Robot Wars dump

[Sherman Gill]

'Aight.
Here's my newest project. Made to replace my last overambitious project. I might have already bit off more than I can chew, though.
It's a turn based strategy side scroller. Should be viewed at 2X. Some of them have unfinished floors because I'm a lazy bastard.

In order of age:

First concept I have saved, currently. Posted this here before.

Outdated concept image for a floater pilot. They'd provide it some bonus, I dunno. Maybe cheaper movement, maybe they'd be required for it to move. The main point was to show a possible way to switch from normal to goggled.

A full level, at the full screen size. Introduces weapons, a HUD, and more unit types.

Badly positioned WIP buy GUI! Dark red is the active pointer, grey orange is the inactive one, and you switch between the two windows with some button. The flight cap gets rid of the need for the switch animation in the Floater switching concept

Anyways, I appreciate any C&C muchly  .

[bengo]

The font's pretty hard to read at 1x, though I'm assuming people will be playing the game in a larger resolution?

[Darien]

bengoshia -

Should be viewed at 2X.

Come on man.

Sherman -

Looks pretty nice and cute.  I'm not so sure I like the psuedo-earth stuff.  Any reason you are going for blocks instead of actual terrain?  Even if it was blocky terrain, I think I would like that better.

Also, the animations seem a little jerky.  I feel like at this size you can get real down and dirty with them and make them super fluid and full of character, make up for the lack of space you have to show character.

Also, I don't like the way they stand with their arms in 90 degree angles.

[bengo]

..... AGHHH, hah, sorry, tired as usual, well even in 2x it's a bit hard to read.

[Panda]

I think the font is quite readable even at x1.
The only thing is that it would be nice if you made the numbers and letters read as what they are supposed to be. (5 and S are completely the same, and so are 0 and O, which might be confusing at times. And I'm guessing 8 and B, and 1 and I, might end with the same problem.)

The whole thing doesn't scream robots though, which might not be a bad thing after all, but they look more like ants and battle insects instead.
Also the buy GUI is rather hard to read. I'd have no clue what the stuff on it is if you didn't add a robot carrying them already.

So far what you have looks good, perhaps a tad blocky though.
But work more on it and finish those tiles!

[Sherman Gill]

Looks pretty nice and cute.  I'm not so sure I like the psuedo-earth stuff.  Any reason you are going for blocks instead of actual terrain?  Even if it was blocky terrain, I think I would like that better.

Err, yeah, at first I tried for some more realistic terrain, and I failed pretty miserably. After a few unsuccessful attempts I decided to do something simple, and it turned out good enough for me to keep it.

Also, the animations seem a little jerky.  I feel like at this size you can get real down and dirty with them and make them super fluid and full of character, make up for the lack of space you have to show character.

Will try! It is hard to get fluid animation when a single pixel difference is so noticeable, though.

Also, I don't like the way they stand with their arms in 90 degree angles.

Hm, this one I don't know about.
Seems like it would be awkward for them to have their arms just hangin'.

The only thing is that it would be nice if you made the numbers and letters read as what they are supposed to be. (5 and S are completely the same, and so are 0 and O, which might be confusing at times. And I'm guessing 8 and B, and 1 and I, might end with the same problem.)

Hmm, I'm using a premade font, but I'll try to do something once I start coding it.

The whole thing doesn't scream robots though, which might not be a bad thing after all, but they look more like ants and battle insects instead.
Also the buy GUI is rather hard to read. I'd have no clue what the stuff on it is if you didn't add a robot carrying them already.

Yeah, this briefly came up before. Problem is I really don't want washed out grey robots, and I can't think of anything to do to alleviate the bug problem.


 

[Jad]

First of all, the bug 'problem' is not really a problem, the size and bug-like-ness of the 'bots only make them more charming.

Second, if you want to show the robot-ness of them, just include bigger artwork of them in the menu or something. Stuff like that always sticks to the mind and you start believing that 'this small thing is a visual representation of the very robot-looking robot I saw before. Therefore, it's obviously a Robot!'

You know.

Regarding terrain, please try some earthy terrain as well, it'd go nicely together with the abstract style you have right now. I promise!

[Sherman Gill]

Erm, haven't done much work on it since I posted this.

Anyway, after a few trys I got some earthy tiles I was kind of happy with, so here's a quick tile comparison:

A or B?

[Zero]

A for the ground tiles, the simplicity is nice. B for the floating thing.

[Sherman Gill]

Here's a more equal comparison:

And the realer tiles look a lot better at 2x, so please zoom

[PypeBros]

i was liking the blocky-ground much better ... it was somehow more "consistent" with the robots' look (like if the whole planet had been robot-ized)

[Xion]

Maybe you can try a hybrid tile, with those block-style pieces, only instead of being plastic or metal or whatever they are, have 'em be like, patches of SIMPLE dirt and rocks and stuff. The "realy" dirt you have now is way too detailed. Dumb it down alot.

[LoTekK]

I agree with Xion, the new dirt tiles present way too much of a clash of styles. Simplify, but also keep the beveled corners (aside from the solid color, the razore-sharp corners were the main thing that bugged me about the original dirt tiles).

[Sherman Gill]

Can't think of a comment to go along with this, so, uh, here, have a present or three:

Targetting system. I'll post more info on that later.

Pipes!

Sorry, these ones are at 2X and I'm too lazy to resize them:

[Faceless]

The dino skeleton is way too bright. Makes it look really really distracting.
I like the concept of the ship that destroys the tiles.

[rabidbaboy]

Allow me to say that these are spiffy, I would definitely play this game for the aesthetic properties.

I agree, the dino bones are much too bright and distracting. Maybe you could make the colors something like the pipes, but a bit darker?

Also, consider "robot skeletons" instead of dino ones.

The animation of the tile-destroyer should be faster, but I guess that's something that shouldn't be mentioned atm.

I don't enjoy how it's pushing the tiles instead of disintegrating them, an explosion would be better, imo.

Hope to see more.

[Jad]

The dino skeleton is way too bright-

-but completely awesome.

[Faktablad]

Your original simpler version of the tiles is one of the things that interested me most about the mockup.  These new tiles are WAY too overused and don't go with the style of the characters at all, IMHO.