GR#056 - Platform Adventure - Sideview, Scenery, Sprites

[KevinTrepanier]

Running Animation : he should stretch his legs further in front. He also looks like he's missing a frame just before he puts his foot back on the ground (both sides). The missing frame is also visible with the hands at the same moment.

[Ninja Crow]

His leading foot, in frame 2 and frame 6, isn't swung far enough forward, so that when (in frame 3 and frame 7) it hits the ground to take the weight, it's completely flat and the heel is behind the knee instead of under it to firmly take the weight (usually the heel touches down first, not the whole foot).  So if you shift the foot forward in all four frames, it should look more natural. (the brain will perceive the action of his foot moving further in the transition from frames 5 to 6, and frames 1 to 2, than it does in the other frames, as the foot swinging out to quickly take the weight -- just like in real running -- this variation in timing makes it look less robotic.  I notice you have already done something similar in your walk animation, which looks great!)

Also, I used to mistakenly use the head as a reference, and the body would animate underneath it, but having a non-moving point in a run animation just didn't look good, so I had to learn to 'bob' the head naturally.  But I notice that the hips of your soldier are similarly stable in space, so maybe you might want them to shift up as he kicks off the ground, and then come back down?

Otherwise, I just want to say that your project looks terrific, and there's a lot of impressive work on display! 

[Decroded]

Thanks for feedback guys i'll update when my gf leaves me alone long enough to keep working it lol.
I couldn't decide how cartoony or realistic to make it but maybe ill just go all realistic animation like flashback. Makes all the other characters harder though. Need so much more practice!!

[Decroded]

Ok didn't get to working on animation but been pushing pixels for a few hours on various stuff so thought I would post the progression I've made with the default player stance.
Happy enough with colours but if anyone has any tips or crits please share.
Having some trouble with the shield too, can't quite resolve it :-/




Just screwing around here with some other tile ideas:

[Decroded]

Sorry to post again but I have a question as I'm kind of stuck at the moment.
I can't decide on a good resolution for my game so please can I get some ideas what would be good to go with?
The resolution of the big old images at the top is still what my engine is running which is great to give heaps of play area in the game, but when it comes to drawing backgrounds at that resolution I'm just not getting anywhere and it feels like I've bitten off more than I can chew.
I'm using Game Maker and just playing on Windows at this stage but maybe one day I can redo in a real language and port to xbox live etc.

With 32px tiles @640x352, thats 20x11 tiles.
How I came to this is probably ass-about face as I wanted a wide-screen resolution (still do I think) so I divided 1920 / 3 so I can have nice chunky triple pixels.
I know this is probably a stupid question but I just can't decide what resolution to go with :-/
What would you experienced guys with a game this style?

[8bitbeard]

That really depends on what kind of game you want to make.
Example - Will there only be close combat (which would allow a much smaller resolution) or will the player (and enemies) be able to shoot projectiles (which will need some more gamespace to be seen, so a higher resolution)?

I personally really like the smaller res you have on your very first image in this thread.
 

[Decroded]

That really depends on what kind of game you want to make.
Example - Will there only be close combat (which would allow a much smaller resolution) or will the player (and enemies) be able to shoot projectiles (which will need some more gamespace to be seen, so a higher resolution)?

I personally really like the smaller res you have on your very first image in this thread.
 

Yes and yes - lol I think thats what makes it awkward for me.
Melee combat as well as ranged weapons and magic spells such as fireball.
What actually happens at the moment movement is WASD and the screen moves around to follow the mouse cursor for aiming as far as until the player gets near the edge of the screen (a bit like cannon fodder).
I'm actually disabling mouse input very shortly though in favour of keyboard/gamepad input and the mouse control features will remain hidden until I want to use them in a future game.

Maybe I'll go with something like the small one but add a little to the sides to make it a bit more widescreen format which would allow for some effective ranged weapons.
Thanks.

[yrizoud]

Filling a scenery of 640*something with interesting pixels is already quite some work.
Note that if you must make enemies appear offscreen randomly (a classic  ), having small characters relative to the resolution will put more useless scenery at the edges of the levels : at these places the gameplay is simplified because attacks will come from only one side.

[Chris2balls]

i think you could do with more contrast, less colours and a bit more saturation, because readability is an issue.
here's an exagerated solution:

the player's colours still blend in with the background, but i think you understand what i'm getting at.
the treasure chest has way too many colours and consequently gives it a very soft rendering. try shift the tones to give it a more metal-y feel to it, because for now it's saturated yellow stuff.

[Decroded]

Whoah nelly thats a bit extreme for me Chris2balls but I have taken your comments on board and made some tweaks to try to improve readability.
What do you think now? Do you think it needs to be pushed further?

I tweaked the player sprite's  dark metal and leather to red to try to bring it forward off the background and played with saturations and tones to try to decrease focus on unimportant elements like the green cloth.
I also removed a colour from the metal ramp.
Tweaked tile colours and some minor improvements.



This is looking like the resolution I will run with: 448x288px / 14x9 tiles.

Still need to remove some unnecessary colours such as on the chest and potion perhaps.
As far as chest colours go I was really going for dull tarnished brass with wood (I know the bent wood makes no sense) rather than gold and whatever that red stuff is...