Mockup Frenzy #3: Game Boy De-Makes!

[AdamAtomic]

Mockup Frenzy #3: Game Boy De-Makes!



Resolution: 160x144
Colors: 4 (see images below for examples)
Theme: De-Makes
Start Day: September 17th, 2007
Deadline: September 30th, 2007
Notes: To sum up, de-makes are the inverse of the "next-gen" game update.  Take a new game, and roll it back to an older piece of hardware.  Only we're going to be rolling it WAY back; all the way to the original Game Boy!  Goldeneye 2D is a perfect example, and the inspiration for this theme!  To help you get started, I've included a few choice screens from the better-looking GB games of the past.  Feel free to use any of the palettes in these images, or invent your own 4 color monochrome ramp!


(Castlevania II, Spiderman 3, Tiny Toons, Trip World, Universal Soldier)

You're welcome to follow the strict Game Boy spec, but it is not a requirement for this competition.  The basic specs for the system are as follows:

• 2-bit color (black, dark grey, light grey, white)
• 8x8 tiles
• 8x8, 8x16 and 16x8 sprites
• 1 4-color bg palette
• 2 3-color sprite palettes (that must choose from same 4 colors as the bg)
• Background tiles each get a foreground/background flag
• No more than 10 sprites per scanline on the raster

Is this your first Mockup Frenzy?  Why not check out the rules & results from Mockup Frenzy #1: Mobility! and Mockup Frenzy #2: Ninjas!


RESULTS:

Lackey, Lackey, Lackey, AlienQuark, AlienQuark:


CroM, Helm, HMC, Radek Smektala, Ego:


.TakaM, .TakaM, KhrisMUC, KAT, infinity+1:


am_pm, Judas, Judas, Judas, telecommtubbie:


Arachne, vpk, Arne, mattness, opacus:


Quicksilva, Greenwing, D.W., D.W., D.W.:


Doppleganger, pkmays, Jad, kite, KAT:


KAT, robotriot, baccaman21, MaDsk8tard:


Arachne, Arachne, Rydin, Schu, Schu:


QuickSilva, Bouzolf:


HOLY CRAP.  47 ENTRIES!  YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!

[AlienQuark]

Hey Adam, could you clarify for me the Gameboy restrictions? It's a little bit complicated/confusing for me to understand, specifically the whole character sprites being on the same raster or what have you. Examples would probably work best, like just describe for me a no-no situation.

I wanna try and stick to the strict rules. Give myself a real challenge, so the sooner you help me out the better! 

[AdamAtomic]

the raster rule is basically this.  the gameboy screen is 144px tall, so it has 144 raster lines, or lines of pixels that the hardware blits.  Not sure the exact specifics of why, but you may only have up to 10 sprites overlappign the same raster line.  So if you have ten sprites at 8x8 whose upper left corner's Y value is between 136 and 144, then the hardware will start to have some troubles.  Lots of games get around this by keeping track, and flickering sprites that occupy the same space.  Unfortunately, for mockup purposes, flickering doesn't matter much!  If you want though you could make an animated .gif that featured flickering assets to preserve the 10 sprites per line rule

Lemme know if that makes more sense!

As for the other somewhat confusing specs:

Background tile palette: every background tile can use any of the 4 colors.
Background tile priority: each tile has a 0 or 1 that determines whether or not it is drawn in front of or behind the sprites.  This doesn't matter a TON for mockups either, but still interesting!  However, I believe it works across whole tiles; so you couldn't have half a tile covering up part of a sprite, or something, because tiles don't have transparency.
Sprite palettes: this one is pretty weird, even I admit that, but it does actually make sense.  Since the GB only has 4 colors, and sprites need at least 1 color slot for transparency, the GB lets you use up to 2 different palettes for your sprites, each (one would assume) indicating a different color for transparency.  E.g. palette one might mark black as the transparent color, for bright sprites on a dark background, while palette two might have white as trans, which would be good for making dark sprites over a light background.  If you look at each of the screenshots above you'll see that nearly all of their sprite palettes drop one or the other of the grays, to keep sprite contrast high.

Lemme know if you have any more questions!

[AlienQuark]

Ok one last question and then I believe I'll be fully ok for my mockup, which I have now started....

Can character sprites be composed of more than one actual sprite? because those ones look bigger than 8x16 OR 8x8, so I'm assuming you can stack sprites to make a bigger hero/ enemy, as long as no more than 10 of them overlap? Am I getting that right?

Anyways, I think I'll try my best to stick to restrictions, but if i mess up, oh well, this is my first time working in only 4 colours. Expect an actual screenie soon!

[AdamAtomic]

Yes absolutely.  Very common practice for what we perceive to be 1 sprite to be made up of anywhere from 2 to 8 sprites, lots of NES games did this too!

[Faktablad]

So are these raster lines horizontal, vertical, or both?

[Lackey]

Woo, first 



I assume unlimited tiles and sprites for these, I would of course optimize if I were to actually put this on a Gameboy.  I used my own radioactive spinach palette which I eyeballed from pictures of an actual Gameboy.

[AdamAtomic]

And the gauntlet, my friends, has been thrown.

[Helm]

I will... DEFEAT YOU.

[So-lou]

Looove the alien in the second one 

[AlienQuark]

I think i broke restrictions...

[CroM]

great entries so far...

here`s my try on a demake





CroM

[Dusty]

Hmm, I think people should post what game they're de-making. While some are quite obvious, others aren't.

Also, I just noticed the news box art up there, great job doing God of War, whoever did it! Despite being so small it reads so easily and just screams GoW.

EDIT: I was gonna post about a lot of games already having GB iterations, but I guess in the end that doesn't really matter as long as we don't rip from them. I was gonna do SotC but I don't think I'd be able to do the Colossi with the sprite limitations, even though I had a pretty good idea for how to do it.

[Helm]

Fight Night GB!

Mostly based on the old Cinemaware title 'TV Sports Boxing' for those that know their old games. Not sure if it's technically very possible. The dynamic ropes will be simple vector haxx. The character bodies would just be tiles that change, only the gloves (and parts of the extended arms) would be sprites so there's transparency where they have priority over the other body.

[baccaman21]

you make it sound so simple helm...  If only it were as easy as that on DMG GB's...

I don't think it is possible. You'v only got the one playfield to upload characters to so no overlapping the boxers bodies, they'd get to a certain distance and then have to stop... hence the notion of sprites for arms... hmmm... that may work I guess.... but the boxers would have to move in character jumps (8 pixels a time) ... not sure about the ropes too... due to that one playfield limit you've got no where to write the graphic to so the boxers could overlay them? (same true about the camera flashes)

(PS. I count four colors in those fighters... <think> where's the mask color come from to set your priorities?)

Having said all that... nice idea.

[AdamAtomic]

Hmm, I think people should post what game they're de-making. While some are quite obvious, others aren't.

Also, I just noticed the news box art up there, great job doing God of War, whoever did it! Despite being so small it reads so easily and just screams GoW.

EDIT: I was gonna post about a lot of games already having GB iterations, but I guess in the end that doesn't really matter as long as we don't rip from them. I was gonna do SotC but I don't think I'd be able to do the Colossi with the sprite limitations, even though I had a pretty good idea for how to do it.

So far its been Stalker, FFXII, and Bioshock   Though FFXII took me a second to pick out!

And thanks   It was fun!  Though the flames are a bit repetitive...anyone know if the GB could do the little sine transforms for the fake water/fire effect on bg tiles?

If you think you know how to pull off SotC i say go for it!!  That's what I wanted to do for the banner but I couldn't figure out how to make it work...

[baccaman21]

Excuse my ignorance... SoTC? 

PS. Raster interrupts were possible on DMG GB...

<EDIT> AH SHADOW OF THE COLLOSUS!!

I's get ya!

I'd be curious to see Katamari Damacy...? (over to you ptoing)

[AdamAtomic]

PS. Raster interrupts were possible on DMG GB...

That is hot.  I was definitely born about 10 years to late!!  *mourns the missed opportunity to work on these amazing old systems*

[Schu]

I totally thought that was Gun Smoke when I looked at it quickly XD Maybe it's just the cacti...
------
Schu

[1st]

1. Can we make own 2bit colors or it's already done ( please show them if it's already 2bit colours )
 2. Should make own games in gameboy style or GBA games for an example?
3. Sorry my english : D

[AdamAtomic]

Feel free to use any of the palettes in these images, or invent your own 4 color monochrome ramp!

Also, Game Boy Advance games would violate both the resolution and color requirements, to say nothing of the optional strict GB rules!  That is to say, This activity is about Game Boy style games, not GBA (despite my many typos in the original draft of this activity!).

Good luck on your entry!

[1st]

can we use our own fantasy to make the games or it need to be mario / pokemon w/e, u know what i mean i believe

[Helm]

Actually you are very unclear. This is about de-making a recent game. If it's a recent Mario game, that's fine, but you should probably avoid franchises that have already existed on the GB since (barring cleverness) ... where's the point in that.

[am_pm]

great entries so far...

here`s my try on a demake





CroM

Bioshock = Win

[HMC]

Psychonauts:


Boyd looks kinda funky, but oh well. :\

[Radek Smektala]

Yep.

Sorry for wasting your time 

I just wanted to see how it would look. I don't consider myself a pixel artist - as is apparent from the above piece (mostly a re-coloring), I couldn't pixel to save my life - but this thread inspired the curiosity I mentioned and I thought I'd share the result.

@ Helm - I was keeping my thumbs up for Flashback Of course, that would hardly be next-gen.

@ CroM - I would be willing to inflict a bodily harm upon myself to play a four color "metroidvania" Bioshock.

[Ego]

Originally started to be elebits-ish, but the result is a little strayed. I might try another, cuz that was fun.

[seankulbeth]

WIP C+C Welcomed and Needed.



My first pixelation attempt, just had time for the menu at the bottom tonight, and a small bit of the course, so it lacks detail. Ill try to get it a little detailed tommorrow. (Its Hot Shots Golf by the way). I've got a few problems I can point out but can't fix, like the power bar doesn't seem to be very user friendly (in viewing, not in game), the Golf Selection Text (Putter), not being very readable, and it just kind of looks boring altogether. Mabey once I get the actual screenshot done it will look better? Allright, will post updates as available, and will try to use all criticism.

And mabey I should explain the mechanics, as they're a bit different from the actual Ps2/3 versions. The top bar sets power, middle sets speed of swing, and bottom sets control. You want to hit either in the middle (perfect, demonstrated in bottom), or near the edge but not to close (Ok, demonstrated in top), and hitting within three pixels of the edge results in a horrible shot (demonstrated in middle). Appropriate messages will display. Thats about it.

[.TakaM]

Yoshi's Story

Not sure how faithfully followed the restrictions, but whatever

edit-
made another one, animal crossing:

not entirely happy with how it turned out.

[CroM]

@ am_pm: the game, definitelly...my piece not so much ;O)

@ Radek: Another World NEVER is a waste of time  . I thought about demaking Heart of Darkness.
and yes, the Bioshock demake would have to be a "metroidvania" style game, allthough I think topdown zelda like would do it more justice(evading, and more environmental possibilities).


CroM

[Helm]

I was keeping my thumbs up for Flashback Wink Of course, that would hardly be next-gen.

Yeah that was the first thing I considered as well, but as you say, hardly next-gen.

[KAT]

OMG! Another World... that was my idea to draw it ;P hehe Ok, you are first So i will try to draw flashback...

About your pixelart: Nice work, i like it... its very similar to original. Good job!

[Souly]

Psychonauts:


Boyd looks kinda funky, but oh well. :\

I loved Psychonauts.

His arms looks much too long and way too lanky.


Here's an edit to show you what I mean.
Might have overdone some details on the character.

[HMC]

He did kinda have some long arms, though.

[KAT]

OK, here is my WIP Is it good?

[Helm]

Too noisy. Avoid dithering, I'd say, especially on the background building plane. Simplify for smaller res, don't try to push in detail. Flashback mainly utilizes flat planes with disparate detail to draw the eye.

[baccaman21]

@ KAT - I've not checked but I think your screen res is out too... I looks a bit on the small side?

[AdamAtomic]

yea proper res is 160x144, not 128x128   but its still a wip!

[KAT]

UPDATE TIME!

Background with dithering:


Beckground without dithering:


I think now its better Thanks for advice, you rox guys ;P
Critics are welcome.

Oww, one question: Version without dithering is better than version with dithering?
I think better is with dithering.

AdamAtomic: Damn! OMG! I was thinkig (dont know why...) it must be in 128x128. Grrrrrrrr....

[AdamAtomic]

good progress!  work on dividing the planes more though.  That's the big challenge for this activity; keeping foreground separate from near bg separate from far bg.  I'd continue to simplify and eliminate outlines!

[KhrisMUC]

Been a lurker for some time now and finally decided to contribute:

Sam&Max



reference

[AlienQuark]

I made a second one (still FF12):


Woop woop! I had a third, but my pixel program totally obliterated it and erased the entire thing, and i was well over half done 

[ndchristie]

looks great everyone!

might find time this weekend to join in

someone should try okami

[KAT]

PROBABLY FINAL VERSION:



Its 128x128... Will my mockup be accepted? I have no idea how could i miss correct resolution :\


OK Here is version with good resolution

[Feron]

make the canvas bigger...

[infinity+1]

all this talk about shadow of the colossus makes me want to do an Ico one. so dibs. give me a few hours, and i'll see what i can come up with.

[AdamAtomic]

Just wanted to tell everybody great job, these are coming along great, and don't be afraid to do a second one if you have a good idea for it   Also, Goldeneye 2D is available for download and is pretty sweet.

[infinity+1]

a little bit of progress on my wild claims about making an Ico de-make.
i have a lot of work to do concerning the background. this will be one of those projects that makes me a better pixel artist, because i'm having one hell of a time working with four colors. 

[baccaman21]

a little bit of progress on my wild claims about making an Ico de-make.
i have a lot of work to do concerning the background. this will be one of those projects that makes me a better pixel artist, because i'm having one hell of a time working with four colors. 

yep it's quite  a challenge. Glad to see people are doing such great submissions.

1 point that most people seem to forget though... even though you've only got 4 colors to play with overall with the backgrounds; when it comes to making the sprites you should be playing with 3 colours, as 1 of those colors is dropped in favour of the mask... so sprites should actually be 3 colors only... (IF you want to be true to DMG GB) [have a look at those first four samples from genuine GB games and count the colors in the character sprites... everyone is 3]

Tis up to you though, if you fancy upping the challenge? No need to tho as adam says in the challenge rules - it IS optional.

[Helm]

1 point that most people seem to forget though... even though you've only got 4 colors to play with overall with the backgrounds; when it comes to making the sprites you should be playing with 3 colours, as 1 of those colors is dropped in favour of the mask... so sprites should actually be 3 colors only... (IF you want to be true to DMG GB) [have a look at those first four samples from genuine GB games and count the colors in the character sprites... everyone is 3] Cheesy

the thing is, can't you overlay a different sprite on a three-color sprite for the extra color on the gameboy?

[AdamAtomic]

my god of war banner follows the rule - i think its actually beneficial because it almost forces you to up the contrast on your sprites, helping them to stand out more from the BG.  but yeah, definitely optional!  And you can overlay them, just don't forget you only get 10 sprites per raster line...

[am_pm]

The sanctity of this place has been fouled!

(Yes, I know it could use a lot more. I'm working on that!)


EDIT:

[Rynen10K]

I'm probably going to get punched for this, but what exactly is a scanline on the GB?

Does the 10-sprite limit go for every horizontal row of 160x8? every horizontal row of pixels?

I want to try and stick as close to the limits as possible...

[AdamAtomic]

the raster rule is basically this.  the gameboy screen is 144px tall, so it has 144 raster lines, or lines of pixels that the hardware blits.  Not sure the exact specifics of why, but you may only have up to 10 sprites overlappign the same raster line.  So if you have ten sprites at 8x8 whose upper left corner's Y value is between 136 and 144, then the hardware will start to have some troubles.  Lots of games get around this by keeping track, and flickering sprites that occupy the same space.  Unfortunately, for mockup purposes, flickering doesn't matter much!  If you want though you could make an animated .gif that featured flickering assets to preserve the 10 sprites per line rule

Lemme know if that makes more sense!

As for the other somewhat confusing specs:

Background tile palette: every background tile can use any of the 4 colors.
Background tile priority: each tile has a 0 or 1 that determines whether or not it is drawn in front of or behind the sprites.  This doesn't matter a TON for mockups either, but still interesting!  However, I believe it works across whole tiles; so you couldn't have half a tile covering up part of a sprite, or something, because tiles don't have transparency.
Sprite palettes: this one is pretty weird, even I admit that, but it does actually make sense.  Since the GB only has 4 colors, and sprites need at least 1 color slot for transparency, the GB lets you use up to 2 different palettes for your sprites, each (one would assume) indicating a different color for transparency.  E.g. palette one might mark black as the transparent color, for bright sprites on a dark background, while palette two might have white as trans, which would be good for making dark sprites over a light background.  If you look at each of the screenshots above you'll see that nearly all of their sprite palettes drop one or the other of the grays, to keep sprite contrast high.

Lemme know if you have any more questions!

[Rynen10K]

Whoops - I missed that whole top half somehow the first time I read it  I'm smart.

Thanks So it's essentially every horizontal line of pixels (160x1) Gotcha.

So I guess my next question would be, what's the disadvantage of using the 16x8 sprites? Would they take up more memory than the single 8x8 squares? Do the 8x8 squares have much of a purpose?

Maybe I'm thinking too far ahead on all this...

[baccaman21]

the thing is, can't you overlay a different sprite on a three-color sprite for the extra color on the gameboy?

Oh absolutley... you can indeed - however; in context this would be extremely wasteful when you're dealing with a limited character set for your sprites... One wouldn't waste valuable space on that extra shade when you could have an extra frame in your animation or a new baddy (for example) - I think you'll find if you look at 99.9% of all sprites in a DMG GB title they will be 3 colors only...

...at the end of the day it's purely academic, and I for one don't want to take anything away from everyone's sterling efforts...

I just think it's a valuable thing to understand that it's actually a little more tricky than it first appears... and there's a reason a lot of the old GB games looked the way they did. Limited color, limited characters, limited memory... which, after all is what IMO pixeling is about... making the most of those limitations.

[Arachne]

[vpk]

Hi, been looking around for some times now but never posted.



Also, early w.i.p. ...

Imagine the symphony comming out of the gameboy speaker...

[.TakaM]

heheh, but 5 buttons?

[mattness]

Nooo!.. Daaamn!..
I was working on a Diablo De-Make, me too..

 

[vpk]

heheh, but 5 buttons?

yeah, left up right B A.. so that means no doubles with the first and third buttons hehe

[am_pm]

image

Nooo!.. Daaamn!..
I was working on a Diablo De-Make, me too..

 

Hey man, go for it. I would love to see another person's representation of the same de-make!

[Judas]

All three very WIP, especially the title screen. I was considering doing a phantom DuSt mockup eventually, so this is a nice kick in the ass to get me motivated. Kinda challenging to work with so few colors.

[telecommtubbie]

It's 1080! not very good, but it's a wip.

[/

[Schu]

Sweet! I actually just bought this game (ie. finally found it). Found it in the used bin for $9. Totally looks the same (minus "a few" colours). Awesome stuff. Nice to see some Phantom Dust love! 

[Arachne]

[Solitaire]

I was going to make something but, excuse the cliché, this takes the cake. Might come up with something, though. Watch this space and all that good stuff.

[ndchristie]

you can, some do, but you begin to rapidly exceed other limitations

EDIT - this post got out of order - i was responding to helm's "can't you make extra sprites over each other" remark

[KAT]

Who remember Dreamweb? That great adventure game is still  amazing and kick asses! "Now its available on Game Boy!"

Here is my second mockup for this frenzy (still WIP): 



My friend gave me a lot of advices and helped me. She showed me how should I use palette - thank you very much magic. Sofa, floor and table are COLORED by magic. So, it`s not my work in 100% and it probably can`t be accepted in this frezny (Am I wrong?). Other things are colored and drawn by me. Any critics?

Here's a screenshot from original version for people who don`t know Dreamweb.:

[Helm]

That's very nice KAT, and I like Dreamweb lots. But why not incoporate the shadows from the furniture like in the original?

[Radek Smektala]

Since the last one I posted was mostly a color reduced piece that I tinkered with a bit, I've decided to put my non-skills to use and recreated the same image from scratch. Result: I can sleep again.

This version is fully tiled, obviously.

[Darien]

KAT - I like that a lot, but I think more attention should be paid to the dark, ratty atmosphere in Dreamweb.  For example, your floor tiles are pretty light.  Not to mention the couches are exactly rectangular, which makes them look brand new (albeit sterile as well).  That's smart tiling for saving space, which is good to be thinking about for GB games, but I think you can justify more liberal use with the tiles by the fact that Dreamweb is a pretty short game.

Stuff like this is nitpicking, and your mockup looks good and is readable as it is.  I just get excited when it comes to Dreamweb.

[vpk]

Can't see shit, now on the gameboy.

Dunno if it would be possible to have bg tiles that change as you get past them trough.







(updated version)

[KAT]

OK, final version:



I think it looks good

Main hero looks like zombie

That's very nice KAT, and I like Dreamweb lots. But why not incoporate the shadows from the furniture like in the original?

I was trying but it`s still too hard for me, my skill is not good enough to do shadows like in original. But im still learning and trying

[Arne]

Not quite nextgen, but something. Too few brights... but then again it's Quake. The helmet does not make sense.

[mattness]

Still w.i.p. .. thanks am!

EDIT #3:



uhmm..  busy week.. 

[QuickSilva]

 

[AdamAtomic]

dude YES.  yes.

However, I've just been informed that Quote seriously needs some antennae, and I agree!!

Since the last one I posted was mostly a color reduced piece that I tinkered with a bit, I've decided to put my non-skills to use and recreated the same image from scratch. Result: I can sleep again.

This version is fully tiled, obviously.

This is a drastic change for the worse, IMO!  Drawing your own from scratch is a fantastic idea, as is creating a tiled bg, don't get me wrong.  However, you have lost a pretty critical amount of coherence to the original game!  Remember also that bg tiles are 8x8, and they don't have to consist solely of flat and angled segments!

[Opacus]

Dodonpachi Gameboy version, out now!

Took forever. Hard to make the sprites not blend in with the bg. Any help apreciated.
16x16 Dodonpachi sprites and trying to maintain the style = hard.
Didn't make all UI stuff, got bored with that 
Hope I managed okay.
Oh and the laser would consist of several sprites. If that aint possible: cba to fix it anyway 

[QuickSilva]

Added an antennae just for you Adam I tried two but one looked best at this small size. Subtle difference but it works I think.

Jason.

[pkmays]

Here's my WIP.



I'm pretty sure this is already completely over the limit for number of unique tiles Game Boy could handle, but oh well. Trying to give the impression of snow covered ground. Not sure how well it's working.


QuickSilva
Like the character sprites, and the wavy background effect is cool. Maybe you can mix the small blocks in with the large ones to add some interest to the platforms.

Opacus
Really great job. The enemy ships could do with a reduction in smoothness. Put whites next to blacks in places to make the geometric forms pop more. Also, lose a color in the sprites if you want them to match the spec. Game Boy can only display 4 colors, and in sprites one of those colors is needed for transparency.

mattness
Good start. Since you're using a dark floor, you should be able to get away with using white for the skeleton's limbs instead of black.

Arne
I love the background. I can't decide if adding more dithering and texture would help or hurt the piece. You could do so fun stuff with dramatic, gloomy lighting and the like.

KAT
The furniture is not as visible in your version. Maybe use black dithered with dark gray to bring out the items and hand/pointer. You'll notice the artist did just that in the original version.

vpk
That has a nice industrial sci-fi feel to it. I'm not sure if that would be possible on the Game Boy hardware, but it's a cool idea.

Arachne
Excellent job! Not much I can see that needs improving. Funny enough, I just downloaded a speed run of that game last week.

[Greenwing]

I am not sure at all if i broke any rules but i had loads of fun doing this way past bedtime.

[miscdude]

I am not sure at all if i broke any rules but i had loads of fun doing this way past bedtime.

...STAARRRCRRRAAFFTT
i like it but i think you shoul add a bit more detail to the ground, some lights from the comand center, and just add little details here and there. you got the games look perfectly, imo ^^

[Opacus]

Ah right pkmays. Little update:
   More exiting colours?
The ships would remain in the black and the tanks on land of course. Dunno if that's a viable option for the gameboy programming wise though.
Edit: Whoo, forgot the  "being shot" ship

[D.W.]

Outback hunter IV : Crikey Edition

[Opacus]

Outback hunter IV : Crikey Edition

I don't see the image
I do see http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a126/Tetsuwan/OutbackHunterIV.jpg
File not found :\
(Save as gif so Photobucket doesn't convert it to jpg!)

[D.W.]

There we go, I use imageshack I apologize I didn't want to break any rules.

[Opacus]

There we go, I use imageshack I apologize I didn't want to break any rules.

No rules broken mate
JPG's are just bad for pixel art, and how should you have known that Photobucket converts (bmp's I think?) to jpg's?
The art work is pretty neat. The crosshair's outer circle seems to be a bit off center though.
Perhaps cut a bit down on the dithering on the mountains, and especially the clouds. And maybe you should highlight the "Kills" number a bit so that it is easier to see?

[miscdude]

Ah right pkmays. Little update:
   More exiting colours?
The ships would remain in the black and the tanks on land of course. Dunno if that's a viable option for the gameboy programming wise though.
Edit: Whoo, forgot the  "being shot" ship

it all looks good but to me there are serious readability issues...mainly the ship that (i think thats what it is) you control.. i cant tell if its a laser firing at another ship, if its one big weird ship...or what.

[Opacus]

Ah right pkmays. Little update:
   More exiting colours?
The ships would remain in the black and the tanks on land of course. Dunno if that's a viable option for the gameboy programming wise though.
Edit: Whoo, forgot the  "being shot" ship

it all looks good but to me there are serious readability issues...mainly the ship that (i think thats what it is) you control.. i cant tell if its a laser firing at another ship, if its one big weird ship...or what.

Laser yes
Well, it's a bit the same thing as with the real game. If you look at Dodonpachi screens you're like, what the fuck? But when you play it it all comes together, and it rarely happens you get readability issues then.

[miscdude]

well then, i guess youll just have to make it into a game to fix the readability eh?
jk jk ^^;; kudos for using a game from here. the only other thing is that the score is kinda difficult to read... knitpicky stuff like that.

[D.W.]

There we go, I use imageshack I apologize I didn't want to break any rules.

No rules broken mate
JPG's are just bad for pixel art, and how should you have known that Photobucket converts (bmp's I think?) to jpg's?
The art work is pretty neat. The crosshair's outer circle seems to be a bit off center though.
Perhaps cut a bit down on the dithering on the mountains, and especially the clouds. And maybe you should highlight the "Kills" number a bit so that it is easier to see?

I re did as well it was a bit too much dithering, since it's handheld

[Sohashu]

Just to clarify, must it be a next gen De-make, or can we take any game and take it to the gameboy?

[Opacus]

Just to clarify, must it be a next gen De-make, or can we take any game and take it to the gameboy?

I think you can make any game that's from a console with less restrictions then the Gameboy.
About anything from Final fantasy 5 till Gears of War. Alot goes.

[AdamAtomic]

Just to clarify, must it be a next gen De-make, or can we take any game and take it to the gameboy?

Yeah Opacus has basically got it.  I think Arachne's WoW demake is probably the best example of what I was imagining when I made this up; taking something complicated and new that is frankly very hard to imagine ever working on the gameboy, much less a more powerful 2d system, but making not only a credible & recognizable but beautiful mockup out of it.

[D.W.]

Oh I see now I thought we just make GB mock ups, well trying again.

[locust]

deltree

[KAT]

Look nice, but correct resolution is: 160x144.

[D.W.]

Odin Sphere (Never played the game but saw some winged peopel fight)

Upclose when they get personal


Attacking

[Doppleganger]

I couldn't finish it but, I tried. The end result depressed me too much to spend anymore time on it. Thanks to Adarias for the idea. K bye.

[Sohashu]

alright.  IM working on something.  But just out of interest, could someone fill me me in on the animation limits of the gameboy, such as any frame limitations, and how many Frames per second it can attain. 

[KAT]

my take on quake. hey that rhymes 

gb quake wip
updated with animations





160x144

Put that animation on mockup

[locust]

hehe im actually gamemakin this...and yeah thats a good idea

[D.W.]

alright.  IM working on something.  But just out of interest, could someone fill me me in on the animation limits of the gameboy, such as any frame limitations, and how many Frames per second it can attain. 

I dunno if they had specs about the animation limits, probably compared to NES. 2/4 frames (dunno the speed)second, Sorry this isn't good information but I've still got mine in my draw and I turn it on and I compared it by looking at ti and NES speed same speed in frames and animation.

[pkmays]

Some visibility issues with the interface. I may revisit it.

[Thanakil]

I couldn't finish it but, I tried. The end result depressed me too much to spend anymore time on it. Thanks to Adarias for the idea. K bye.

No need to be depressed, that's good 

I wish I'd actually knew anything to make a gb demake, I'd love to participate, but I'd hardbly be able to make the demake of a stick figure 2D game.

[AdamAtomic]

Some visibility issues with the interface. I may revisit it.

ah!  i wondered where you were going with this!!  The faces are very clear, which is great.  I am not sure but maybe a light-gray (but solid, not dithered) shadow underneath the characters may help?

[baccaman21]

alright.  IM working on something.  But just out of interest, could someone fill me me in on the animation limits of the gameboy, such as any frame limitations, and how many Frames per second it can attain. 

It's not the frame rate as such that you need to concern yourself with... more like the limit of how many physical frames one can store.

There are tricks that allow streaming of data direct from ROM into RAM which feasible means you could have very smooth animation, however that is then offset by the amount of physical memory the cartridge has... be it 512k, 1024k and so on... the bigger the cart the more it costs to manufacture... (ROMs start @ 256Kbit (32k) and go up to 16MBit (2Mb)

That asides, you've then the actual hardware sprite limitations which adam has mentioned already.

These are:
- upto 40 sprites allowed on screen at any one time
   - Max sprite size = 8x16 pixels (note: NOT 16x8)
   - Min sprite size = 8x8 pixels
- 10 sprites only allowed to be displayed on one raster line at any one time (as adam has mentioned) otherwise sprites start to 'drop out'
- Video RAM = 8k (that's the maximum amount of graphic data allowed at any one time in memory, this includes backgrounds, sprites, fonts and any HUD) [it's not a lot]

More details here Skip to the section that's headed VIDEO... there's a load of extra gubbins in there that I may have missed.


I'm curious now to see what you're gonna do... good luck.

[Jad]

- Max sprite size = 8x16 pixels (note: NOT 16x8)

Which kind of means that almost EVERY humanoid 'sprite' on the gameboy consisted of several sprites on top of each other?

[baccaman21]

- Max sprite size = 8x16 pixels (note: NOT 16x8)

Which kind of means that almost EVERY humanoid 'sprite' on the gameboy consisted of several sprites on top of each other?

You got it...

[Jad]

Heavy WIP :\

WHAT GAME COULD IT BE!?

And no, that's not a birthday cake It's not prince of candyland, this. Although that's nice too.

SHADOW PRINZ coming up. In a hundred years. :3

[infinity+1]

it looks like you could slap a skateboard under him and he's ready to ollie over some baskets.

[kite]

Probably too many unique tiles, but I think everything else is fine...

[Jad]

it looks like you could slap a skateboard under him and he's ready to ollie over some baskets.

Action pose = skater pose?

I dunno ' v';;;

[KAT]

My 3rd mockup on this frenzy - Prince of Persia (WIP)



Any critics or ideas?

[Feron]

too close to the original.

[.TakaM]

it looks like you could slap a skateboard under him and he's ready to ollie over some baskets.

Action pose = skater pose?

I dunno ' v';;;

it kinda looks like he has kneepads on
btw, Assassin's Creed?

also, it kinda looks like what I was thinking of doing for a JSRF de-make, but for JSRF, you need atleast GBC

[ndchristie]

Assassin's Creed?

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, isn't it?  that's what i thought anyhow.  Altair is dressed rather differently in all the screens i've seen

[Jad]

The Two Thrones it is.

And for the record, he HAS kneepads. X<

I'll do the dark prince as well :]

[KAT]

too close to the original.

It`s a demake, so it should/can be similar to original, yup? Am I right?

[Lee N]

But there is already a Game Boy version of Prince of Persia.




VS.




http://www.mobygames.com/game/gameboy/prince-of-persia/screenshots

[KAT]

Probably final version:



Prince look strange (like monkey ) because it`s hard for me to draw him better :/

But there is already a Game Boy version of Prince of Persia.

I know only that version of PoP on GB:



I wanted to make my own prince of persia demake, is it bad? I think no.

[AdamAtomic]

It's not bad, it just sort of defeats the purpose of the activity!  I mean you're welcome to do them, and I will happily collect them for the first-post collection at the end of the activity.  But the fun part of the activity is not adapting 2d, tile-based platformers to a 2d, tile-based platformer (e.g. Another World & Prince of Persia).  The fun part (I thought anyways) is to take some really "advanced," next-gen, 3D affair and turn it into an engaging super-low-tech 2D game.  Like, for example, it says in the activity instructions, and is featured in the banner and the first 10 or so submissions!

So again, make all the mockups you want, I mean at its heart that is what these activities are for.  However, you should not express too much surprise that some people are confused about your choice in games!

Also, the margins between your blocks are too thick, your diagonal tiles have sharper corners than your straight-on tiles, too many brick outlines in the background (they get repetitive), a running pose will look more identifiable for the prince, the pillars appear fragile and overly thin, and the prince is far too tall!

OH, and I almost forgot, how come you started a whole new mockup when your old one had received critique and was not nearly finished?

[Helm]

Another World isn't tile-based.

[AdamAtomic]

Which completely invalidates my point!  Oh wait...

[robotriot]

I couldn't decide on a palette, the spinach one is the one I was working with, and after I was finished, I decided to apply one of the palettes from the example screenshots.

[ndchristie]

heh, looks almost exactly like the original GTA even though the game isn't anything close to that.

[robotriot]

Yea, I was wondering if you could pull it off with a Pole Position-style 2.5D engine, but I don't think convincing buildings would be possible in that case.

[KAT]

OK, updated version.

AdamAtomic: Is it better now?

And dreamweb - furniture update:

[locust]

Yea, I was wondering if you could pull it off with a Pole Position-style 2.5D engine, but I don't think convincing buildings would be possible in that case.

actually, the gta1 (the dino engine) engine is 2,5 d, isnt it? i have this "programming sketches"  and he yalks about how he programmed it to look like 3d but when infact it was some kind of scaling.

[robotriot]

It's actually 3D I believe, because it supported 3Dfx cards. So I guess it had some polygons in it for the buildings.

[baccaman21]

Without going off topic, the actual technique that was employed on GTA when it first cam out all thos years ago... was the same principle that was used in Id's Wolfenstein and ulltimatley DOOM... strictly speaking it's NOT 3D as we know it today... it was indeed (contrary to what robotriot suggesting and agreeing with Locust's initial observation) a scaling technique and NOT polygons... this is why in DOOM, WOLFENSTEIN & GTA and other games of it's Ilk - you never got circumstances where the levels crossed over themselves forming sections UNDERNEATH or OVER other sections... think back to playing DOOM, there's never any instances of a corridor cutting across or going over another... all the levels were projections vertical - this was a limitation of the technique... a technique also used on the GBA in ECKS vs SEVER and some other FPS games...  it was only when games like DESCENT and QUAKE came out that the polygon finally reared it's head in this genre... and hence the reason why in DOOM you could enter a room a 100 imps and 6 cacodemons could come at you whereas in quake you entered a room and... you got attacked by 2 baddies if you were lucky... point being sprite scaling techniques were infintely faster (and more detailed) than anything 3d could do at the time... in fact it's only JUST catching up now... if only they(we) had stuck to sprites, bitmap and voxel solutions instead of Polygonal...

enough ranting...

here's my .02$ worth of Demake...

Please enjoy my cynical ironic take on HALO 3 - I mean honestly... (an I mean this most seriously - nothings really changed that much in the great scheme of things... [ooo contravertial])



i've got another cynical demake up my sleeve too... (If I can be bothered getting round to it...)

[MoD]

Descent! I loved Descent and its sequels!

Just had to say that.

[baccaman21]

yes it was good... we used to have a few VR helmets at the office and used to play it on those... that was quite a strange experience... *

I wonder whatever happened to the VR revolution - surely it's ripe for a comeback?**

*again not wanting to derail this topic
** I mean seriously...
sorry... but I just had to say that... 

[madPXL]

made it tonight, interesting chalenge !! it's fun to make a mockup with cheap limitations.

[AdamAtomic]

great job so far everybody!  Just a reminder, I'm going to gather up the heaps and piles of badass submissions on Sunday night, and then launch the new activity.  So get your mockups in while you can!!

[QuickSilva]

So just to make sure we have all of Sunday too, yes? Hopefully I will find the time to finish my second entry fingers crossed.

Jason.

[AdamAtomic]

most of sunday, probably!  The rules for MF#1 are pretty clear that if you want to be SURE your entry is collected, you should try to have it done a day early, just to be safe.  But if it turns out all sexy like your Cave Story one, I might roll it into the first post on monday morning anyways

[QuickSilva]

Thanks for the kind words I`ll do my best.

Jason.

[Arachne]

I started working on another one, but couldn't get it to look the way I wanted, and didn't really want to make another side view platformer mockup. Not to mention the player sprite is huge. I had some trouble getting Dan to look tall and lanky enough. Still needs a background, zombies or something and a health meter.



Played around with this one some more instead.

[Rydin]

--EDIT: got the colors down with math magic, and made a more plausible palette version.
My anatomy is probably very poor....

Yeah, breaks a lot of rules...would probably need a rag doll engine of sorts to look decent when stomping and stuff...and I don't think the foreground telephone lines would be feasible on Gameboy either. 

This was very fun...can't wait for the next one.  Nice entries everybody! 

[Schu]

Woo! God Hand! You're my hero.

Here's mine. Too tired to make anything more exciting (as you can tell from the lame dialogue I shoved in). The return of 2D sidescrolling Zelda!

(Yea, Link didn't get his Hero Clothes yet, but somehow can call Midna...)
------
Schu

[.TakaM]

2D sequence breaking

looks great schu

[Mystery]

Without going off topic, the actual technique that was employed on GTA when it first cam out all thos years ago... was the same principle that was used in Id's Wolfenstein and ulltimatley DOOM... strictly speaking it's NOT 3D as we know it today... it was indeed (contrary to what robotriot suggesting and agreeing with Locust's initial observation) a scaling technique and NOT polygons... this is why in DOOM, WOLFENSTEIN & GTA and other games of it's Ilk - you never got circumstances where the levels crossed over themselves forming sections UNDERNEATH or OVER other sections... think back to playing DOOM, there's never any instances of a corridor cutting across or going over another... all the levels were projections vertical - this was a limitation of the technique... a technique also used on the GBA in ECKS vs SEVER and some other FPS games...

Just to throw in some more info on this:
The technique is called "raycasting" and while you're basically correct about its limitations, later engines like the 3D-Realms "Build" engine used for Duke3D, Shadow Warrior etc., allowed crossing level sections on different heights.

Sorry to interrupt this great Mockup Frenzy

[Opacus]

Schu, that's wondefull.

[QuickSilva]

Here`s my latest effort. Background could have done with a little more work\depth, especially the mountain, but I kinda ran out of time and just wanted to make sure I got in before the deadline. Came out pretty good otherwise I think.

I really enjoyed doing these though, it was nice to finally find the time to join in to one of these Mockup Frenzies. Hopefully this will be my first of many.

Jason.

[Bouzolf]

Didn't have time to finish it (the zombie is really rought):



Guess what game it is!

[leroy]

:p resident evil 4 my all-time-favourite!

btw i might be working on some far cry, hl2 or doom3 for this challenge. maybe oO

[Wayuki]

Without going off topic, the actual technique that was employed on GTA when it first cam out all thos years ago... was the same principle that was used in Id's Wolfenstein and ulltimatley DOOM... strictly speaking it's NOT 3D as we know it today... it was indeed (contrary to what robotriot suggesting and agreeing with Locust's initial observation) a scaling technique and NOT polygons... this is why in DOOM, WOLFENSTEIN & GTA and other games of it's Ilk - you never got circumstances where the levels crossed over themselves forming sections UNDERNEATH or OVER other sections... think back to playing DOOM, there's never any instances of a corridor cutting across or going over another... all the levels were projections vertical - this was a limitation of the technique... a technique also used on the GBA in ECKS vs SEVER and some other FPS games...

Just to throw in some more info on this:
The technique is called "raycasting" and while you're basically correct about its limitations, later engines like the 3D-Realms "Build" engine used for Duke3D, Shadow Warrior etc., allowed crossing level sections on different heights.

Sorry to interrupt this great Mockup Frenzy

The 3D-Realms engine didn't truly support multiple level sections on top of each other. It only seemed that way because it had a portal system. If you entered a "layered" section, you'd actually be teleported to a different section on the map. The map itself was still laid out in a flat way, just like in Doom.

[Judas]

That was my second choice after Phantom Dust. Glad to see someone did a God Hand mockup. Background is pretty great, and the character sprites make me quite happy. Nice work, sir.

[Gameboy]

It's past the deadline, but I figured this was the most relevant place to make my post.
My take on the original Super Smash Bros. from the N64.



Still a novice, I'll admit. Looks kinda empty in my opinion.

Updated:

[DrJones]

Ah darn, I'm way too late for this. And I had a neat idea too...even though it was a WIP. Maybe next time someone will vote for De-makes again

All in all, great work everyone!

[Greenwing]

you can make demakes fot this thread still cant you? there is no voteing on the mockups anyways...

[AdamAtomic]

greenwing is right on both counts!  the first deadline is just for the first post collection   at occasional future dates i will collect late submissions, there's just no guarantees as to when  

[Conzeit]

Thought I'd post the ref I have stored away!
this one is from random GB games, I LOVE to tweak the colors in my GB emulators, so I went and made this compilation of diferent styles of shading in great GB games. some screens are therefore doctored to be more useful for that purpose.


I thought I'd do the same with Trip World since it looks so nice, next thing I knew I had practically made a screenshot recopilation of the whole game! there really is a clever tile use going on almost every other screen, so I went and grabbed all that!...ok I accept it, I grabbed more than I had to c.c

Game is really weird, most enemies dont really attack you, they just...annoy you....get inbetween you and your path...and you may kill em or not. Most dont even fight back when you kick their asses....only real fights are the bosses, the final boss is turning out quite hard! (still havent beat him)

The colors of the sprites are subtly diferent from the BG so that the diferentiation isnt lost....They're a combination of my memory of GB and interwebz photos

[Helm]

Trip World has really really good graphics, I agree!

[Noveroth]

Heh, thought i'd try my hand at this.

Very very WIP of Soul Blazer/Blader For the SNES, basically got the hud and orb done

[ProgZmax]

Some wunderbar entries here.  I'd toss something together if I didn't have so much other crap going on!

[Xeno-Striker]

WIP


10 points for anyone who knows what this is a De-make of

[Noveroth]

WIP


10 points for anyone who knows what this is a De-make of

Is that some Kutku?

[Xeno-Striker]

WIP


10 points for anyone who knows what this is a De-make of

Is that some Kutku?

10 Points for you sir!!

[MrMister]

Excellent Monster Hunter.. man would that be hard to control though.

[Xeno-Striker]

Excellent Monster Hunter.. man would that be hard to control though.

no kiding lol, I'm thinking there would be only 1 attack button