Hey. So here's another devlog update. This one just shows a little bit more of the park's completed state. Haven't been able to do a lot in the past week and a half or so, but I should have more time now.

I really believe the problem herein lies with the color choice; you need to stray from fleshy brown or beige tones and choose something completely different.

Yeah, perhaps just changing the scarf to the same color as the blue of his shirt would be a great change.

Let's run backwards.

Really, I think just pushing his chest forward might fix that. Unless you want him running backwards, in which case, it's perfect.

Finally uploaded that tutorial on simple animation. It deals with a run cycle.

@TaintedFork - Make his skin and/or armor darker. That would help out a little, at least. Maybe bronze armor would be better?

Thanks for the suggestions. I think this is better:

Thanks, I think you're right. I thought that the grass was green enough, but on further inspection, it's way too yellow. Thanks for the suggestion!

Working on the park. The fence looks weird, but I'm not exactly sure of how to draw it better... Perhaps with tiles?

My game, Soldier Of.



Trying to find pretty much the perfect mix between 3D objects and 2D sprites.

@ANtY - Looks somewhat similar to Puzzle Quest. A puzzle game with RPG elements in it?

Alright, so I worked a little on the park.



It's got animating transparent water and everything. The fence is still a little off, though. Fortunately, it's group-instanced, so I can go back to change it. I need to find a good style... Maybe if I used just planes (tiles) for the fence? I'm not sure. Maybe I'll just focus on making the important parts, and then going back to fix visual stuff.

With a head-on orthographic projection, I have to wonder why you'd bother modeling anything. It's essentially 2D. An isometric or other axonometric projection might be worth trying. But I dunno, I really like the discordant look of proper perspective & sprites.

Exactly. Why have sides to everything if you won't be able to see them?

I also think the cleaned-up shots & gradient shadows look a little lifeless, so whaddaiknow.

Hmm... I'm going to have to work on it - maybe I can find a nice medium. I think that the real gold to be found here is to get it to a point where it's a mix of old and new graphical style - true 3D, perhaps physics-based mechanics, etc. next to the old-school sprites and art style.

@Jakman4242 - Sounds like an interesting idea. So would that look like billboarding - always facing the camera, or otherwise trying to keep them from skewing?

Sorry about not working on this in awhile - I didn't have time, but now I do, so expect updates. 

maybe will post a devlog eventually.

-STORY IDEA-

Sounds pretty interesting. I'd like to see how the game plays; I don't think I've heard of this idea before.

Wh... LARGER?!  

EDIT: The guy on the right's hands are a little 'static' to me. But you have drawn some AWESOME characters. They look really, REALLY unique and well-drawn. KEEP. IT. UP.

edit: wow i am bored

 

Strongly reminds me of Professor Layton. Nice, simple colors and an interesting character. Really cool stuff. I like the high-res equal to the low-res. Any plans for them?

Trying to better engage playtesters on Octodad 2 and figure out some design issues with our new HUD.

Post a screenshot. People might be able to help you out here.

@Gimmy - Yeah, I was (and still am) like that. I think something that helped me was picking a project that I can just barrel through - once something works, there's not really any need to tweak it, unless you know how it should look. It's okay to tweak one or two times, but after you've spent a week or two without making progress, maybe it's best to just continue with the game and fix any issues when you get a chance.

@cynicalsandel - Just start learning. Just look for a tutorial and start off with it. Programming and game design are usually separate tutorials, though FlashPunk's tutorial's pretty simple. If you don't want to learn about programming, Blender (3D), Game Maker (2D) and Stencylworks (2D) have visual programming languages. Stencylworks' is pretty much the most advanced visual programming language between the three, having worked with Game Maker for years.

I would recommend looking around at different engines and seeing what you like - what feels comfortable. From there, start something small to keep you occupied, like a hobby project. In a few weeks, you'll be comfortable with the engine and the editor (if it has one) and be able to go from there.

Cool, but I would darken the blue highlighting around the 'Attack' button more. It's too hard to read the word currently.

I'm also doing some volumetric light. It is implemented as a post process.

Oh, and how are you doing this? I mean, if you're okay with telling me...

#xrabohrok - Thanks.

Snap-to-pixel is pretty useful. If you have a situation where you have a face over whole pixels (the way you want) but you see seams, you can turn off snap to pixels and size down individual UV islands (in the UV window, next to vertex and face selection) by a very small amount, like 0.95, to get rid of the seams and keep the same look. That's pretty much the only way I found to do it other than use a margin around the faces to ensure that the seams don't show up.

Great modeling, texturing, and pose. You've got a really interesting character there, McMutton. Great job.

Your texture's resolution is divisible by 2, right? I mean, it's 64x64 or 128x128, not something like 130x130 or 100x100, right?