[WIP] Horiz shmup

[mice]

Hi all,

Here's a mockup of a game I'm creating at the moment. It's for a (self made) game console with some low end specs.
(512 colors , 16 colors per tile, 32x32 tile size, 2 layers, 15 colors per sprite + transp, 16 pals for the background, 16 pals for the sprtes, 256x224 screen, 128 sprites)



I'm working on removing the repetiveness and adding detail to the foreground layer, at the moment.
But I have no idea what to make for the background layer, so I just added some strange grey rocks as a place holder.

Thoughts and crits welcome.

- mice

EDIT:
Been playing around with the colors. Although 512c are a bit limiting it's quite fun.
Could just switch the palette in a level and make hell freeze over. Cool. 



The colors in these pics are now stretched with steps of 36.4 instead of the earlier 32.

EDIT_2:
Added a face, supposed to be a boss, but looks more like the easter-heads of gradius... 



EDIT_3 (2007, 18th Feb, 05:49:30):
Added som enemies. Didn't want them to turn out like a 'standard 1A' enemy, but it did.
Also re-made the cheek bone hi-light, will work some more on that part.



Will probably try some HU display work now.

EDIT_4:
This has turned into my blog page...

Added another enemy, ground based. Also made a ground for him to stand on. Got a bit more depth to it, maybe...?
Revised the face, again. In case someone wonders, yes the face is currently a sleep. It will be woken and a control orb will be placed in its forehead. Dadaaam!

[surt]

Nice, old school stuff, but the light purple outline on the foreground tiles really doesn't work. I'd say darken and or desaturate and maybe add the odd highlight.

To add interest to the background layers I'd say add stalagmites, stalactites and columns.

[Rydin]

The first thing I noticed what the repetition: follow surt's suggestion of more interesting landscape.....and maybe address the horizontal lines on the farthest back row of rocks.
Something else that bugs me is that the lighting on the sphere doesn't match that of the purple rocks...may want to fix that.

I would suggest giving the middle ground some hints of purple, as it would help with the issue of depth.

Overall though, this is cool...very Gradius so far.  I'd love to see what you do with the head up display and that stuff.

[mice]

Thanks surt! I desaturaded the outlines but maybe I need bigger, or more, of the odd hi-lights.
I decided on some worn out metal, hi-tech background. Will see where it leads. And yes, I just love vertically fliped gfx...

I'm having my doubts about this 512 col thing. Thought it was a good idea at first, but I really need to add, at least, one bit more for each color. The SNES had 32k so maybe I'll add 2 bits.
Because, as it is now, I can't seem to find the colors I want.



EDIT:
@Rydin, yeah I will work on the repetition. I'm looking for a color scheme and a style that works for the moment.
True about the lightning, will try change it for the rocks, since I want it from the left and a bit up. Like the sphere-thing.
Thanks!

EDIT2:
Some grammar...

[ptoing]

The foreground needs to be sufficiently brighter than the background, you don't want people confusing what's safe to fly over and what's not.

Also atm. you have the stones darker on the top (as in dark on the side facing inwards) which is a bit odd. I would rather invert that.

I think 512 colours is quite cool (9 bit like the Atari ST or the Genesis/Megadrive). I would at least keep it 4 bits per channel like on the Amiga. Makes stuff look more oldschool

Seems as well as you have unstretched 9bit (as in 00, 20, 40 and so on), but why is the white FF and not F0??

Tried to do something clearer and less muddled looking. The colour combinations you have are a bit off imo (esp the far bg one).

[mice]

...but why is the white FF and not F0??

How the h*ll did I miss that. It should actually stay at E0. I'm using more colors than I have access to...
No wonder it looks different on the hw. Thought it was the resistor values I use to actually create the voltages. Guess it's a combination.

I was actually pleased with the shading on the rocks, seeing that the light source is coming from the viewer. But maybe the stones are tilted up too much so the lightning wouldn't be like that?

Nice edit! Will work on brightening the foreground. Now that I know what colors I can use and not...
Thanks!

[Lelle]

Heya mice,

you got some really nice stuff here! Just wanted to point out some things. The wings on the enemies looks kind of jagged! I'm attaching a picture to show how to make it smoother, it´s way difficult to explain so hopefully the picture shows exactly how to do it. Maybe this added some effects you didn't want on your enemies though.



Also the upper foreground has something to it that doesn´t look quite right. The "rocks" seem to grow out of nowhere somehow. I think it would be nicer if you instead of a "cave" made a landscape and used the "frozen" setting on it that you were playing around with in one of the pictures. A vast frozen city in the background would be awesome I think!

I will try and make an edit when I get more time tomorrow and play around with it a bit. Keep up the great work, it already looks kickass and I´m sure the game will be lotsa fun!! 

Cheers,

Lelle

[Helm]

That's horisontal breaking effect, and it's very simple to understand why it happens. The jaggied steps are smoothed only vertically, but the 'breaks' are just accentuated by the banding.

[mice]

Thanks lelle, I'm looking forward to your edit. 
Tried to change that part on the enemies. Still jagged?

Well, at least I've got the general idea for how it's going to look now.
I will therefore start from scratch and recreate the stones with proper lightning (the outlines didn't work, as pointed out) and try to get a workable palette.
So the next pic (not the one below) will have a lot in common with the previous ones, it will just look a lot...better...I hope.

[Lelle]

Hey again!

My edit as promised. Well I had some fun at least, been a while since I pixeled Problem is I ended up with like a totaly different game/feel, sorry about that, but I´m posting it anyways! I think I even managed to use colours that are allowed...



Cheers,

Lelle