AuthorTopic: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...  (Read 182402 times)

Offline Ninja Crow

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 47
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #220 on: February 08, 2010, 07:23:58 pm
Hi HD!

I was linked here from http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9818 on the Pixel Joint forums, and just about had a heart attack!  I don't know if I've just been leading a sheltered life, or what, but this is probably the most impressive stuff I've ever seen.  Without the probably.

I didn't even notice the link to the movie clip that inspired this until after I had fallen into complete love with this project.  Thus, I have no qualms whatsoever with any of the conceptual decisions you've made.  I instantly read the environment as a colony on an alien world and was rather gobsmacked by the visually arresting look of the orange and white concrete and paint style, garnished so well with the great foliage.

And then, to add to this feast, came that wonderful player character!  A vision in blue and white to perfectly complement the red enemies.  How did you know that the gorilla was my favourite primate?  They have such power, grace, and soul - and are far more lovable and sympathetic than, say, chimps, even though they aren't as closely related to us.  And decked out in that full rig of armour - I tell you it's hard to come across something that really stands out when you get bombarded daily with countless amounts of visual information online, but your PlayApe stopped me cold, cleared my buffers, and made me take notice.  (though I really miss the shoulder armour that balanced the design style, and helped the character read as some kind of transorganic living vehicle - there's just not enough blue and white on the body without it!)

I love how the rendering, and resolution, give this all the charm of a classic sidescroller (I'm a SNES and Mega Drive guy, I have to admit, and pine for the 'glory days' of pixelled gaming) but with the eye-popping benefits of modern 3-D graphics (though having to chase down those dratted orbs every time they pop is a little annoying...).

Most of all I'm impressed by how quickly the project has advanced, and the dedication you've shown to it (I'm all too familiar with the endless stream of unfinished mockups posted all over online that never even progress to a playable demo).

My only regret is that I'm not yet accomplished enough for my praise to be as significant as I want it to be!  I'm just a writer, artist, and game designer trying to learn pixelling so I can branch into making my own games - but now I know it's people like you I'm trying to become as good as!

Love love love this!
Please please please keep it coming!

Hotly Anticipating in Eagerville,
JD

Offline Howard Day

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 222
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Hey, I'm a doofus.
    • View Profile

Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #221 on: February 10, 2010, 07:33:50 am
Ninja Crow: Thanks for the enthusiasm, man - I'm really happy people are getting a kick out of this. It's a lot of fun on my end, and it's good to know that's coming though.

Tasty, Tasty Update time!
http://www.hedfiles.net/AEUpdate6.exe -15.5MB
Known issues:
The GunApe doesn't animate properly when jumping, running backwards, or doing anything other than standing still or running forwards.
The Menu options "Credits" and "How to Play" do nothing.
Some framerate issues...not as bad as they have been, tracking them down further.

Updated in this version:
BumbleBot Added! HE LIVES!
New intro logo...mebe temporary, but I kinda like it...
Lots of other tweaks...

Currently working on: The GunApe's animations, model. Sorta stalled on the new face model. I get the feeling that's gonna take a while to get right.

Next up on the list:
Complete the visible In-game HUD with health, score, and heat monitors.
Intro, Main menu.

I should mention that I got levels of difficulty working - it's currently hard-coded to the hardest, but it's in there and it works!
Thoughts?

Offline twodayslate

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 77
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • twitter

Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #222 on: February 10, 2010, 06:00:25 pm
I like the firefly intro. Just need to clean it up a bit perhaps but I love the idea.

I think you need an alternative explosion for the flying things. The same one repeating over and over again gets kinda boring.

What do you think of when the flying things explode on the ground that they kill the rollie guys? Or hurts them a little at least.

Offline Jad

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1048
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #223 on: February 11, 2010, 12:15:03 am
<MUCH TEXT AND LOVE>

Love love love this!
Please please please keep it coming!

Hotly Anticipating in Eagerville,
JD

Haha, this is fantastic! You know how us mods enforce a sorta fuzzy 'no asspats'-rule? THIS IS SUCH AN EXPLOSIVE EXCEPTION

is people were this detailed with their 'asspats' then that rule would be turned completely obsolete. Haha
' _ '

Offline Ninja Crow

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 47
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #224 on: February 11, 2010, 06:27:56 pm
Jad:  Thank you :)

Howard Day:  The new intro rocks (love that developer name) and the idea of the floating fireflies is also nice (you see, it's thoughtful details like this that convince me our relationship will be a good one!) but I couldn't tell whether they were being sucked into the words or being bug-zapped on them.

Bumblebot is such an awesome creation - a triumph of design and animation - and he's way fun to obliterate, too!  I just noticed, though, when you're shooting at enemies that those amazing explosions are too big against their bodies, and should be smaller so you can see what's going on - until they blow up, of course, which requires the biggest bang you can find!  (oops, it's only for large groups - when they're on their own there is actually an awesome-looking pulse for hitting them.  Sorry, man!  :-[)

I don't know if you noticed, but the 'T' key makes an explosion under the reticle.

These observations are mostly just to show I'm paying careful attention - they're certainly not show-stoppers - so please ignore them if you think they'll get in the way of your momentum.  Just about any tiny detail can be fixed in 'post' after the rapid prototyping stage where enough work is done that no one doubts it can be wrapped up easily (I wish Christmas presents wrapped up easily...).

Speaking of the game, I hope you keep a PC version, because I don't have a PSP!
« Last Edit: February 12, 2010, 07:33:54 am by Ninja Crow »

Offline sculptedpixel

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 15
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • abusing pixels since 1989
    • View Profile
    • sculptedpixel.org

Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #225 on: February 14, 2010, 10:15:01 am
Holy crap that's great Howard!  It's really coming together.  What's next on your list - enemies, player character animations?  You're building this for psp distro - is there a marketplace for indy dev on psp via psn?

I actually have hacked up pspdisp on an old psp to test games built / prototyped in flash - in usb mode it works pretty well. 

Every time I come through this thread I'm blown away.  Keep it up.
"If you can’t beat them, arrange to have them beaten." — George Carlin

Offline Howard Day

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 222
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Hey, I'm a doofus.
    • View Profile

Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #226 on: February 16, 2010, 10:07:54 am
twodayslate: Thanks. Both of those suggestions are in - variation for the explosions, and splash damage when they hit the ground bots...
Jad: Exuberance!
Ninja Crow: Thanks again! When the sound is added, it'll be clear that the bugs are getting zapped. The "T" key is an outdated  test key to try out alternative explosions anywhere on the screen. I'll remove it in the next release. At this point I have no solid plans for a PSP release - It's more of a personal arbitrary choice and imitation.
sculptedpixel: Mainly player animations. The goal is to eventually release on the PSP - the road to that is extremely long and unlikely, though.

Super Succulent Update time!
http://www.hedfiles.net/AEUpdate8 -40MB - BROKEN LINK CRASH BUG
Known issues:
The GunApe doesn't animate properly when jumping, running backwards, or doing anything other than standing still or running forwards.
The Menu options "Credits" and "How to Play" do nothing.
Jump is disabled...for the time being.

Updated in this version:
updated intro logo...cleaned up a bit
Inserted temp intro video - accounts for much of the 40mb file size. Future example releases will not include this.
Added Heat Gauge - your gun now heats you up - overuse it, and you'll cause damage to yourself.
Hugely updated the background art - lots more variation.
The health and heat gauges fade out when not in use
Adjusted firepower ratios for the DualShok Cannon
Lots of minor under-the-hood tweaks.

Currently working on: The player model and movement in general. I just can't seem to wrap my head around the monkey - I'm having a lot of trouble getting into doing a relatively complete remodel...

Next up on the list:
Complete the visible In-game HUD with the score and life counters
Intro, Main menu.

Thoughts?
« Last Edit: February 16, 2010, 05:23:16 pm by Howard Day »

Offline Ninja Crow

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 47
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #227 on: February 16, 2010, 08:37:23 pm
Oh man, a broken link!  (and I been starvin' myself all week so I could splurge)

If you don't mind something fiddly, I noticed in the previous build that the exclaimer in the 'Mission Start!' is hard to read, because the diagonal stripes hide the break between the bar and the dot.

Can you specify a bit more about your troubles with the monkey?  Is it how to animate (as in, where should the arms be in each frame) or a technical issue (something in your 3-D modelling programme) or is it design (legs aren't the right length/shape/colour/whatever) or what, exactly?  Is it the face?  That monkey face is pretty small - I don't think you could read its expression unless it was exaggerated like a Mario character anyway - the devil is in the details, and this would bedevil me if I didn't save it for last.  How explosive are you imagining the final movement abilities of the monkey?  Can he leap around like in a comic book?  Yeah, I guess you could say I'm really interested.

Speaking of jumping, I'm also interested in how that will work.  Will there be a variable jump height?  Air friction?  Air drift?  When he reverses direction will there be turn friction?  (I consider these things to be the essential platformer elements, and demand them for platformer engines, but I don't know how much of a platformer you're looking at this being.)

Thanks.
[chants 'fix link, fix link!']

Offline Howard Day

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 222
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Hey, I'm a doofus.
    • View Profile

Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #228 on: February 16, 2010, 09:35:20 pm
Thanks, Ninja. So the link is broken for a reason - if you don't have some obscure version of Quicktime installed it crashes. Thanks MMF2! For the troubles on the monkey - I need to re-make the face to be more expressive, animated, and generally better. The monkey himself also needs modifications for animation (mostly done) and alter the model to have a visible radiator on the back (like a backpack) to represent the heat sinks... For the movements, he will be able to jump around quite a bit, double-jumping and ground-pounds and the like, but I'm not going to get too crazy...
I'll re-export the game with no intro tonight, that should fix all the many issues.

Offline Howard Day

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 222
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Hey, I'm a doofus.
    • View Profile

Re: Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

Reply #229 on: February 17, 2010, 06:58:58 am
http://www.hedfiles.net/AEUpdate9.exe - 20MB!
Updated in this version:
updated intro logo...cleaned up a bit
Added Heat Gauge - your gun now heats you up - overuse it, and you'll cause damage to yourself.
Hugely updated the background art - lots more variation.
The health and heat gauges fade out when not in use
Adjusted firepower ratios for the DualShok Cannon
Lots of minor under-the-hood tweaks.
Non-moving vertical jump now works perfectly.

Currently working on: The player model and movement in general.
Next up on the list:
Complete the visible In-game HUD with the score and life counters
Intro, Main menu.

Thoughts?