[WIP] Arcade Academy

[Feron]

i think it'd be cool if the acid gun could burn tiles too.

awesome work so far!

[Crow]

Together with that acid gun, that guy totally looks like he would fit into a game just like Heart of Darkness <3

[robotacon]

Thanks for the good feed-back guys.

Helm:
I like the cold background on top of the warm foreground. I'm not sure about dropping the 100% black though, was that on purpose?
Currently I think I did something along the lines of just darkening the background by 50%.
I'll see what I can make with complementary colors.

Feron:
I plan on having destroyable tiles so if you splash them with acid I'd think they would melt.

Crow:
I never did play Heart of Darkness but I take that as a complement.

Again, thanks for the help.

[Helm]

robot, yeah it was on purpose but I didn't do it because of some specific reason. Just an idea.

[robotacon]

I've now taken Helms advice, or rather just multiply the foreground tiles with 58,105,139 to get a background palette with a blueish tint.
I suck at picking out colors manually so I'd rather trust automation to pick colors for me.



While going through my files I found the setup file I used for creating the tile grid that I've used. I figured someone might find it useful.



Step 1. I first started drawing the layout of the screen at 1/8 the size before resizing it to 256x192.
Step 2. I then created an area 6 pixels smaller from the edges.
Step 3. After that I created an area 8 pixels even smaller.
Step 4. Finally I applied a 8x8 grid on top of the whole screen.

With this setup I could get a quick start and continue drawing the actual tiles in Pro Motion with the Auto Tile Completion tool.

The plan is to create most of the map using a simple bitmap and have a translator create the final map file.

[Helm]

automation for colors costs you. I handpicked my colors and put in there a green, a red, and a blue of various intensities and values to balance and complement the foreground. You now have a green background. Don't be afraid, try picking colors by hand.

[robotacon]

Updated the tiles so they look more like something an ancient civilization put together.
Anyhow... I've also updated the tile set so that it tiles better when combined in different shapes.



And here's the latest mock-up.



It might seem that I'm moving away form the space theme so I'll make some of the aliens that built these structures to compensate.

[robotacon]

I'm still animating my little space-man and now after lots of tweaking I've got a climb worthy of being posted.
If you see something that doesn't look right, please let me know.



I've also started to experiment with different types of uniforms for different characters.



Still no aliens though... I'm thinking of some mix of man and animal, like a wolf-man or something. Perhaps fish-people?

[Xion]

I don't get the red face of the last one.
What is it?

In the first one in the blue suit, the shooting animation looks like it could use the far arm outstretched behind for balance or something.

[robotacon]

gotcha on balance on the first one.
The "red face" is a ruby inlay on the helmet. If it's weird I'll change it.