Of Dirt and Darkness

[David]

I had an idea for a game. Some people (Ryan Azar, Monsoon2D) are helping me with it.

The top is a mock-up DS style. The bottom is a death animation I did. Comment and critique please.

[ptoing]

This looks seriously badass. I wanna play it. MAKE THIS GAME!

Also, how the light is cast in the case of the 2 bottom dudes is just wrong. light does not expand around corners.

[ndchristie]

light can kinda expand around corners in a sense, so long as there is a light at an angle that matches it without being obscured.  Yours is rather intense though for this...


I'm not a master of light, but this is close to imagine how the light might appear assuming that your surface was both smooth and fairly matte (with no sense of course of a z axis, because there wasn't one present)


I know you cannot tile that, but it might help to think about how it would look in a pseudo-real-life setting, remembering that you have 4 sources of light during the day; the sun, man-made emitters, light reflecting off the sky, and light reflecting off of objects.

keep in mind what angles light can come from, and mind your parts of it

[Zero]

I like the style of the mockup, but the wall tiles should contrast with the background dirt tiles more. They look too similar now.

[ptoing]

yeh of course you can not tile this, for the torches at least you need a good realtime solution, but if the style stays as minimal as it is (which i hope, because it looks awesome) that should be no problem at all.

And light still can't go around corners, light always goes the shortest distance between two things. and if the light gets cut off by a corner it gets cut off. If a part of the lightemitter does not get cut off of course you will see a bit of light "going around the corner". Still same rules tho.

[Malor]

I am really diggin' the oldies style. I would make the people in the dark..(at least that's what I assume the are forgive me if I am mistaken) to be able to be seen more, even if it is just a faint outline. Right now they slightly confuse me. I really love the "blown away" animation.

[Dusty]

To be honest, I can't make heads of tails of what's going on in the mock-up. But I'm a sucker for cool looking lighting/shadows, so I'd probably still love it if I ever saw it in real-time. Mind shedding some like on what's going on?

[ndchristie]

torches at least you need a good realtime solution

I suggest a simple flood particle emitter, the geometry is simple enough and it lets you have fadeout if the DS wants it.

[David]

These were made by Monsoon2D. View them in an animation program to see them correctly. I'll answer questions and concerns in a little bit.

[David]

ptoing
Thank you. I do as well. Hook me up with an amazing programmer with nothing better to do and there'll be a much better chance of this becoming a reality. Yeah, I've changed the way the flashlights behave. The next update will show this.

Adarias
What I have set up doesn't make much sense, I admit this. I'll change things a bit to make it a little more realistic, but in the end I'm more concerned with how good it looks and how well it works.

Zero
I'll see what can be done.

Malor
Thanks. I'm not sure if the people in the dark will be changed. They may become even harder to see (for gameplay reasons).

Dusty
The concept is pretty simple. You run around, shoot anything that isn't you, and dig around to get to or away from others. Once you slip into the darkness you can't be seen unless you shoot or turn on your flashlight. Contra plus Dig Dug equals the general idea, I guess.

I DIDN'T MEAN TO DOUBLE POST; PLEASE MERGE THESE TWO POSTS.

[Xion]

These were made by Monsoon2D. View them in an animation program to see them correctly. I'll answer questions and concerns in a little bit.

I like the side one, but why are the down-facing one's legs off to one side? And don't they display correctly on the internets? I looked at them in a program and all that changed was that I had the urge to edit them. Which I did.
Would you like to see?
Another thing that bugs me is the way the side-facing one has a smooth headbob whereas the down-facing one is just like, shaking. But I guess you can't do much better with four frames, since the silhouette implies symmetry on the side-facing one, which can't be done on the down-facing one...I think.

[Sohashu]

Hmm.  Maybe I'm in a minority here, but I don't get how this game plays.  I agree it looks pretty good, but I don't understand the game itself. 

[Xion]

The concept is pretty simple. You run around, shoot anything that isn't you, and dig around to get to or away from others. Once you slip into the darkness you can't be seen unless you shoot or turn on your flashlight. Contra plus Dig Dug equals the general idea, I guess.

You should have there be traps and stuff you can set, and natural hazards like those falling rocks from Dig-dug. I think that would make for an interesting experience

[selur]

On screenshots looks like this is an big are to explore.
But what happend if every each player will go to the diffrent direction ?
I guess this game should be in 4 splat screens because there are 4 players. 

[Xion]

Here are my edits:
(Yes, the head movement is a bit much, but some other things I still think are valid.

You know what...
Now that I look at my edits, I think they're pretty terrible. Too much movement for such a tiny sprite. You can just ignore me now.

[David]

OK.