16px platformer

[Decroded]

woke up feeling "sketchy" after all the festivities 


was in the mood for a simple, bright, colourful and super-generic lo-res mockup.
crits and edits welcome as always.
might actually make this playable once ive caught up with my studies.
will have to up the screen res a bit though.

the sprite might need some design work i couldnt think of anything interesting.

does this animation look OK?

i tried moving the belt buckle as his hips moved but it was too flickery looking and didn't have any joy with subpixel.

[wolfenoctis]

Hey cute mockup Decroded 

Some thoughts on the animation:


Your shield and sword seem a little out of sync with the movement of the body

[Decroded]

Hey thanks bro I'll check that out.
I was originally going to have more movement but thought it would be too much but now I see it looks better actually.
I'm thinking I should keep him as close to staying within 16gb as I can so he can run through single grid space.
I think my version goes 1px over which is probably ok or if it looks bad in practice I'll have to trim him down a bit.

EDIT: Small updates.

Stole some ideas from Wolfie:
 - frame time
 - foot lighting
 - more movement
 - arms jerk BACK faster than forward

...and discarded others:
 - extra pixel height for technical reasons
 - those feet even though I can't stop laughing at them

Still feels like I need to make movement a bit more sudden but I got into some iterations of the hero:

Again stole some ideas from Wolfie and abandoned others.
The character is not dissimilar from something he's designed in the past but I'm trying to take it in a more simplistic and cute direction.

I think I can get away with the plume hanging outside the 16x since its not really solid 
Background now tiles.

[Tidbit]

Here's an edit I just threw together.

I felt that there were a few lighting issues on the helmet and the rest of his armor so I made the light source for the helm, sword and shield all from the upper left so  that it matched the tree and chest. I also added a bit more depth to the chest piece and tweaked the legs below which I feel helps him stand out a bit more from the rest of the world while still looking like he belongs. Also changed and raised the face by a pixel in height and played with the grass a bit. I really like where this is headed so far, can't wait to see where you take it!

[Decroded]

Dark-foresty type environment


Edit: tweaked levels of foliage layer

[hobbler_toppler]

Those trees on the closest layer of the background look really nice. Good job with the leaves. It looks like you're having a lot of fun with this.

[Decroded]

Here's an edit I just threw together.

I felt that there were a few lighting issues on the helmet and the rest of his armor so I made the light source for the helm, sword and shield all from the upper left so  that it matched the tree and chest. I also added a bit more depth to the chest piece and tweaked the legs below which I feel helps him stand out a bit more from the rest of the world while still looking like he belongs. Also changed and raised the face by a pixel in height and played with the grass a bit. I really like where this is headed so far, can't wait to see where you take it!

Thanks for the edit Tidbit
I like your ideas especially looks good for a static image.
But for technical reasons I've stuck with the highlighted feet and solid white sword with partial outline because I found this combination stands out well against lots of backgrounds.

Those trees on the closest layer of the background look really nice. Good job with the leaves. It looks like you're having a lot of fun with this.

Thanks. Tempted to add backlighting for extra wow factor but can't really get away with it at that res without ruining readability.
Feels like the ground tiles are a bit noisy though so I better rework them at some stage, maybe come back for another pass after some new environments.

[Decroded]

haven't been too confident with leaves in the past so more clustering practice.

process:


edit: just realised i output these wrong showing old layers behind so fixed that

[DawnBringer]

Love this stuff. But be careful about giving background objects too much detail...the new tree may be pretty; but it now jumps out and competes for focus.

[JoeCreates]

I quite like the new tree, though the contrast of the trunk is rather different to the contrast of the leaves, which looks a bit odd to me. Wouldn't think the darkest patches of leaves would be so much lighter than the darkest patches of trunk.

[Decroded]

Thanks guys you're both right 
Maybe I'll just darken leaf shadow to blend with trunk then reduce contrast across the whole tree (tool then tweak).

Self crit:
I also feel like pixel clustering is OK but could definitely benefit from more experimentation.
The leaf structures might look more interesting with more variation in the gradation between light and shade to make some more shadowy clumps.
Maybe just something to keep in mind for next time.

[alexashby]

Really liking the mock up so far! One thought I had was the sword was a little close in value to the background and blended in a bit to much I felt.

Made an edit to show my thoughts!

[Decroded]

took on comments.
decided to keep brighter background for that minty fresh feeling but added a touch of outline to the sword.

tweaked the tree and foliage a bit more.
once i try out the assets in-engine i might end up fading the tree a bit more so it doesn't interfere with the action.

process:


attack animation!
wanted to keep it cute and simple 

[Cheetah]

Great improvement on the tree with the cluster study. I'm concerned that you are using too many colors. If you are going for a simple/cute look at such a small size, having less colors often brings up the readability. For instance, the tree now looks amazing with the number of shades per color because it is so large. But the character and the treasure chest look a bit muddy.

However, looking at it at 3x does work alot better. So I suppose just something to be mindful of.

[Decroded]

Yeah I know what u mean cheetah it's been in my head too.
Number of colours is such a trade off. I've tried to keep the count down despite recently adding another shade on the knight's armour.
I doubt the game will render any less than 3x so it's good u think it looks OK at that res as that's how I'm viewing when I check readability.
I've also tested the sprites against a range of backgrounds and they seem to pop OK in practical gameplay terms.

Nothing is set in concrete so I guess I'll proceed with more assets for now and address any serious readability issues later

[Decroded]

more development and small animation test for basic slime monster.

thanks to wolfenoctis for colour suggestions 

[Pinux]

I just noticed brown pixels in the water under the bridge

[alexashby]

Looking good so far Decroded! Your solution to the sword works well too

[Decroded]

I just noticed brown pixels in the water under the bridge

Thanks Pinux. Fixed.

[Cheetah]

I was liking your run cycle, it had a lot of character and bounce. The sword swing is just so flat and generic though. Right now he is just swing in a straight line down, maybe try to add some left to right motion. So instead of up to down, it is more of his top left to his bottom right. That could be is standing attack, if the guy is running and attacking then he should do a lung or something different.

Also, I have no idea what your game play plans are. But since you already have the character in different amounts of armor you could get rid of the health bar and just have him loose armor each time he is hit. It is a bit of a rip from Ghosts n Goblins, but health bars are stupid.

[Fizzick]

Looks nice- I hope you get something going in Game Maker, as I understand you're somewhat proficient. 

You could bring some of the deep blackish lines from the knight into the chest and slime, to make them pop.

[AlcopopStar]

just wanted to pipe in and say that this is adorable.

That said I think the sky could use one less layer of clouds, it's making it look a bit blurry.

[Decroded]

Looks nice- I hope you get something going in Game Maker, as I understand you're somewhat proficient. 

You could bring some of the deep blackish lines from the knight into the chest and slime, to make them pop.

Yes, I've finally had a chance to start putting this in GM ;-)
Lots of work left but I plan to export some short animated gifs of small bits of gameplay (because I don't have much yet  )

Also considering your comments on outlines...

What do you guys think?
Originally I felt like black outlines were a waste of pixels but it does have a sexiness to it :-)

[ErekT]

It is a bit of a rip from Ghosts n Goblins, but health bars are stupid.

Nooo... health bars are boss

Outlines can be good, as a way to get interactive objects to pop out from the background especially. I like the light-sourced, non-black outlines the best for sure.

Lovely stuff. I think the slight angle to the sword swing that got suggested is a good idea, but imo it works nice as-is too.

[surt]

Yeah, coloured outlines.
Without the chest looks like background deco.

Also the anchor stakes for the rope-bridge disappear into the background perhaps a bit too much.

[Decroded]

Thanks guys.
On larger scale I like light-sourced outlines too I just wasn't sure about this small scale as this is all pretty new territory for me.

Using these outlines on small items like this coin is probably going too far?

I'm thinking its probably good if items don't compete with actors and stuff anyway.
EDIT: also I tried to add outlines too it but I can't figure out how without it looking like balls 

I think the slight angle to the sword swing that got suggested is a good idea, but imo it works nice as-is too.

Yeah I kinda think he looks cute the way he attacks now, as if its not easy for such a small guy to handle a big sword 
But yeah, I'll get around to some other attack animations and definitely have a go at that angled swing which will probably lead to some form of combo attack.

So far I've been animating in Photoshop which is annoying to work with.
I only used Gale once (to do this http://i.imgur.com/bLykqcx.gif) so I'll have to fire it up again and remember how to use it when I get time.

[Decroded]

got a few mins to kill out of the house so thought id ask for some feedback on this character variant incorporating ideas from various suggestions (especially wolfenoctis).


FYI I've been doing a bunch of work on the engine it is very playable right now. I did record and upload some play to go through that process but then I made a bunch more code, animations, sounds etc and id rather build a bit of a longer level before sharing 
there's still only the one enemy type and only a few more tiles added but once I've fleshed out the code a bit I expect to ramp up production on more environments and enemies 

QUESTION perhaps a bit off topic but does anyone know if its possible to achieve music with that specific Amiga 500 synth sound while keeping the files small more like the original mod style music files?
If so perhaps recommend some software I can buy/download?
thx 

[Kazuya Mochu]

the frequency of the rock texture on the first scenario is slightly different from the forest scenario, wich makes it almost look like a different game. thats the only thing I would change. maybe bring the forest's pallet more into the blues

[Decroded]

the frequency of the rock texture on the first scenario is slightly different from the forest scenario, wich makes it almost look like a different game. thats the only thing I would change. maybe bring the forest's pallet more into the blues

yeah I was never happy with forest ground tiles.
I've got a few ideas just havent have success replacing it yet.

[ErekT]

QUESTION perhaps a bit off topic but does anyone know if its possible to achieve music with that specific Amiga 500 synth sound while keeping the files small more like the original mod style music files?
If so perhaps recommend some software I can buy/download?
thx 

Protracker? I think there's a PC port for it around nowadays. If I remember right amiga mod file just operated with four channels and regular sound samples. But to keep size down and fit everything into tiny floppy disk spaces they used very primitive sounds for samples sometimes, hence the chiptune sound. I could be wrong tho, not a musician myself.

Maybe try out Protracker then open up some mod files from Amiga demos or games you like to see what tricks they used?

[PypeBros]

afaik, their modern incarnations are Schism tracker and possibly Milky tracker. On the player side, libmikmod covers most of the needs.

[thewizard]

so are you coding this game up