[WIP] Platform Exploring Game

[Shoba]

Hmm... I had this Idea for a game character while playing Cave Story Lately.



So, hiding the fact this whole thing was inspired by Cave Story would be pointless :3.

[Xion]

It's nice to know that someone else capitalizes Idea.

Nice. I think the antennae are too thick.
It's weird how the eyes are different heights. I mean, I understand that one's covered by the hat, but it still looks strange to me.
The antenna in the bg...I think the two topmost pixels should be moved left once.
That's all I got.


Your avatar is extremely frightening.

[Malor]

Your avatar is extremely frightening.

I must be inclined to agree.....frightening indeed. Sadly, I fail to see these antennae....anyways, I like the sprite, and never have played the game myself, I don't really know the extent of the ..based on-ness. BUT I like it. Nice job

[AdamAtomic]

pretty cute - i agree with xion's comments, I'd also like to add that the front antenna is bugging me a bit - it appears to curve slightly, which looks odd to me.  His hanky or scarf or whatever is pretty huge - the more I look at it the more it confuses/bothers me, I am not really sure where to start on that one.  nice start, just needs a little love to get the rest of the way there!

[Shoba]

Thanks for the Feedback. Okay, here is my next version:



By the way, its not a scarf, its supposed to be a Poncho, like the one Clint Eastwood was wearing in "A Fistful of Dollars". I made the Poncho bigger and darker to make it easier to figure out, what exactly it is. For the Antennae ... I wanted them to look kinda 80 Anime Style. I slightly changed them, I think they look better now.

[willfaulds]

much improved - the poncho is easily readable now.

i think the hat still needs a little work - i keep flipping between seeing it as a trucker cap and a western cowboy hat (i take it should be the latter?).  i think the antennae have something slightly wrong about them - either they don't seem to be at the right angle to his stance or it might be that the front one is not effecting the hat enough or rather the effect is not clear enough.

[Shoba]

Hmm... actually its supposed to be a trucker hat. this one to be exact. I even wanted to put SNK on the metal plate, but the sprite was simply to small for this detail. I understand that the antennae would not work that way with a cowboy hat.

[sharprm]

I was thinking the shading on the plate on his cap and the antenna doesn't fit with the light source the other parts are shaded with.

Just figured out thats a cat on your avatar.

[Shoba]

Its just not any cat, its the one cat to rule them all. The Alpha and Omega of the Universe Cat :3.

Anyway, I changed the shading of the plate and the shading of the antennae (just slightly)



and here is my first attempt at a walk (more run) cycle

[sharprm]

I like the new lighting on the cap.

With the run anim, even though its just rough i thought some crits might help. Firstly, are his legs supposed to be so long and his waist so high up? From the idle picture he looks very human but the anim suggests an alien type creature.

Atm there is no vertical movement of the body and there seems to be some frames where the legs switch. Maybe its because the legs are the same except one is shifted over. Perhaps making
them different would help. edit: if when the left foot just hit the ground if it was angled up:  \            not \             it might not get confused with right foot slidng back.
                                                                                                                                      \/                \_       
The view is on an angle but the legs look completely side on. That makes it look a bit strange in my opinion. Fix that with shading at least. I also think that the body should rotate a bit as
his arms swing.

[Shoba]

Alien Thing o_O. You're right, and thats not really, how he/she/it is supposed to look. I'll never sprite again when I'm to sleepy...



And here my first try at a background for the game

For some reason the name "Chopper Hills" popped into my mind for that Tileset...

[Shoba]

This is supposed to be a mugshot for this whole game...thing.



I thought I was allready at 16 Colours, but according to Photoshops Colour Reducing Dialog when Saving as Gif it only contains 14. So I suppose I use 2 more colours for AA. or for a nicer BG.

[Wakka]

Looks good. I like it.

[Stwelin]

Seems to be some inconsistency... antenae become ears, black void becomes feline face, hat becomes bandana. Mad mad world!

[Shoba]

That is not the Main Character :3. Its one of my NPC Priate Kittens. Every Game should have one of those. I startet with one of those, since the mugshot of the player will be most likely pretty much black :3. With some green.

[Vertigo-zero]

make the head go one or two pixels up and down in the animation.

[Lee N]

The main character reminds me of Orko.

[Shoba]

My genetically modified killer Robot (yeah I know, that makes no sense on several levels :3) looks nowhere like Orko... or anyone of the MotU Cast.

Anyway, I'm having some troubles to find the right color setting for the background. I wanted to create something like some blue ambient light, emitted from the glowing Mushrooms...

[Xion]

If you want the shrooms to be the lightsource/atmospheric setting-ers, I think you should make them nice and bright and add a blue tint to the rest of the scene.

[Sharm]

Since the mushrooms are on the ground, you're going to have to switch the light source on a few things, mainly that building.

[Helm]

Since the mushrooms are on the ground, you're going to have to switch the light source on a few things, mainly that building.

It's a videogame, I don't think that's too needed. Just give the mushrooms a pleasant blue halo.

[Sharm]

I guess that's true, if he's going to be using these building on levels with different lighting.

[Shoba]

Thanks for the hints. I gave the whole Background a new colour Setting. I suppose I'll have to reshade the Buildings as well, but maybe I simply scrap them and start with new one... Something more original.



Btw, those are not stars in the Background, the whole Shroom Level is supposed to be within a Cave. The Lights on the Background are supposed to be some crystals on the ceiling of the cave, which emit some light.

[Zenobia]

I was about to comment 'AWESOME stars' haha
Eventhough they are supposed to be diamonds, I think these would work wonderful as constellations. Many thanks for the inspiration.

[sharprm]

I reckon that having light sources that point directly down is not good becuase they won't be able to light up the level. Could the top of the mushroom glow as well. Or maybe just the
inside glow, but make the top of the mushroom partially transparent, so they glow bright red. Or have crystals in the foreground. The chains and blds look pretty good on the last screen, same with those two enemies. Tree in a cave is odd.

[Shoba]

You're right, a Tree in a Cave IS odd, but then again grass is odd as well. THEN again this whole mess takes place in a universe I created back at the end of the 90s, which is called "Strange Universe". After all, "Strange Universe" is a universe, where the technology to built airtight Spaceships was lost during some really long war some aeons ago, so the ancient (since every universe got some ancients :3) had to fill the universe with oxygen.

I think I'll simply add some more plants as light sources... maybe Sunflowers :3. With smiley faces. My first thought was to make the tree glow as well, but then the tree would be hard to differ if its fore or background.

[Shoba]

I made some more light sources. I think I'll make the flower some sort of enemy.

[Sharm]

I love the flower, but is there a reason he's got the same coloring scheme as the mushroom?

[Shoba]

The Flower is female :3. The Giant Shroom is male (and maybe a relative of Stalin or Super Mario). I gave her the same colour because I thought it might be a nice Idea if all the glowing Plants/Shrooms in this Cave got the same Colours.

[Sharm]

I don't care for them being the same color, but that's an artistic choice, not a right or wrong one.

[Adrian]

I love the surreal environment.. keep that up. As for the flower being an enemy.. reminds me of Super Mario World 2. Very good mock up =)

[Shoba]

Those sun flowers turned out to be some killer flowers from hell, since I gave them some homing attack where they fire leaves at the player kinda like the leave shield from Megaman. Here is their current Idle animation.


And here some more NPC's:

[candiru]

I like the sprite very much. I don't see it as a cat though, and I don't like the portraits as much. They're very nice by themselves but I think they're too bright/happy, not creepy enough to fit the mood and style of the settin, which is awesome - the mushrooms, the buildings, the darkness and the stars... If I were you I'd go for creepy and magical all the way, and get rid of the gun.

I liked the sprite so I did my own version in a different color scheme.

[Noveroth]

I'm not a big fan of that Cat portrait, a little too much going on in it in comparison to the portrait beside it.

On a side note, are you Shoba from bob and george?

[Stwelin]

The flower animation is awesome, but you should rectify the pausing of the stem movement, have it sway back and forth and such, try to keep from having similar frames. the mouth pauses too. It could just be subtly moved in the next frame, and it would look so much more fluid. great job with it.

[Shoba]

@candiru:
Nah, the Cat Pirate and the Wanabe Captain Nemo stay. The Mushroom Hills and the Crystal Cave are only two of (hopefully) more settings I'll create. The Guns will stay as well. This whole Project Started after a way to long session of Cave Story. And since the whole game is a dark Future Setting, Guns are the right thing to use (even though there will be one or two close Combat Weapons within the game).

@Noveroth:
Hmm... maybe I should use the more simple style of the Wanabe Captain Nemo for all Character Portraits.
[Sarcasm]And no, I'm not Shoba from BNG, im his Evil Twin ShinShoba. But, hey, this stays between you... and me ... and this forum.[/Sarcasm]

@Stwelin:
...I'm not a 100% sure if I know what you mean...

[9_6]

I don't like the cat portrait at all.
It has broken outlines and just looks too... wannabe-anime-ish if you know what I mean.
You should make the eyes smaller.
It's not that I don't like anime but eyes that take up 50% of the head is just. too. much. imo.
And get rid of those dark red pixels on the ears.
Me thinks the dark red vs the brighter red or even the orange is just too much of a contrast, maybe reduce that a bit or add a midtone to soften that.
I'm also not sure if the character portraits should have that background...

Everyhing else looks good and creates a nice gloomy athmosphere.
So this is your new project, eh?
No more eternal night then? =(

[Shoba]

Nah, Eternal Night is still out there, but the project is way to big to finish it all alone. I'll have to wait till I manage to create something like a team. This yet unnamed Cave exploring game is much shorter and simpler compared to EN:Dee, since I finally want to finish at least one game.

[Draco9898]

The portraits seem really grainy if you know what I mean, and are sort of hard to read...
Your implied anti-aliasing (just erasing the stair parts and keeping dark and hard pixels) and pallete make them harsh to look at....
The cat portrait is kind scary, as I made a portrait of a rabbit semi-like it, and can post it if you want to see what I mean about keeping everything looking 'clean'...


Everything else is cool though.