AuthorTopic: [NES-like] GunRage  (Read 4036 times)

Offline surt

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 570
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Meat by-product
    • not_surt
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/2254.htm
    • View Profile
    • Uninhabitant

[NES-like] GunRage

on: April 13, 2014, 06:33:50 am
Still tooling around with NES-like stuff.
Early and rough.
Not too fussed about memory limitations (still try not to waste tiles), but like to keep to the colour restrictions.
Might later switch to GBC-like if I find those restrictions too limiting.
A few pieces stolen from some old stuff.

Offline Lazycow

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 146
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Do androids dream of electric sheep?
    • flurrycow
    • flurrycow
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/15168.htm
    • View Profile
    • homepage

Re: [NES-like] GunRage

Reply #1 on: April 13, 2014, 09:54:52 pm
Great pixels, stick with NES! Interesting decision to select blue as background color, because I think most NES games seem to use black and use tiles with another palette for the sky. But then the borders need to be square and cannot be round like in your case. (which is appealing)

Another disadvantage is that blue is not very helpful in sub-terran levels. (If your hero wants to enter a cave later on. And somehow heroes want to enter caves quite often in NES games, so it might be worth to think about)

And at least the metal platforms look very fragile with sky as background, maybe you want to add a 2nd layer of metal structure behind. I tried to do a small edit, but either it's too late or that is beyond my current skill level.
A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. Yes we can!

Offline Manupix

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 317
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • View Profile
    • Pixeljoint gallery

Re: [NES-like] GunRage

Reply #2 on: April 14, 2014, 10:01:19 pm
These metal platforms are incredible. It's amazing what a single line of highlight can do!
Since they are so shiny and reflective (that's how I see them), they should reflect stuff though, at least crates and walls (have fun working that into the game mechanics).
Lazycow makes me wonder: is the bg the sky or a wall? I saw this as an interior scene, but then I think it would need cast shadows on that wall.

Offline Sharm

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 243
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: [NES-like] GunRage

Reply #3 on: April 15, 2014, 12:18:06 am
Still love it.  The grassy tops have so much style to them.  The trees in the full sideview mockup with the rounded canopy look a little glitchy.  The hard horizontal lines make it look like it was tiled wrong.  The triangle bush looks out of place and I'm not sure it's even supposed to be a bush.  The tall grass with the seeds on top is a nice touch.  As always you do an amazing job using the palette to it's best.  Love the vines.  The roots look really thick and kind of creepy, they look like they're going to start squirming any second.  I like the cliff walls better on the full sideview, the other ones are just a little too blocky, they look man made.  I think if you just slanted one edge of any of those boxes it would look a lot more organic.  The trunks on the palm trees look like legos, still not sure if that's good or bad, but it doesn't look quite right just under the leaves.  That part's usually thicker than the trunk since it's where the dead leaves pile up until they fall off.

I hope by putting this here too that means you'll be working on it more.  You start so many awesome tilesets and never take them anywhere.

Offline surt

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 570
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Meat by-product
    • not_surt
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/2254.htm
    • View Profile
    • Uninhabitant

Re: [NES-like] GunRage

Reply #4 on: April 15, 2014, 12:36:28 pm
Not much pixelling, just a bit of experimenting:


Interesting decision to select blue as background color, because I think most NES games seem to use black and use tiles with another palette for the sky. But then the borders need to be square and cannot be round like in your case. (which is appealing)
Both the light blue and black are common to all background palettes so far, so either could be the common colour. If it's black then many tile could still be used without the sky, just need to replace the fringe tiles that contain some sky area.

And at least the metal platforms look very fragile with sky as background, maybe you want to add a 2nd layer of metal structure behind.
Yep I'll probably do this selectively. Do want to make sure what the floor line doesn't become ambiguous though.

Since they are so shiny and reflective (that's how I see them), they should reflect stuff though, at least crates and walls (have fun working that into the game mechanics).
Lazycow makes me wonder: is the bg the sky or a wall? I saw this as an interior scene, but then I think it would need cast shadows on that wall.
The lack of subtle colour differences and tile cound limits probably make such reflections rather impractile for the NES. Maybe darken them?
Is supposed to be sky, except the dark grey area which is wall.

I like the cliff walls better on the full sideview, the other ones are just a little too blocky, they look man made.  I think if you just slanted one edge of any of those boxes it would look a lot more organic.
The side-on stuff is an abandoned earlier iteration. Just kept it around as there are still a few element in there I want to keep. I prefer the blocky cliffs to the blobby ones, but I'll try to work in a few more angles.

The trunks on the palm trees look like legos, still not sure if that's good or bad, but it doesn't look quite right just under the leaves.  That part's usually thicker than the trunk since it's where the dead leaves pile up until they fall off.
Trying to minimise the tile count and work within the attribute table boundaries. I can't see how to make the bulge of the old leaf bases any wider without adding another tile each side or offsetting the whole tree half a tile.

I hope by putting this here too that means you'll be working on it more.  You start so many awesome tilesets and never take them anywhere.
So long as my motivation holds out. Kind of builds on stuff worked out on previous ones.
« Last Edit: April 15, 2014, 12:41:27 pm by surt »

Offline PypeBros

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1220
  • Karma: +2/-0
  • Pixel Padawan
    • PypeBros
    • View Profile
    • Bilou Homebrew's Blog.

Re: [NES-like] GunRage

Reply #5 on: April 24, 2014, 07:54:29 pm
lovely roots and in-ground leaves for the jungle set. I get the feeling that your modular palmtree would look more natural if you had some stronger lightning on its bark.