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[compostface]

Integration Failure

A side scrolling shooter with possibly some exploration elements.

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(more info here(see first post for now))
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(playable builds go here)
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[compostface]

This is a screenshot from the game I started about a year ago.  At that point it was just a game to start learning the basics of programming and Gamemaker.  I abandoned it after a month or so, as I kept learning and exploring tools(Löve, Unity) and trying out various small games.  





I'm coming back to finish it.  This time in Unity.  I figure It's scope is reasonable enough, and since it's the first game I started trying to make, it might as well be the first one I finish.  I'm not giving myself a hard deadline.  I've been doing that with other projects and am starting to realize it might be counterproductive.  Instead I'm focusing on getting things to a quality level I'm somewhat happy with.

I've started with making a level that will be at a mid point in the game.  I want it to be relatively complete, before I start adding some of the more interesting(I hope) ideas to it.  They will end up expanding the scope of the project an unknown amount, so I should(will I actually do things in order?) have the core of the game functional before then.  


Screenshot of the basic level layout:




Currently I'm working on replacing the placeholder art I had in the level.  This will most likely get replaced again at some point:






Trying to find background colours that will work as interior/exterior, but will also have the foreground  and player readable on both.  I'm ok with the sky, but the darker one might be too dark.

[jO]

ohhh, those are some delicious pixels. The first shot looks really bland, but the style and colors of the close up shots are really nice.

[rhill]

Nifty. If it's Unity are you using any 2D extensions and if so what?

[compostface]

@jO - Thanks, I agree with the blandness.  I'm still feeling that way to some degree.  I'll keep iterating though.  I'm really looking forward to your game by the way.

@rhill - Hey.  Yah, I'm using 2d Toolkit.  It has a few annoyances, but it's pretty useful so far.  I'm also curious to try out the 2d stuff in Unity 4.3.  But I'm imagining I'll stick with the Toolkit.


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Animation for a floating mine:

A fan tile:


And a screenshot.  Still too much blandness, as I said.  I need to figure out how to break up the large areas in a way that look meaningful rather than random.

[nss_aries]

I like your humble approach, I'll keep an eye on this

I think to fill those large surfaces you'll need to get some degree of randomness. It's not a sin, everybody did this way (look at surfaces from star wars ships, or levels from the megadrive era ).

Keep up the good work!


g.

[Kinaetron]

Looks pretty nice and I like how you're approaching the project overall, hope you get this game done 

[rhill]

I think to fill those large surfaces you'll need to get some degree of randomness. It's not a sin, everybody did this way (look at surfaces from star wars ships, or levels from the megadrive era ).

I think a good way to see the Star Wars ship types of greebles are as hierarchical randomness. What I think makes them work is the scale of the random stuff at one level of the hierarchy is not so large that it obscures the level above it.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial-class_Star_Destroyer
If you look at the full-size picture of the Star Destroyer, the shape is visible no matter how much greeble is on it. It's also used as like a variation in texture. The edge of the "kite" shape has different texture than the flat surfaces. The flat surfaces also have the large shapes and then some very small-scale greeble that doesn't obscure the larger shapes.

My "hierarchy of forms" stuff is influenced by John K's blog, you can see how he talks about it here:
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.ca/2010/07/gnarly-tree-shafts.html

But he's far from the only person to do that sort of thing.


Since you mentioned the Megadrive, I'm now watching Youtube clips of a game called Flashback. I think similar ideas apply to these backgrounds, though I also think it's using hue to help separate the major forms. Like, a form will be of a uniform hue, and the smaller details are drawn only with variation in luminosity. (I put a screen capture in Photoshop and played with it. If you remove the color, you can still see both the large forms and the details. But if you remove the luminosity and leave the hue, the details disappear while the large forms are still quite visible. So the large forms use both hue and luminosity and the details use only luminosity. )

[compostface]

@nss_aries - Thank you.  Your work is pretty inspirational. 

@Darren  -Thanks, I hope so too.

Randomness and greebles -- Useful info, I'll have to take a more in depth look at those references.  I think my biggest issue is figuring out how to keep the randomness contained.  If that makes sense.  Part of that might be exclusive to pixel art, in that adding randomness also changes the overall form, just because of the limited amount of pixels to work with.  The "hierarchy" can only be a couple levels deep. 
I'll do some experimenting...

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Wrestling with code continues.
Also, I made some variants of a cargo type ship. Maybe making them yellow was too easy?: 




I would really like to have vehicles in game that aren't necessarily enemies... unless you attack them directly.  Just people going about their miserable days.  I need to make a "wish" list, and a "likely to get done" list.

[compostface]

More tileset work is in progress:



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I'm feeling like I'm getting a bit more depth to the tiles as well as more controlled randomness.
Not sure about the saturated greens/sky yet.

I've switched to using Pyxel Edit for tilesets.  It's pretty great.

[surt]

Purdy.

[Derqs]

oeh I like your style!, cargo ship looks pretty

[siskavard]

I love the ship designs

[mrBlack]

Interesting start.  I like the ship designs as well.  I can't wait to see more.

Any project release date?

[DanDecarlo]

The cargo ships are awesome.

[compostface]

@All replies -- Thank you!  It's nice to know some things are working so far. 

@mrBlack -- I don't have a release date yet.  I need to have a clearer idea of what the scope of the project will be.  I'm guessing sometime in the spring of next year.  Also depends on my living situation in the coming months.


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I haven't been able to fully switch my brain back into programming mode for a while now.  Hopefully in the next few days I can get some things done.

Today I worked on some music.  Nothing useable yet, as I'm slow at it and have very little idea what I'm doing.

Posting without visuals feels wrong, so I will leave this basic turret animation here:

[Derqs]

What kind of music are you aiming for?
Hype or some chill stuff, because I think both would work just fine.
Loving the recoil on that turret

[ITS_Mike]

It's been said already, but I'd just like to chime in and say that the cargo ship looks awesome!  When it comes to SHMUPs, I tend to prefer vertical scrollers rather than horizontal ones, but best of luck to you!  I'm sure I wouldn't have a problem giving this a go :D

[Derqs]

Have you seen some art from Ian Mcque?, If not I think you could get some great ship ideas from it.
soz for spamming hehe, I guess I'm just really excited for this game.

[compostface]

@InvisibleMan
Thanks.  Vertical scrolling is nice, and would have helped keep the scope smaller for sure... but side scrolling let's me do interesting things with the environmental design and has the potential for exploration elements.  

@Derqs
Oh man, Ian McQue has been a big inspiration(among many) for a couple years.  
I started resizing this turret because it looked too small compared to other objects in game.  
I am playing with the colours, and as you can probably tell there are some direct influences from Ian.  I know he takes some inspiration from Tekkonkinreet(amazing) when it comes to colour.  
Inspiration is weird.  I just hope I "steal" from enough people that it becomes it's own thing.


Oh yah, in terms of music... it will likely be more along the chill ambient lines.  That's what I'm "better" at making.  I would love it to be more dynamic and upbeat at times, but my skills are not there yet.