Lost Fortress gallery - Project status: DEAD.

[Skaz]

Hello everyone !

First of all, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm 28, French and an hobbyist artist. I've stalked the forum for quite a while, and i feel like participating could be a good thing. I'm currently working on a game project, using game maker. It's a platformer / RPG / roguelike / dungeon crawler, the line is still very blurry between those elements, I'm working on the engine for now. I started this project by making some pixel dwarves, and I felt the urge to see them running around, that's how i started. The animations of the dwarf is the very first piece of pixel art I made, he's currently very bland, carrying no item and is dressed poorly. I made him as a place holder and a base for the upcoming classes I plan to make, so refining it could be a good idea before making a sprite that will be in the game "for real".

As you can see, the images are quite small, giving a retro feeling I was looking for. It's also faster to make stuff, witch is one of my top priority : if I want something to be finished, I can't spend 10 hours on an idle animation, or 3 hours on a stone texture. I have a full time job and do it as a personal project. I want a lot of enemies, a lot of textures and furnitures, a lot of unique stuff. Pixel art was THE way to go.

This topic will be edited with new elements as I make them. Comments, criticism, advices are welcome.

A few concepts arts.






Yes, I like beards, beer and bears. And dinosaurs.

Dwarf animations :










I might make the dwarf one or two pixels taller (and larger), because right now he's just a little bit taller than the blocks of my levels, which makes it no-so obvious that he can't go inside 1 bloc high tunnels. Where goblins can go, because they're really small. It would make the dwarf a bit bigger, larger.
Done.

Goblin's animations :
       


He's quite nervous.

As you can see I've tried to work wit very limited palette, I want the result to be clean, smooth, quite minimalistic. I spend a lot of time right now on codding, so i won't have a lot of new stuff to show in a near future, but I'll post a few screenshots when i will have enough textures to show something.

Thanks for reading !

skaz


Bonus : Very early screenshot.



[EDIT] : new stuff in, old stuff out.

[Rosier]

I would recommend axing the extra shades on the goblin. It's too small to have so many colors in it, especially in the body and necklace.

It would make it more readable, and probably shorten the process a bit.



Otherwise, everything looks pretty good to me.

[Skaz]

Thanks for the reply !

Actually you are completely right : I was planning on making arts with a limited palette but it got out of hands with the goblin... Colours look noisy, I will cut the palette, badly.

I reworked the dwarf, but didn't made him taller, i made him.... shorter ! He will now be able to go in 1 bloc high tunnels, allowing to interesting game play. I made a turnaround, to allow me to make more fluid animations, less "side view", a bit more volumetric. The palette was cut, too.


Comments, criticism welcome.

[EDIT] made the turnaround 16 frames instead of 8.

[jahasaja]

I just came here to say that it looks great.

Really good animations and good idea to keep the colour count down.

also if you want edits upload in the original size...

[Skaz]

So, it's been a while. But i've been mainly making code for my game. Actually, it's not totally true, I remade all of the dwarf sprite, to a maximum 15 pixel height. :






I've also made a few artworks, mainly to let my brain breathe a bit.



Yes, I'll put dinosaurs in my game. IT'S MY GAME, I DO WHAT I WANT, AHAHaha.... I feel like a small kid. I can make it myself? Ok, so I'll poor everything I love inside, even if it makes no sense whatsoever. Exactly what I'm doing. Feels good.

Comments, criticisms welcome.

EDIT : a very early screen shot can give a small idea of what I'm trying to create. also, cute little heaths. <3

[0xDB]

Hm... the style of those dwarfs appears to be heavily Warhammer inspired, especially the one with the mohawk resembles a Slayer pretty much 1:1. This could probably lead to legal troubles and so my only suggestion at this point is to change the style into something which does not look like a rip-off.

The animation themselves are smooth and good. I like miniature stuff like that. 

[Skaz]

Yeah, the slayer is a slayer, but I made him mostly for fun. He will not appear in the game. The base, blond dwarf will be the character, the player will equip him with weapons / armours, the sprite will just be covered by those elements.

Thanks for the comments ! It's really funny to make something that small look alive.

[Skaz]

Hunting down a T-rex might require some powerfull hardware.

[Lux]

Nice animations on the dwarf character; they have a good sense of weight and gravity. One thing that bugs me is that his legs seem a bit stiff on the run cycle- I think it might help if his knees bent a little more. Otherwise, good work.

[Skaz]

Yeah, the more I see the run cycle the more I find that 6 frames was a bit cheap. It's one of the animations the player will see the most, let's not make economies on it ! New version with 8 frames, feels way more inertial. also, jumps a bit higher durring the cycle.

New 8 frames :

Old 6 frames :

[Decroded]

cool animations.

i suggest reviewing your palettes.
at a glance i think the yellow hair is a bit too saturated in stark comparison with the black and grey of the rest of his outfit (which is pretty bland).
for hair peraps consider a hue-shift from orangey-brown dark to desaturated yellow for bright.
that would be the main saturation point for the sprite so you could have the outfit be desaturated but I'd say at least put SOME hue into it even if its just some brown or something.
i also feel like the skin is too pale for a gruff dwarf and it is too close to hair colour, perhaps give some more contrast and use browns again in shadow.

[Skaz]

Thanks for the advice !

Actually, I'm not a good reference when it comes to colours. You've already guessed it, it's not really something I'm comfortable with. And you are completely right, it's really too flashy as it is, but I couldn't figure out how to fix that.
So, I used some very blond lady photos, and tried to make a way more realistic palette with that. Something I'm having a hard time with is that colours only work together, and by tweaking them one by one I'm always in doubt. Another problem is, with blond hair, it's really the gradients and subtle brilliance that do the trick. And I'm having only tow colours... So, yellow was a lazy solution, but did what I wanted... Anyway, your advices taken into account, here is an attempt to fix that flashy stuff !

 

I think its WAYYY better, but as stated above, I'm not the colours guy. Any advice or edit is welcome. Despite the fact I use really low resolution sprites, I want the game to feel somewhat realistic in its atmosphere. To feel a little moody, as it will take place underground in an old, dusty abandoned place. So obviously, saturated colours should be eliminated without pity.

[Lux]

Yeah, the more I see the run cycle the more I find that 6 frames was a bit cheap. It's one of the animations the player will see the most, let's not make economies on it ! New version with 8 frames, feels way more inertial. also, jumps a bit higher durring the cycle.

New 8 frames :

Old 6 frames :

Definitely an improvement, I love it.

[Skaz]

Thanks Lux ! I'm also really happy of it, considering the very minimal effort to add tow frames and make little tweaks to the other frames. Looks way more alive.

Anybody having comments to do on the new palette ? Would like to make sure I'm not missing anything before modifying all the other sprites ^^' (which is quite a lot).

Oh and also, as programming goes, I've added a feature :


Opening and closing not animated (yet).

WEEeeeeeee..... FLOP.

[EDIT]
And the new palette :

NEW                                                                                                    OLD




To continue on the black powder killing spree, here is the first gun shoot animation. There will probably be a second one, the same, seen from the other side so the character can akimbo like a badass a pair of guns. But I'd like to make sure the same gun sprite will be compatibles with both scenarios (with the depth of the object).



I'm so glad I made the turnaround, I use it a lot to give volume and depth.

[Skaz]

Sooo it's been a while. This is going to be a closing statement, as this thread is obviously dead, as is the project itself. I've learn a lot while trying to make this game, at pixeling and animating as well as coding, planing, and all the other stuff.
If it can contribute to give advices to anyone out there, especially if you want to start a game, so it won't bo totally useless 

Start small. I should have started smaller, I learned a lot while doing, only to realise today that, if I were to try to continue the project, I'll have to start over, from scratch (art stuff not included). The code is a MESS. I should have targeted a minimal game, maybe a single level, only tow weapons, one type of enemy and make an arena fighter game maybe. A proof of concept for the platforming and combat gameplay. Not a whole metroidvania game.

I should have considered the time it would take to complete this. A simple calculus would have shown that I DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH FREE TIME. Unless you target a 5 years project and don't care about deadlines, you should take time into account.  Simple as that. Today I think about another project, and I made simple additions. I know I must limit myself, in sprites number, and scope, or nothing will be achieved.

I have taken those advices into account and I'm currently working on a small SHMUP, the pixel art isn't fabulous, but it's made to achieve ONE GOAL : BE COMPLETED. It's important. Complete something, then you can realistically try something bigger.

I'll close this with a screenshot from the latest stage of development. Rocks, rock blocks, rock background, cosmetic rock blocks, ROCKS EVERYWHERE.



Thanks to everyone how took time to give me advices and encouragement. Now, ONWARD!


BONUS:

Might be useful, my "policy" to make platforming easy and level readable:


Sprite sheets used in the screenshot above. Levels were made of blocks, texture adapted automatically:




The mighty SLIME CUBE and the undeads:



Bye bye project!



- Skaz

[Cheykh]

I dont know why but i absolutely love the rifle shooting animation!
Great job all around

[Skaz]

Just browsing old sprites, and found this. A headbanging dwarf. It's so METAL, I have to share :p


It was the damage taking animation, just tweaked a bit.

[wzl]

too bad it is canned. I'd love to play headbanging dwarves

[Skaz]

My programming skills will have to improve greatly before I feel confident enough to make a whole metroidvania game. But who knows? The sprites are still there, and they won't get stale.

I'll have to finish my SHMUP first :p

But someday, maybe...

[Decroded]

I can code metroidvania...jus sayin 

[Gil]

I might lend a hand as well, it looks like a fun game. I can code, draw, do music, whatever.

Reminds me of the secret santa I made for dustinaux

[Decroded]

Ahh that's it!
It wasn't feathers that dinosaurs had it was grass!