AuthorTopic: [WIP] [C&C] Turn-Based Strategy Mockup  (Read 8544 times)

Offline The 7th Sin

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[WIP] [C&C] Turn-Based Strategy Mockup

on: May 30, 2011, 03:31:58 pm
Hey all,  
I recently had a the inspiration to produce a mockup of an Advance Wars style game.
The cornerstone of the project, however, is that I want to only utilize a four color palette, which consists of black white and two shades of gray.
I'm still working on a concept for the over-world map, that will be coming in the near future. is here and animated, just in need of refinement.
So, onward to  the pictures.













(still a work in progress)


*Faction Emblems*
See Below!

*Maptiles*

Current Overworld Map


*Animations*









*Latest Images*

Brand New Units rendered in three beautiful dimensions.
From Left to Right:  Halftrack:  Halftrack Artillery: Heavy Tank:  Heavy Tank Machine Gun variant: Walking Tank: Light Tank:  Light Tank Machine Gun variant: High-Altitude Bomber.
Also, slight palette variation following EyeCraft's suggestion.



Updated Emblems to reflect new Palette.

Black Hat Military Services  (A ruthless band of mercenaries)


Civilian Service Corps  (A fighting force made up of volunteers, defending their homeland)


Mobile Engineering Force  (A less ruthless band of mercenaries who specialize in vehicles and construction.)



Any comments or critiques are more than welcome. ;)
« Last Edit: July 12, 2011, 04:06:46 pm by The 7th Sin »

Offline Psiweapon

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Re: [WIP] Turn-Based Strategy Mockup

Reply #1 on: May 31, 2011, 12:08:54 am
Hey! They're cool! :D

You've captured the advance wars feel quite well, also it's nice that you're able to present it in such a small size and just 4 colors!

Offline The 7th Sin

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Re: [WIP] Turn-Based Strategy Mockup

Reply #2 on: June 14, 2011, 01:56:16 am
Bump, with some new content.

Offline The 7th Sin

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Re: [WIP] [C&C] Turn-Based Strategy Mockup

Reply #3 on: June 16, 2011, 10:05:50 pm
Bump with new Animations.

Offline The 7th Sin

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Re: [WIP] [C&C] Turn-Based Strategy Mockup

Reply #4 on: June 22, 2011, 03:40:29 pm
Bump with Emblems. :)

Offline EyeCraft

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Re: [WIP] [C&C] Turn-Based Strategy Mockup

Reply #5 on: June 23, 2011, 09:01:40 am
I've made an edit to try to show some issues I see with this piece:





I will attempt to explain my changes.

A big issue I see running through the pieces is contrast affecting readability. Try squinting and looking at your level mockup and see what is most visible to your blurry vision. This is a good quick way to read what contrasting elements are dominating the composition. To me, the water and roads contrasting against the ground absolutely dominate the entire scene. These are really just background elements, so you generally don't want them taking all the eye's attention. For this reason I lowered their contrast against the regular ground tile.

Next is real estate utilisation. You've got a whole 16x16 tile describe something, so you might as well pack as much information into that space as you can (as long as the tile stays understandable). This means exaggerating proportions of your subjects to get as much information about the scene viewable as possible. Look how big I made the roads, for example. This has an additional gameplay benefit - you can quickly see the grid. Normally that's an undesirable thing, but in a tactical game where each tile type has specific effects on your decisions, you do actually want the grid to be pretty obvious. With my edit, it's much more apparent exactly where a city begins/ends, or a mountain, or a road, etc.

The next point is a little more difficult to explain. You want to keep the contrast down on all these elements as they're background elements and sprites still have to sit on top of them, so you want them to be pretty low contrast, but you still want to give them enough detail to make them understandable to the player. How I have done this (it's most obvious with the trees) is juggled the tone balance in each tile. Estimate what percentage of the tile each palette entry occupies. With the trees, over half of the tile's space is taken up by the same colour as the ground tiles, and maybe like 20% of the tile is the second-darkest tone. The effect this balance has is that the trees don't contrast very heavily against the ground, but they still have 3 tones in there to describe the form of the trees. You can see I've done similar things with the other tiles.

Though I've only editted the world-map tiles, this contrast issue carries across very significantly into the battle screens You've got black dominating the screen, I would recommend saving black JUST for sprites, and have that as a running theme throughout the entire project. That way any time you need something to pop, you just lay some black into it. You can use the colour balance technique I talked about earlier to render all the non-sprites with the 3 lighter tones.

Speaking of the battle screens, they are very small. What screen size is this game supposed to run in? Surely they could be quite a bit larger.

Oh the last little thing, not very important, but consider tinting your greys slightly to make it more visually interesting. I tinted the shadows blue and the brightest tone towards yellow, just to get a temperature range happening across the ramp.

I think thats the main things I wanted to say. I love advance wars, and it's great the amount of effort you've put into this so far. I hope to see more.  :)
« Last Edit: June 23, 2011, 09:21:37 am by EyeCraft »

Offline The 7th Sin

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Re: [WIP] [C&C] Turn-Based Strategy Mockup

Reply #6 on: June 23, 2011, 08:34:41 pm
EyeCraft,
Thank you so very much for the wonderful edits and detailed explanations of art concepts lacking my work, it has been a huge benefit in reworking and tuning the problems in the pieces.

In response to your question about battle screen size...
Theoretically I am building this game for iOS and smartphone platforms, The battle screens will be viewed at 4x and the map screens at 2x.

However, I don't know if it will ever become a game, considering I have virtually no experience building games, but I figure it couldn't hurt to build up a portfolio of art and ideas, should it ever become a serious possibility.

I appreciate your art critique, EyeCraft, and really cannot express the breadth of my gratitude.

Sincerely,
The 7th Sin

(Additionally, I have added more content with your points in mind.) :)

Offline The 7th Sin

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Re: [WIP] [C&C] Turn-Based Strategy Mockup

Reply #7 on: June 25, 2011, 03:45:23 pm
Bump with new sprites and tiles!

Offline Yuri

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Re: [WIP] [C&C] Turn-Based Strategy Mockup

Reply #8 on: June 26, 2011, 09:27:44 pm
I miss the original water tiles, the animation was really cool. Maybe you can bring them back and adjust the colors?

Offline EyeCraft

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Re: [WIP] [C&C] Turn-Based Strategy Mockup

Reply #9 on: June 27, 2011, 03:23:04 am
I miss the original water tiles, the animation was really cool. Maybe you can bring them back and adjust the colors?

The problem is it makes half the scene animated, which is pretty distracting. Imagine playing the game for a good 40 minutes or something with that animation constantly nagging your eyes for attention, it would get really bothersome, I predict.

@The 7th Sin: Really, really liking the updates you've done. I think you've really nailed the concepts I brought up. I'm especially impressed with the trees, really clean and readible.

I think you could darken the 2nd-darkest tone just a tad, the tiles are feeling just a bit washed out to me.