GR#119 - Project Deadbird - Gameart, Sprites, Icons, Conceptart

[Ryumaru]

Helm: I think I might see where you're coming from, but let me reply to a few of those points. I personally know of at least 2 games that use durability with weapons: Dark cloud and Drakon the ancient gates and I found it fun because you couldn't just have one favorite weapon. Also, the time is not stone age-ish although it might appear to be( I might have to do things to correct this) he is placed in a world without technology- so the main character is knowledgeable of things such as computers but just does not have access to them.
If you're point is to create my design document in such a way that the most integral parts of the game are explained first I can definitely take that into consideration.

Firstly: that is the reason that sword has an X next to it, I drew it out for fun and basically said" what was I thinking?"
My dilemma with the weapons is that I want the designs to be more extravagant as they become more powerful; some of the sense of reward would be lost by the player if weapons with higher requirements looked just as plain as the ones he made before. I will go back to the drawing board for some of my weapons.

[Mathias]

Always nice to see another artist's sketches. It's insightful in many ways. That, and the masses get to shoot down your concepts before you spend time pixelling anything, hehe. Saves you time, right? You also reminded me moleskins exist; got one in the mail as a result. Hopefully it'll motivate me to keep a better sketching routine. We all need that. Thanks for the reminder.

Way to go for starting up a game project, it's looking beautiful so far! Love the purple darks. The fundamental concept for Deadbird is really interesting. I was thinking this morning during my mind-numbing drive to work how I'd like to see yer design doc/outline, or at least chunks you care to release. You seem to be operating on assumptions about the game's final state, yet I get the impression that it's still very much clay. It's good to not get too far ahead of yourself. Too much backtracking can be a fatal killjoy for any game dev project. My own previous failures taught me that. So just watch out. Hopefully your current burst of ambition can be sustained.

I have some concerns/thoughts for your consumption here, Ryu. As the guy behind this project, you've probably already thought of all or most of this, but I think right now, the most effective feedback you can get is feedback focused on the core of the game - the gameplay, not the graphics, if you really are looking for a successful game and not simply an outlet for some pixel art. And I think you are, considering the good concept.
As for the weapon durability thing, which I hadn't picked up on anywhere except for the sketches just posted, like Helm did too I'm guessing - it's a dynamic idea, but one that seems like it should be kept in check - for instance it may be annoying if all weapons "broke" after a while so only crafted weapons would be subject to the durability thing. As a player, I expect that to be frustrating. Then again, during the day you'll be making lots of weapons, so after only a short while you'll have a crapload of weapons, so it makes sense that they break necessitating the creation of more, which supports your gameplay idea for daytime. But still, if I make a cool weapon, I don't want it to break. In my gaming, I get kind of attached to certain weapons; they become an important element in the game, even if they're not meant to. Case in point - Doom's chainsaw. I certainly used that thing when I wasn't supposed to. It became an improvised challenge to see how effective I could melee everything to their knees with it. If it ever ran out of gas and died on me, some of the game's intrinsic fun would've faded, for me anyway. Is it realistic for the gas to never deplete? No. But who cares, dangit!

How are you balancing the warrior/explorer by night mechanic with the crafting weapons/items by day mechanic? I see them as opposites. I'm a pretty casual gamer, too much weapon making seems like it may bore me pretty quickly. But, in a balanced amount, it could be refreshing.
How does weapon crafting work? I'm a former Everquester and am accustomed to the jewel crafting thing where you throw a certain combo of items into the kiln and hit "combine". You either fail or have success, depending on your skill level. Each prest combo is a receipé for a certain result.
Then, depending on what weapon is currently armed, how is this reflected in the player's character sprite walking around? Again, in EQ1, your character could be seen holding only a few different weapons based on what class of weapon it was - the rusty bastard sword, normal bastard sword, short broadsword, etc all looked the same in your hand.

And yikes, your game clock will render the environment of the game to depict time of day? I've always wanted to see this done well. Hmm, Ocarina of Time did do it pretty well, and hey, that's when the skellies and other baddies would attack, like Deadbird here. Had an idea for a website a while back that would reflect the time of day, depending on the user's OS clock. It may seem really odd for a whole day to transpire in a few minutes. How long do you plan to make one game hour, when there's 24 total? Oh hey just had a thought - Alaska's sunlight schedule is all jacked up due to being close to a pole, what if the criminal containment land where you're trapped has the same thing going on, which makes days very short. This would offer you flexible control over how long a day is. A day may be so short with this in place you'd pray for day to come so you could finally get recharged and mend yourself and your weapons, do your grocery shopping, etc. I imagine it - you're hobbling along, battling ferocious and mean monsters that have nothing but malice and injustice in their hearts, and in the middle of fighting - the enemies you fear are becoming so many they'll overrun you and your weapons are all busting on you and you're really far from a savepoint - Khaaaaa kuhh kaaaAAAHHHHhhh - the rooster crows and daylight cracks, all enemies suddenly vaporize or run for cover like vampires or those awesome creatures from Pitch Black. Tell me you've seen Vin Diesel's first good movie.

Well, there's more, but don't want to bore anyone. I'll try and keep up with this thread. I'd appreciate some comments from you in mine, as well. Granted, I am just bored at work.





To better understand Deadbird:

1) What age/time is this game set in? Is it alternate reality or does it take place in our linear past, present or future?
2) What culture is this? It's surely not stone age, your character doesn't look neanderthal, and the reason there are such basic weapons is because that's all there is. This could be futuristic for all we know.
2) Is this a one-man team project? Like Cave Story was. (finally got around to playing it, what a well done little game, wow)
3) What dev kit are you using? You're coding it as well I've gathered. (frightening!)

[Chris2balls]

Just to take on what Helm said about the weapons: design is very important. If design isn't convincing, then you lose credibility. Imagine yourself making those weapons. Hell, go out and make them, and see how long they last. You need to find a balance between sturdiness and class, you need to take in count the pressure of making the weapons in time. Ask yourself questions: do I need two bones for a handle? Is it solid and will it stay together? How do I craft a sharp blade? Which parts of the Diavolo are the blades carved from? I don't know if you have, but do go searching for primitive tools on the internet and in books. I would actually go out and make some tools in your place

[Ryumaru]

Mathias: Thank you very much for your comment, I can't even reply to all of it right now but I read it and you definitely got me asking some questions.
Chris2balls: I would make some of my own, but Ironically I don't have the tools. I don't know of any flint near by that I could carve but I spent some time looking at some stone age weapons and such.
I apologize for no pixel art but heres a page( sorry for the bad quality too) that I did after rethinking some things. Don't mind the render on the flint stone knife, I got a little carried away on that one and also I know the sword like thing might need a redesign in contour but I just wanted to get it down.BUT what I really wanted to show is the possible weapon creation feature. what it would be is a " weapons workshop" that would hold all the resources that the main character would use. the workshop would grow as more resources are obtained- but only signifying major land marks such as first getting bones and first getting something of each resource, then possibly filling up an inventory or the like. The workshop could work like this: using the arrow keys to scan the array of resources, you could stop on one item such as " bone" and click enter or some other button. This would open a little menu that showed the inventory- showing items such as " bone 1" and "bone 3" ( in my game the numbers will represent the size and/ or quality of the item). After picking say, bone 3, a menu would appear that would show any past creations that were logged in a journal( more on that later) in clear colors, and any possible weapons to create with the resources available that have NOT been made before would be shown in a dark sillouette.
What do you guys think? horrible idea?

[Mathias]

I dunno guys, I'm placing far less importance on the weapons being completely logical. Too much logic saps the fun. I still agree, but only in limit.

I wanted to venture a guess at your earlier posted "spoiler" sprite sheet. The purple spiky shoulder growth thing on the player is the main player character slowly 'corrupting' or becoming one of the demon creatures himself. It's what eventaully happens to all individuals tossed into this "evil australia", if that is, they don't get killed before their final "becoming" stage. So, in yer sheet the player character is harvesting some of the superhuman ability of the evil race, while struggling to remain human. Am I warm?


Also on the player character, the protagonist of this saga, is he really a bad criminal, or is he innocent and fighting his way out of australia, unjustly sentanced? I'm thinking about game psychology here. Don't we want a character that's really good, to conquer. If he deserves his punishment to be banished, like he is, doesn't that motivate us, the player, less to save him and succeed? Do you know what I mean? Or is it just that we want to be fighting something more malevolent than we? In this, we have a convicted criminal, of a heinous crime(s) apparently, fighting creatures definitely mroe evil than he, so then does that work? I guess so. Because of this he doesn't need to be the stereotypical dashing hero type, because his struggle is still against forces far worse than he, so we still have that differentiation there.
Yet, some games do pit an obvioulsy malicious character, as the player character, against things or people that is/are good. But those good people/things are always trying to capture or kill you, as the player, so from your point of view, they are the bad guy, simply because they're trying to get you. I guess this still work, I'm not sure . . . You see, perfect gameplay is such an elusive thing, it's nearly all that really matters in a game. But that's because it's the sum of all of it's parts, with less emphasis on the "presentation layer" of the game than anything else. Yet, I can argue that graphics do equate to gameplay value because I play some games just to see the graphics, so if the graphics aren't there, my mind isn't there, haha. You can't win for losing.

[Ryumaru]

Mathias: You have questions I at least want to answer with some pretty pixels :]

[Ryumaru]

Since it's summer I have a bit more free time for pixels. I'm working on the walking animations, but for now, here is the display. The avatar on the right would show his current status, any transformation etc. the red liquid stuff is blood- his health bar and the blue is water- his hydration bar. then to the left are 2 items the player would currently be able to use.
I'm pretty satisfied with it

I need a programmer

[Olothontor]

Wow, this looks amazing.

Since I really want to see this go somewhere, you might look for Programmers on the Facepunch forums. There are a fair number of idiots, but when I first posted my game concept I had 8 C++ programmers waiting to get started. Just a thought.

The sprites are simply stunning, although I think the HUD might be pretty distracting from actual gameplay. I think it draws TOO much attention, both in size and detail.

[Mathias]

(oh, now you're gonna animate that avatar huh? hehe har)

I was waiting for this one to reactivate.


This project seems more like just an art project than an actual game dev project. It'll take months of development to bring this game about. And look at how little time you have. Not to be a doomsayer, but how far have you ever gotten into creating a fully-featured game like this?

With all the final art being produced there needs to already be a thoroughly planned out design doc in existence, yet last I remembered some of the game's fundamentals were still up in the air, nowhere near ready for being recorded in the DD. Others here have much more valid experience with game dev, commercial even (just see their lamentations in the Off-Topic thread right now to identify a few). Maybe they can advise.



Your latest stuff. I agreem the HUD is big, I was surprised.

I assume it spans the width of your targeted resolution, which would be 320px X 240px. How is it going to work? What happens when the game world is overlapped by the protrusions on top of the HUD? When art crosses over into game art there's a painful need for functionality above all else, and right now it looks like a form-over-function situation goin' on here.




Top left of HUD, is that a closed eye waiting to open? Perhaps a toggle switch for some type of game mode, like invincibility for the player?

[ptoing]

I have to agree with Mathias. It is very nicely done, but probably way too huge for a nice and functional hud.

You have to ask yourself which parts you really really need and how big they have to be.
Do you need the portrait of the dude in the lower right at all cost?
Do the powerbars have to be that thick?
Do the weapon slots have to be staggered?

And so on.

Also, please change the colour of that red on your sig, it seriously burns and attracts the eyes away from stuff.