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Feature 11 - Pharaohs Return (C64)

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Lazycow:




More about Pharaohs Return in the web:
- youtube teaser
- devlog homepage (lazycow)
- the gallery (pixeljoint)
- gameplay infos (tigsource)

Hi, this is a mockup for a game with C64 restrictions. Using a 320x192 multicolor charmode screen here, with raster interrupts every 32 lines, which splits the screen in six 320x32 zones with selectable background colors and multicolor colors. (scoredisplay is build out of sprites in the border) I tried to use C64 restrictions to make the pixeling easier, but these C64 color restrictions in multicolor charmode made some problems...

The main problem for me is that the freely selectable color for each 8x8 block has to be one of the first 8 colors. But the "good colors" (browns and greys) you want to use for backgrounds are in the second half of the palette.  >:(

Any suggestions? Or am I on the right path already?

PypeBros:
neat ^_^

Some colours (or at least non-grey) on the sprites could be welcome, both for visuals and for readability. Iirc, the C64 had a "mixed" mode where some chars would be 4-colours while others are regular, monochrome (and hi-res) chars, too. That could be handy for e.g. your red bricks.

Oh, can't the background colour be brown and black be one of the 3 foreground colours, btw ?

rikfuzz:
Is this an unofficial sequel to Pharaoh's Curse?  That was my very favourite game as a kid!

Pixel work looks good, but I'd sorely miss all the bright colours and interesting 1 screen maps (or at least slightly denser).


Don't know too much about C-64 restrictions I'm afraid, but it's this thread is pretty interesting to me!

Lazycow:

Sorry about writing so cryptic stuff...  :-[ short version of this screenmode:
- In multicolor charmode, each 8x8 block can only have one of the lower 8 colors. The background color is the same for all blocks. (for each 320x32 pixel zone)
- a 8x8 block can be a multicolor-block. Then the block has double-wide pixels and you have 2 additional colors that are the same for all blocks. (for each 320x32 pixel zone)

@rikfuzz: I wouldn't name it "sequel", but... well, ok, yes, there's this Pharaoh and he returns... sort of. Right now it's just a mockup. (Your screenshot looks like Atari, by the way)

@pypebos: yes, there's too much grey in there. Selecting the colors is actually my problem. But I have examined some C64 screenshots and they all have more or less the same strange color combinations. So maybe there's no optimal solution. (Yes, i could set the block colors to black and use that black for background, I have setup the 3rd zone in the 2nd pic like that. That works, but as you have observed, it looks very grey...)

Lazycow:

old -> new

Update.. I tried to make the caves more colorful. Most C64 screenshots seem to utilize the block color for the hilight, so I tried the same here. (using yellow, cyan and green) I kind of love and hate these C64 color restrictions. Still too dark...  :-\


Sprites! Hero, Pharaoh, Mummy, Snake, Bat, Scorpion.

The three "humans" use two overlayed sprites. (a hires sprite on top of a multicolor sprite) This would eat up precious sprites and memory in a real C64 game, but well... I couldn't draw a reasonable figure without that. (there are some real C64 games which did that, too)

All multicolor sprites have to share 2 colors. (here, it's orange and dark grey)

Items: Whip, Dynamite, Gun, Magazine, Bullet, Keys, Potions. (multicolor sprites)
Additional keys and Potions. (this time hires sprites on top of chars, which effectively gives 2 colors)

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