Cheers guys! It's great to get such positive feedback for the animation- it does make me feel like I really have to lift my game with the overall art direction for color composition and environment stuff tho- the individual pixel anims up close feel like they're more exciting than full screenshots or gameplay footage at the moment
I'm definitely much more confident animating characters than thinking about composition... I'll post some full screenshots some time soon to see if anyone has some good advice
I've been designing the upgrade system to allow unlocking new armies and monsters and upgraded versions of monsters after each game... I like to doodle the GUI elements to help me think out the ramifications of different designs and not miss all the edge cases, so here are my latest working doodles for the system
I'm realizing this is a potentially useful system for difficulty balancing. I want to give more skilled/experienced players the ability to "handicap themselves" in-game, in exchange for bigger upgrade rewards at the end if they win, and possibly offering some form of the reverse...
seems like a good way to keep it accessible and "arcadey" while catering to a variety of skill levels, and it's something you can do dynamically and organically, so you can just keep sacraficing a little bit more here and there if you're still way ahead of the other players, to even the playing field and increase your reward
Purcy yeah it would be fun to do that some time
JasonPickering thanks, your relic rush looks awesome! I love seeing stuff so low res- so crisp and clean and the colors are great
Dayvi thanks, glad its useful!
InvisibleMan hmm yeah the arcade cabinet look is something which I think we haven't actually nailed... YET... because it's mostly in the GUI and onscreen indicators and stuff... things we haven't really put much time into so far... Things like that classic "GO" arrow with the hand pointing to continue to the next screen and the way you handle GUI text (so much flashing!) and power bars and stuff... that seems to be where all the arcade feeling comes in.
here is a fairly low fps capture of our old title screen where we had a handful of arcadey GUI details:
this was before we shortened the name obiously
all of this stuff is getting redone for a graphical overhaul since we changed the name and developed the style quite a bit, but there are lots of arcadey elements, with the screen being divided for 4 players and the 3 letter names and stuff...
I'd really like to do a super-arcadey "attract mode" semi-animated cut scene thingy that loops if you leave it on the menu like an arcade cabinet
DanielSnd pwei Aquanoctis happymonster hube Seiseki Sc00bz thanks heaps guys :D