Skies Of Chaos - DEMO LIVE !

[danieldiggle]

[UPDATE]



We just launched the demo of our retro pixel art shooter!

If you'd like to try it out you can download the demo via TestFlight here: 👉 https://testflight.apple.com/join/l31tKFJ 👈
(TestFlight is an Apple app that lets you try beta software)

There's an Android version in the works and sometime next week, hopefully, a wide/big screen PC demo too!

Oh and you can see a little trailer here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf3XUv5m8Xg&feature=youtu.be

Thanks!


Hey people, hello! I want to share a game I'm working on with a friend. It's called Skies Of Chaos and it's a hectic and colourful Shoot Em' Up, inspired by games like Broforce, Jamestown and GBA Sonic.

Neither of us had done pixel art or coded any games when we started in July, so everything we've done is from scratch!.
We've got quite far with building our gameplay features and now we'll start to get the more refined art into it. We're building for mobile first, then expanding to larger screens later.



I've struggled quite a bit with landscape tiles, a lot of original textures were noisy, and making the enemy planes readable whilst they're moving is a challenge, but happy where it is at the moment. The image above is a style frame, the actual game has less on screen at any one time.

Critique wise, do you think the colours and tone overall is sitting well together? My intentions are to convey the punchy colours of a lot of old GBA games.
 
If you want to check our development progress, we're on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/skiesofchaos/ and Twitter  https://twitter.com/skiesofchaos too. 

[danieldiggle]

I've nearly finished up the tilemap for the first level, a few little bits to tweak but happy with the outcome. Next up will be designing the level layout! the fun part!

[danieldiggle]

So, quite a bit of progress has been made with the little time we've had to spend on SoC. But I also got distracted and had a crack at a PICO-8 remix. Was got practice to try working with smaller - 16 colour - palette  !



and...

[Curly]

The screenshot looks very crowded, I hope it doesn't get confusing while playing.
I love the style anyways. Good job with the PICO-8 version!

[danieldiggle]

The screenshot looks very crowded, I hope it doesn't get confusing while playing.
I love the style anyways. Good job with the PICO-8 version!

It's not always that crazy in the real build! it's more an indicative mockup. Though Broforce style madness and explosions is definitely one of our major influences!

[danieldiggle]

We've started work on the first boss, the 'Red Bearon'. Just blocked out the shape so far, now need to decide on texture - wood/canvas, metal/rivits etc. Haven't decided on weapons yet but will probably be a number of turrets for this first boss.



In-situ will look a little like this:

[danieldiggle]

Starting to get a metal panel / rivits details into the boss. Still haven't decided on turret placement or design. And I need to add engine exhausts or some type of exposed metal around the engine housing, to suggest its a weak point to be targeted.

The area around the tail is probably the most complete so far. I'm a little worried that the metal paneling looks a little 'circuit board'y' ?

[danieldiggle]

  Very nearly finished!... Will share full image soon.

[Hunited]

I personally don't like this kind of game, but this is some real old-school pixel eye candy you're making. Keep it up~!

[danieldiggle]

Thanks :-)

This is the first boss done. I'm pretty happy with how this has come out now. Might still try and get a better reflection on the glass, but think I'll start moving onto some other game assets!