AuthorTopic: [WIP] Curse of the Caves (EGA DOS game)  (Read 40827 times)

Offline buddy90

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Re: [WIP] Crystals and undead geologists! (EGA mockups)

Reply #50 on: July 30, 2010, 12:22:07 am
Every time I check this thread I wish this game was real. I so want to play it.

Offline crab2selout.png

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Re: [WIP] Crystals and undead geologists! (EGA mockups)

Reply #51 on: July 30, 2010, 05:31:15 am
Like hte previous poster I just wanna gush over how much I love these mockups, especially the title screen. I love how you've captured that monsters in the dark vibe

Also, so I'm not completely useless, I did a quick edit on the suicide animation to add highlighting outlining to the dagger so it's more obvious hte throat is being slit and I added some frames so hte guy wobble on his knees before falling completely to the ground.

« Last Edit: August 01, 2010, 01:16:53 am by crab2selout.png »

Offline eobet

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Re: [WIP] Crystals and undead geologists! (EGA mockups)

Reply #52 on: July 31, 2010, 03:33:53 pm

With moves like this, there's a bit more than a slight discrepancy. :D

Again, rather difficult to read what's going on... how about a small fountain of blood? I bet you can make it cute as well. :)

Offline Faceless

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Re: [WIP] Crystals and undead geologists! (EGA mockups)

Reply #53 on: August 02, 2010, 05:41:44 am
Just a small edit on the bottom of the rocks. I thought they were a bit too noisy.

Offline Arachne

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Re: [WIP] Crystals and undead geologists! (EGA mockups)

Reply #54 on: August 10, 2010, 09:49:59 pm
Glad to hear all the polishing is paying off. ;D

The cyan creatures did read like ghosts to me, but unless my eyes are playing tricks, then in your excellent title screen they appear to be a reasonable 1.5 to 2x the height of a human character (i.e. just right for a monstrous creature with an emphasis on a hazy, stretched aspect because of their temporal nature).  But in the game mock-up, they're 20 or 30 times as tall.  I don't know if this discrepancy is contributing to your discomfort, but I wonder if these creatures would look better if they were pixelled to be about the size of a large boss, rather than something the size of a background layer.

Oh, good point. I hadn't thought about that at all.

Quote
I do like 'Endless Cavern', though I think the reason you might have tried to change it is because - despite how it rolls off the tongue - it lacks a good verb for pep (or at least a more descriptive noun) and so 'Crystal Blast' must have sounded very exciting in comparison, but maybe began to feel too exciting (like it was supposed to be some kind of high-energy Columns or Tetris clone...).  At the risk of suggesting something that sounds too comical and throw away, would 'Crystal Caverns' be too alliterative for you?  Then there's also 'Phantom Caverns', 'Crystal Depths', 'Ancient Caves', 'Adventure Mine', 'The Under World', 'Caverns of the Dead', or many other possibilities and combinations of possibilities.  (though I doubt any of this is much better than 'Endless Cavern'. :-[)

Crystal Caverns is a bit too much like Crystal Caves, I think. I really like Crystal Depths, but I think it would be nice for something more arcade-oriented, like a Mr. Driller type of game.



Here's the title screen for now, with both title and menu.

Also, so I'm not completely useless, I did a quick edit on the suicide animation to add highlighting outlining to the dagger so it's more obvious hte throat is being slit and I added some frames so hte guy wobble on his knees before falling completely to the ground.


That's a huge improvement. ;D



How's this? Personally, I prefer it without the fountain. Also, magically disappearing knife. I might get to that later.

Just a small edit on the bottom of the rocks. I thought they were a bit too noisy.

Yeah, that looks good. The tiles need some work in other areas as well, so I'll see what I can do. :)


Here are some spelunkers. The player will have to fight spelunkers with backpacks, so I might have to change some of them so they can't be mistaken for the player sprite, at least the one with the pink crystal.




I also ended up changing the skull symbols a bit to make them look more menacing. The skulls are grave indicators, by the way. The contents may or may not be friendly.

Offline crab2selout.png

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Re: [WIP] Crystals and undead geologists! (EGA mockups)

Reply #55 on: August 11, 2010, 06:47:50 am
I thnk hte less blood version looks best. It gets the point across and the blood splurt version is a little too comical. Just delay the dimming of the miners eyes a few frames so that he closes them as he falls and... perfect.

You might try playing with the size of the helmet light to make these mining helmets seems more distinct.

I love the speculars on the miner's helmet in the title screen shot, especially the main white spec. I find each time I look at these pics there's always something new to appreciate.

Offline Manupix

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Re: [WIP] Crystals and undead geologists! (EGA mockups)

Reply #56 on: August 13, 2010, 08:58:21 pm
This looks wonderful! I'm so happy you're still pixelling!  ;D

A few things to say about the title screen:
The caver's attitude is not that obvious (not that it should necessarily be from the viewers side, but maybe some problems you have/had with him are related): is he laying in shallow water, or standing in deeper water, or clinging on a ledge over even deeper water? Is he motionless, or actively trying to climb out?
Is he aware of the ghosts behind him?

The floor is very even for a cave. Quite possibly you don't want it to become too busy. Anyhow, a few links won't hurt [1] [2] [3] [4] (not all show lakes, rather typical uneven cave floors; I thought it would be easier to find good caving pics).

The main light should come from the guy's headlamp (and some from the ghosts), but it doesn't look like the lamp is on, and there seems instead to be some foreground source of light (reflecting on the helmet). It might look more dramatic to have most of the fg lit by the headlamp. Btw, did you consider acetylene caving lamps? (sorry for the lousy image and details, it's the best I could find!)

Offline Arachne

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Re: [WIP] Curse of the Caves (EGA DOS game)

Reply #57 on: February 15, 2011, 03:30:56 pm

Hey, guys! ;D I haven't had much spare time lately, but I'm still working on this whenever I can.

I have a programmer helping me with it now, and we've chosen DOS as our platform. It's going to be a little more limited by that, but it's also going to feel more nostalgic, and (thanks to Dosbox) it'll be cross-platform as well.

The engine is running nicely in EGA mode on an old 486 at the moment. :D



Firstly, I finally came up with a title I think fits better. The old one looked a bit crowded with all those letters, so I think that's better in this one, and it's also alliterative like its spiritual predecessor.



Here's a concept sketch for the new worm monster and the new worm sprites. I wanted something a little more menacing and thought through with regards to movement. They stand out more than the old sprites without the pink. That shift towards blue made them look more like they belonged there, so I'm wondering if I should try to squeeze a little bit of pink in there at some point. I also changed the darkest skull so that it looks less flat.



Here are the new insect sprites.



I drew new weapon icons to make them more distinct. Shield (stun), arrowhead (damage), heart (healing to player, damage to enemies) and broken heart (damage to player, massive damage to enemies). I liked the idea of a broken crystal having an effect very different from the intended.

I also added a tiny bit of rock to the ammo crystals so that they looked more like they were attached to something. I don't think it adds much to the first two, though.

The skulls are meant to be bronze, silver and gold, which I found a bit difficult to convey in EGA colors. I was thinking I could use them for a level statistics screen or something.



Here's a screenshot with some new tiles. I added a bit more black to the underside of some of the old ones, like Faceless suggested, and I think it adds a bit of depth. However, I still think the rock tiles look flat, but I hope the addition of brighter skeletons towards the center make them pop out a little more. I'm also thinking about drawing some even bigger skeletons for larger sections of solid rock. I didn't want to just keep adding more crystals since I want the crystal items to stand out next to the tiles. On the other hand, it's all very gray at the moment, so I think a minimum of color is needed.

A few things to say about the title screen:
The caver's attitude is not that obvious (not that it should necessarily be from the viewers side, but maybe some problems you have/had with him are related): is he laying in shallow water, or standing in deeper water, or clinging on a ledge over even deeper water? Is he motionless, or actively trying to climb out?
Is he aware of the ghosts behind him?

I wanted it to look like he's clinging to the ledge in deep water, exhausted and trying to catch his breath. As for whether or not he's aware of the creatures, I don't know if it would change much. He knows his death will be unpleasant, but he should know it's not permanent at that point since he should have the means of resurrecting himself.

Quote
The floor is very even for a cave. Quite possibly you don't want it to become too busy. Anyhow, a few links won't hurt [1] [2] [3] [4] (not all show lakes, rather typical uneven cave floors; I thought it would be easier to find good caving pics).

I agree that it looks a bit odd to have flat cave floor like that. It would be better to have mainly square tiles as far as drawing to screen goes, but that wouldn't look very natural in a cave setting. I've tried to vary the edge colors a bit, but I'll try to make some of the tiles a little more uneven to see how it looks.

Quote
The main light should come from the guy's headlamp (and some from the ghosts), but it doesn't look like the lamp is on, and there seems instead to be some foreground source of light (reflecting on the helmet). It might look more dramatic to have most of the fg lit by the headlamp. Btw, did you consider acetylene caving lamps? (sorry for the lousy image and details, it's the best I could find!)

I think it would be easier to make something dark and dramatic if I had more subtler, dark shades for details. I don't know how effective such a modification would be at the moment, but I could experiment a little when I have time. At the very least, I'll see if I can add some light from his headlamp on the cave floor in front of him, as it seems strangely ineffective as it is.

The old fashioned lamp is interesting. I'll keep that in mind for the other spelunkers. :)

Offline Stratto

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Re: [WIP] Curse of the Caves (EGA DOS game)

Reply #58 on: February 15, 2011, 11:48:01 pm
Quote
The skulls are meant to be bronze, silver and gold, which I found a bit difficult to convey in EGA colors.

Hi arachne
I hope you don't mind, but I took a shot at the skulls you're working on:

The metals were definitely a challenge, gold being the most difficult mainly because of that annoying pink/orange. I think the gold one was the worst.
 On the silver skull, I took out a lot of the blue hues which made it look a lot colder and icier (unless that's what you were going for.)
I also changed the width of the skulls, since I thought they were a bit too chubby.

They might not be excellent, but I hope this helps. good luck  :y:

EDIT: after a few iterations, I managed to get this:

the only downside is dithering, which may take away the smoothness of gold.
« Last Edit: February 16, 2011, 02:39:03 am by Stratto »

Offline xegnma

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Re: [WIP] Curse of the Caves (EGA DOS game)

Reply #59 on: February 17, 2011, 03:41:45 am
If you ever want to do a flash port of this project, i'd be more than willing to help(i'm a flash developer). Hell I can even help with the pixel art if need be (big EGA fan).