame statue in the space station image, (he is a refined version of what was the original character planned to be the player a year ago when i created him and an unfinished mock up with no real concept besides the name exploranaut)
and also be aware there is interlace banding going on in the shots so there are regions of horizon which are infact just visual artifacting,
been designing the HUD, the landing site was the first iteration, if you can make it out well enough tell me which HP guage you prefer, and that sprite sheet is just a small portion only 2 frames of the 8 frame turn animation are there, its hard to judge from these images but feedback and crits are welcome.



sorry again for the poor quality images, with PC internet being about a month away, and a desire to update everyone on progress i thought this would have to do,hope the images work because it was the only mobile image host that worked for me