GR#039 - Dark Style Sideview Game - Sprites, Tiles & Mockups

[Dmartian]

Playing a game there has to be a satisfying "Oh I just beat your ass down with my button mashing" feeling to the attack, and these feel like pressing the weak attack button in Street Fighter II.  Style-wise for some it may work, but a bigger, beefier attack would be nice.  Still, I like the animation a lot.

+1. He needs to put more body-weight into the swing; lean back then throw his upper body forward and let the swing follow right after. The running looks a bit weird too, he should lean forward more.

Love the colors and bg 

Use a prime number of frames for the run cycle and boost the in between frames a bit more please. Everyone loves a lush run cycle. If anything, bring out the life of the character through the weight of his step or the soft wave of that fox like tail. You can do this! Prime numbers my friend animate with prime number frames. They boost the max number of non repeating frames.

[Dmartian]

The background in the castle tileset might be a tad too light.

Strongly disagree.

[Gromit]

Thanks for the comments, I appreciate it. When I finish my term I can really devote the time back into this and implement these suggestions so don't think I won't!

@ ErekT, Thanks. I totally agree with you on jump animations it seems to be common complaint that there needs to be more frames in those. The reason it's like that is 1, I thought I could wing it with just one frame and 2, I just got to the point where I wanted the sprites done so I could work on the other classwork.

@Noiprox Thanks, I will come up with some new pose ideas that are more functional and post them here.

@Dmartian Thanks, I'm fairly new to animation and so it's quite a weak area for me. It's an area I want to get a lot better at though. I've noticed prime number animations a lot in the book The Animators Survival kit but I haven't devoted enough time to really reading it properly I don't think.  I'll take a more detailed look at all of the examples and make a new run animation from that.

It's looking like most of the animations will need redoing from all the feedback I've got up to now, none of which isn't a bad thing as I think I can do a much better job this time in probably half the time. I'll post up the roughs for these first however and work on getting the motion down before getting down to the actual sprites.

Again thanks for all the comments.

[lithander]

I gave the demo a try! I'd really love to play a game like that. Please finish it! Have you considered to make it in Flash to make it accessible to a broader audience?

Critics:

I liked overall style but it doesn't seem very practical. It's hard to discern what's foreground and what is background. Maybe this article can help you to make your tiles be more functional in the context of a game.

I also really liked the character animation but jumping felt off. I think you should have a dedicated animation for the jump, the air part (falling), and landing. Also a parabolic movemenpath would feel more natural. Currently it seems have constant horizontal velocity either upwards (right after the jump) or downwards.

Lastly the torchlights in the caves are odd. They seem to add strong speculars but don't really make the viscinity or character any brighter.

[Skyfort]

Most excellent tech demo =) I personally did not have any trouble with the brightness or with discerning foreground and background...but I think that's because there isn't anything to interact with yet, so everything is really background. Once there are enemies and items and suchlike, we will see how difficult it is to differentiate.

Besides an overall grin of appreciation, I will just say that I found his knees to be surprisingly shiny while I was playing, as bright as his sword and belt buckle. Is it supposed to be ripped pants? If so, you may want to yellow them a bit.

That is all Good show, good show.

Oh, one other thing -- I thought the standing attack animation had him pausing a little too long after the slash, compared with the crouching one which felt faster. I think the overall time the slash takes is fine, but it feels slow because of the way he holds his sword motionless for a moment after striking. (Like, "haha! I sword you! I am a wolf! *pose*"). I only really notice it if I attack while running.

[stormweavers]

I gave the demo a try! I'd really love to play a game like that. Please finish it! Have you considered to make it in Flash to make it accessible to a broader audience?

Thanks!

The goal is to bring this to mobile (android and iphone). It might be a bit delayed as Gromit might work on a smaller game first, but stay tuned this will be a fully released game.