perspective observations

[Grimsane]

yeah place-holders/ pre-animated assets are more often than not jarring to test with but definitely suffice for their purpose.

I've been using Arne as a point of reference for my Minecraft type game for the 2600 as far as character proportions. I think I'm going to go with a Tall & Short groupings like Dwarves versus Elves kind of.

interesting btw the 2600 is one of the highest restriction consoles there is no? i wondered if it was the first but found out about the "Magnavox Odyssey" but i think that is 1 bit colour 2600 being it's successor to some degree


and yeah It'd be a pain in the butt to produce that style either way most likely for the artist, or whoever got relegated to generate the tilt frames, although if it was just coloured primitives or indexed frames i could see how it might be able to be more efficient than rasterizing 3D planes (mainly only applicable for old tech), although memory wise if done frame by frame it'd take up quite alot more. seems kinda fruitless and time wasting to bother with the capability of any PC from the last decade.


I'm quite a fan of Landstalker, Dark Savior is basically a sequel as it was developed by the same studio, I recently discovered and started playing, Light Crusader cool thing about it is that it has free 8 directional movement, weird thing is you can push all the NPCs including ones that are attached to chairs and tables


that trailer made me feel that the game was kinda iRobot the game and yeah it's a bit tried, i was always cynical, being of the opinion that robots would only ever do exactly what you program them to do, so fearing them was ridiculous, but I've seen quite alot of evolutionary and self learning computers for it to be marginally plausible under the worst conditions, it's not ridiculous however for robots to kill, sadly military robotics has already gotten to that stage, remote control maybe but still close.

I enjoy the idea of evolved digital "life" with capabilities equal if not surpassing our own, mostly in a utopic context though

[BladeJunker]

interesting btw the 2600 is one of the highest restriction consoles there is no? i wondered if it was the first but found out about the "Magnavox Odyssey" but i think that is 1 bit colour 2600 being it's successor to some degree

That is an understatement. It can take months as opposed to weeks to figure the best way to tackle a game design on the 2600 just on the restrictions alone. As a collector I can't say I have any interest in the Magnavox Odyssey1 since it was just a complicated board game that didn't really require a TV to play the games but the Magnavox Odyssey2 interests me, however its hard to get one for a reasonable price or just to find the carts at all.
The MO2s main restriction is a lack of custom sprites since the character table is like 95% fixed but just like Lego you can use some creativity to make some interesting game scenes.

and yeah It'd be a pain in the butt to produce that style either way most likely for the artist, or whoever got relegated to generate the tilt frames, although if it was just coloured primitives or indexed frames i could see how it might be able to be more efficient than rasterizing 3D planes (mainly only applicable for old tech), although memory wise if done frame by frame it'd take up quite alot more. seems kinda fruitless and time wasting to bother with the capability of any PC from the last decade.

Oh I know its all old news with retroware and it definitely applies less and less to PC gaming as we progress but consoles still represent a fixed point in time so to speak and offer interesting challenges.

I'm quite a fan of Landstalker, Dark Savior is basically a sequel as it was developed by the same studio, I recently discovered and started playing, Light Crusader cool thing about it is that it has free 8 directional movement, weird thing is you can push all the NPCs including ones that are attached to chairs and tables

Ooo that's a another good title, art direction wise kind of western-ish with Dark Savior looking kind of like the middle ground between Landstalker and Light Crusader no?
Yes its always been a debate on the best way to offer movement from an isometric perspective(Tank VS Free) but I've always felt most people just want the avatar to move where they point the joystick towards.

I have to say I quite like the idea of pushing NPCs around in their chairs.

that trailer made me feel that the game was kinda iRobot the game and yeah it's a bit tried, i was always cynical, being of the opinion that robots would only ever do exactly what you program them to do, so fearing them was ridiculous, but I've seen quite alot of evolutionary and self learning computers for it to be marginally plausible under the worst conditions, it's not ridiculous however for robots to kill, sadly military robotics has already gotten to that stage, remote control maybe but still close.

I enjoy the idea of evolved digital "life" with capabilities equal if not surpassing our own, mostly in a utopic context though

I can't say I fear digital life at all since it would be nice to have some kind of legacy for the human species instead of none which I simply base on our apparent contempt for nature lol.

Oh I know military robots are not my favorite idea for robots either but what else would they do but kill, armies don't travel the globe offering hugs. I guess it all ties into where scientists can acquire funding which is usually war, makes me think of Metal Gear Rex and Otacon and their mad tango.

Still its not all gloom & doom since Japan and academia have plenty of robots not designed to kill people that could turn into something wonderful.

[Grimsane]

That is an understatement.  It can take months as opposed to weeks to figure the best way to tackle a game design on the 2600 just on the restrictions alone.

yeah I can imagine that, sounds painful, and is like a masochistic thing to do in the current era although the restrictions give you strict directions and choices, and is a challenge to be had (albeit it a tad masochistic )
and the Odyssey2 sounds interesting to some degree, wouldn't mind seeing the screen space restrictions and character set, see what's possible, it fascinates me what imagination ascii level graphics and below can evoke in the right context.

Still its not all gloom & doom since Japan and academia have plenty of robots not designed to kill people that could turn into something wonderful.

yeah, quite a few interesting projects, including the evolving self-learning automatons like Asimo and a few other creepy ones 

yeah definetly has more of a western feel, and a darker type of game that wasn't too common on the console, but I've noticed dark mature style games were more common on the Megadrive/genesis, probably in part due to Nintendo's strict attitude toward game violence and their power as a censor, I also find funny that games that got approved by Nintendo quite often got scrutinized and censored in the US, like pentagrams being removed, blasphemy being altered, and an example fresh in my mind Shadowrun the morgue was called the chop shop and it was censored in the US and just called the morgue quite sure there were a few other examples in that game alone, also that game was developed here in Australia by Beam software who later went on to became Melbourne house, apparently the keyword acquiring dialogue system wasn't something that had been done at the time.

and Dark saviour has a much more anime feel, like mature 80s anime, and the gritty scifi theme wasn't western persay, but the character's were less SD LandStalker making it lean toward Light Crusader in that respect, if that counts. and haha I think it's just plain weird, ruins the illusion for me that was one thing that made it feel a bit odd, the puzzle mechanics often rely on the less than stellar slidey/pushy physics, I prefer the grab crate drop crate mechanic in landstalker, less frustrating too.

I can't say I fear digital life at all since it would be nice to have some kind of legacy for the human species instead of none which I simply base on our apparent contempt for nature lol.

sadly I agree with you there to some degree, I've never feared it either, but I am cynical and weary of man's potential to ruin everything including the intentions and function of digital "life forms" 

[BladeJunker]

yeah I can imagine that, sounds painful, and is like a masochistic thing to do in the current era although the restrictions give you strict directions and choices, and is a challenge to be had (albeit it a tad masochistic )

It depends, for a pixel artists its like Hell but to a programmer its Heaven since its pure code and they do all tasks themselves with complete control unlike their jobs in real life. 6502 machine language is hard but any coder worth his weight should have a strong grasp of assembler or similar languages since its all about the fundamentals with retroware.
Don't get me wrong since there are a wealth of tools made by some very nice and talented people but beyond the basics or typical defaults of the 2600 is where you have to do a lot research.

and the Odyssey2 sounds interesting to some degree, wouldn't mind seeing the screen space restrictions and character set, see what's possible, it fascinates me what imagination ascii level graphics and below can evoke in the right context.

Thank you to atari2600land for finding this and posting it for me to see.

Not quite as much variety as ASCII but more specific in shapes. There's also a line drawing unit I don't quite understand yet but I see how it works.

yeah, quite a few interesting projects, including the evolving self-learning automatons like Asimo and a few other creepy ones 

Yeah the "androids" are the worst since maybe 1% look approachable.

yeah definetly has more of a western feel, and a darker type of game that wasn't too common on the console, but I've noticed dark mature style games were more common on the Megadrive/genesis, probably in part due to Nintendo's strict attitude toward game violence and their power as a censor, I also find funny that games that got approved by Nintendo quite often got scrutinized and censored in the US, like pentagrams being removed, blasphemy being altered, and an example fresh in my mind Shadowrun the morgue was called the chop shop and it was censored in the US and just called the morgue quite sure there were a few other examples in that game alone, also that game was developed here in Australia by Beam software who later went on to became Melbourne house, apparently the keyword acquiring dialogue system wasn't something that had been done at the time.

Nintendo had some bizarre puritan ideals back in the day that is for sure. What makes me laugh most is that more often than not you're fighting evil not joining it EG. Doom,Splatterhouse, Devil World.
Interesting to hear about Australian game development since it doesn't come up often.

and Dark saviour has a much more anime feel, like mature 80s anime, and the gritty scifi theme wasn't western persay, but the character's were less SD LandStalker making it lean toward Light Crusader in that respect, if that counts. and haha I think it's just plain weird, ruins the illusion for me that was one thing that made it feel a bit odd, the puzzle mechanics often rely on the less than stellar slidey/pushy physics, I prefer the grab crate drop crate mechanic in landstalker, less frustrating too.

I know what you mean, mature 80s anime was my first experience with that world, Akira is still a favorite, Golgo, gritty time that was compared to now.
Yeah I too think picking up objects is a game mechanic that is totally underutilized.


I saw some of your perspective works in other threads, very nice and you seem to have a great grasp on the subject from many angles.

[rikfuzz]

where somehow it's frame was calculated by its vertical height on screen, it kinda looks like its melting (looked too melty without colour change) whipped up extremely fast, in the right context and if you look at it as such could reproduce some fake foreshortening and vertical camera rotation. Wonder if anything like that's ever been attempted 

I have!  It wasn't really noticeable, I was disappointed.

got it in a viewable or playable form? would like to see what that looked liked even if it was disappointing

It was a few years/computers ago.    I had a look on my ftp but couldn't anything.  Just quickly put this together for you tho:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1534394/perspective_test.html

Pretty quickly put together, just use mouse to look around a bit.

[Grimsane]

once my eyes adjusted and I realized the purple planes were walls it looks quite effective, might look even better from a further zoom/larger screen space, how much effort is it?

I did some animations like doors that would work similarly if you have to have frame by frame of each angle, ie retaining the texture/material readability while it skews into the background, it's not too much effort with any image manipulation program with a competent transform tool minor tweaks and adjustments

actually I have a demo I did with that in it, kinda off topic but might as well post it, short game I was making awhile ago, using a visual engine, basically the same as having SDL libs and game related functions, you need to code everything in C /C like script. only real benefit is it's slightly more artist friendly in that you can lay out graphic data visually, other than that it isn't very similar to MMF, GM or construct which are fully fledged WYSIWYG engines

I'll install drop box or something and upload it soon, It is relatively primitive and I actually used a rather heavily edited Redshrike skeleton sprite, and animated it with a walk cycle and stab attack, I should probably try finding or ripping them and offer them as free supplements to Redshrikes Open creature sprites, should probably create a dump thread, got alot of stuff I wouldn't mind sharing with everyone.

oh looky here, found my backup of my old PC,





done quite awhile ago and they are quite rough.

I actually learned 6502 assembly, made some basic ascii art on a legacy device lol, it was a mobile assembly language program, its main purpose was to familiarize and practice, it did effectively cement my understanding of what even modern CPUs do with instruction sets and it's a good thing to understand even as an artist.  interesting character map, haha yeah nintendo and the various rating authorities, germany still being the worst followed not far by ours and until now lacking an R18+ rating on videogames. there is or atleast was quite a prominent presence of game development in Australia, Vagrant story was a really good game, and that had crate hauling puzzle mechanics etc, and we should start another thread an Chat lounge or something this thread's getting more and more OT

well I need to get on these challenge entries 

[rikfuzz]

once my eyes adjusted and I realized the purple planes were walls it looks quite effective, might look even better from a further zoom/larger screen space, how much effort is it?

This version wasn't any effort at all, the 'top' layer (dark purple) is just scrolling faster than the bottom layer.

In the original I had all the vertical positions calculated separately, cos the top of the screen always showed the 'front' edge, and the bottom of the screen always the 'back' edge.  (So the character was always the centre of the view).  Would probably look weird though, in top down view, cos the character art would be proper 'top down' Alien Breed style.  (My original one was a platformer where you could see the top or bottom of the platforms). 

[Grimsane]

This version wasn't any effort at all, the 'top' layer (dark purple) is just scrolling faster than the bottom layer.

In the original I had all the vertical positions calculated separately, cos the top of the screen always showed the 'front' edge, and the bottom of the screen always the 'back' edge.  (So the character was always the centre of the view).  Would probably look weird though, in top down view, cos the character art would be proper 'top down' Alien Breed style.  (My original one was a platformer where you could see the top or bottom of the platforms). 

actually seems interesting, It all depends on how and when the effect is in action, if you had a platform game with a ground plain, and the tilt would reinforce their gaining of height seeing the bottom of the tiles would emphasis the illusion of perspective, as if you were a viewer actively watching and tilting your vision up at the player as they traversed higher altitudes, if it is a relatively cheap effect (effort wise) that can be pulled off to look correct, I think it would be an interesting thing to pursue, looks a hell of a lot better and by the sounds of it easier than the before mentioned method used in inner worlds of a disconnected series of parallax layers.

and a minimalistic game would work quite well, as  I understand it that method you just did would have the exact same texture shifting above and below the platforms which will take alot of effort to look natural (and not just like the layer sliding up and down) when it is just a solid colour that issue disappears