next »

[snackycactus]

Whoo- post time, it's been a while!

For the last two weeks I was unable to work on GGK, (boo) because I was building an e-commerce website for a client (yay money!). Now I'm done and I can get back to sweet-sweet game development!

The level layouts are mostly done in an ugly design style, so next I decided to complete my final in-game art tests for the two environments in this level. Here's what it's gonna look like:

Forest: (large file, may take a while to load)


Cave: (note, the frame rate is too slow to see the shaking of the rock chunks when you hit them)


That's all folks!

[JindrichP]

Environment and animations are really nice. I want to play it just from seeing these two last animations.

[Pawl]

The forest looks great! Getting Link to the Past vibes. 

[quantumpotato]

Animations looking good!
When can I get a demo on OSX?

[snackycactus]

Whoa nelly it's been ages since I last updated here.
A LOT has happened it the game, and I've crossed a few major development milestones.

1. I've completed my first actual production level of the game, meaning content that will appear in the final game.
2. I've completed my first boss battle!
3. I've started working on all the fun bits that string the levels together like world map, currency, scoring, etc.

This all marks a huge step forward for the game and as a result I'll be moving the slider from 10 to 20% done (although in all honesty, anyone who knows game development knows that those percents are BS)

I don't want to reveal too much of the finished level, so instead I'll show off what I did today: A brand new dialogue system, font, and emotes! You'll also get a peek of the general of your army: General Pickle. Let me know what ya'll think, the background for the dialogue box is not necessarily final.



I'll try to keep the updates more regular from here on out

[snackycactus]

@quantumpotato I'm not sure weather I will make a demo for public use or not... I will probably put one together to show to publishers though. We'll just have to wait an see!

[snackycactus]

Hey folks, I know it's been ages since posting... sorry! The good news is all of that time has been spent on awesome game stuff.
Today I thought I'd share a little bit of process for developing new locations for the game.

Here are my development steps for new locations:
1. Basic concept - this is really just the type of location, it's theme, how it fits into the game, and some rough ideas on why the gameplay / experience there will be unique.
2. Concept art + concept characters - this stage is half pen and paper, and half digital. I draw a bunch of concept art, rough level maps, and enemies.
3. In-game test - this is my favorite part of the creation process, as all the ideas I've been playing with suddenly pop into life. I create a small test environment area with new, (semi-final) art to test what the location should feel like, and I build and polish a few new enemies to go in the space. This is a sort of rapid prototyping, proof of concept phase. All of the polished looking footage I posted from the forest level was actually from this stage. The goal of this is just to make sure the art direction is working, the level feels good / unique and the enemies feel different and cool.
4. All enemies designed - I create concept art (and often final, unanimated drawings) of every enemy in the game, and decide on paper how they will all behave.
5. Level map - Here I make a little map of what the level layout and rough enemy placements will be.
6. Grey box - Since the game isn't 3d, I don't actually do 'grey boxing', but here I make a non-visually exciting version of the level, complete with enemy placements and checkpoints.
7. Polish - make it look and feel great!

Bosses:
Bosses are a mixed bag, so I wasn't sure where to include them here. Usually, unless the boss is integral in earlier parts of the level, I don't work on the boss at all until around stage 5 or 6. This has varied a lot, so I guess I don't have a very solid process for them... hopefully that's ok!

To give an idea of what step 3 looks like, I've attached a download for my #3 phase for a spooky themed level. Hope ya'll like it!
Please remember, this is NOT A LEVEL, just an art and concept test, so don't expect too much
MAC: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1S71tqAsnVlY2Kb4drItL6-LXhq3PF0gh
PC: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jWP94D9Gs0WeTpde6MdiEPnQruHsEnc5

I'm curious about anyone else's processes, having a structure to the way I build all of my content is actually pretty new to me, so I'd love to hear about how anyone else does it. Please share!

[jmas]

one of the best styles for pixel art i've ever seen

[snackycactus]

Thank you!!!

[snackycactus]

Just finished a spinning ghoul! But I'm not gonna say how this is going to be used in-game... You'll just have to use your imagination.

[quantumpotato]

Hope to hear from you soon 

[snackycactus]

Hey @quantumpotato thanks for the poke. I'm really sorry for not posting in so long!

GGK is still alive and well, although it is going though a lot of changes. While massive change is super scary as it usually means throwing out a lot of sometimes cool work, it only happens when there is a truly good reason for it, and as a result makes for a stronger game in the end. (Who knows, maybe i'll make some secret b-sides levels with my junked content).

ART
The big changes are coming in two directions. 1: Art from all my old / original areas is being thrown out and re-done. This sort of thing is inevitable; as I simply become better at doing art for GGK, old art starts looking bad, out of date, or is simply the wrong art style. Even now after almost a year of doing art for GGK I'm constantly making little decisions between more realistic or less realistic, more outlines / hand drawn style or more modern color-on color pixel art.  Here is gif showing new redone art for the Frog Town where I’m testing two very different foliage for the bamboo in this level.

My goal is to find a balance that creates a new and charming art style that is neither super retro (shovel knight), nor super illustrative / 'pixel arty' (owl boy). I guess I'd like to channel the more imbalanced and naive styles that were being pioneered during the early and mid 90s, before pixel art became a "thing" outside of games.



DESIGN
As the year went on, GGK become a bigger and bigger project. With this, came my desire to add more and more systems and design concepts that I was attracted to like more exploration in larger more complex levels with branching paths, many secret areas, NPC filled villages, stronger story elements, etc. While all of these ides were really conceptually interesting to me I began to feel that many of these ideas were either pushing my gameplay away from my original inspiration (90s arcade games) or simply didn’t support the core gameplay strongly enough. Now, I’m doing some pretty intense fat-trimming to get the game down to a purer arcade experience. My hope is that once most of the levels are done or coming together, the ideas that still remain interesting and relevant then may make it into the game.

Thanks for the interest- I’ll try to post more!.

P.S. I also just moved to Vietnam, so that has had an impact on my free time for posting.

[samurai_zane]

This looks wonderful! Aesthetically its got that Yoshi's Island meets Sonic vibe. Definitely nailing the charm from the games of old.

[snackycactus]

Hey! I realized it has been ages (months) since my last post.. sorry!
The game is coming along great- I have another new level totally finished, and have moved on to a new, Mad Max inspired area.

I thought it may be interesting to post some of my animation sketches to show my process.

After making my initial standing pose for a character, I then go on to plan their move sets and create roughs for all their animations. I really have no standards for frame rates or length of animations. Some enemies have 2 frame, jerky NES style animations, and some have 60fps super smooth animations. Most commonly though, enemies have a frame rate close to 10fps. This is a pretty low frame rate for games, but because my animations are hand drawn and heavily lean on keyframe poses, it tends to just make the characters feel snappy and expressive rather than low-fi. So far it all somehow works, but hopefully it doesn't end up looking disjointed in the end.

Once I'm happy with them I'll go back frame by frame and clean em all up. If you guys do this any other way, or the same, I'd love to hear your process as well.

Shoot


Run


Jump Shoot


Backflip (this one looks kinda weird to me, and doesn't quite read. I may end up scrapping it)

[snackycactus]

Big update w/ lotsa stuff:

I just realized I haven't posted anything here in ages.


NOTE:
If you'd like to sign up to get news on the game, you can do so here: www.tomocamp.com

Here's some of what I've been up to:
Working on a new lava area... Here's the environment test: (step 1 for any new area in the game)


The same level with the lava level has a 4 environments– my goal with this game is to always keep it fresh though lots of variety. I never want an enemy or area to overstay it's welcome.
Here are some other places in the level:

Exterior of the mountain:


Base of the mountain: (and some plateaus)


I'm also making my sprites much bigger than they used to be. I really want to capture an arcade-game feel, and one big difference between arcade and consoles in the 90s was sprite size.


Another goal of mine is to have at least 1 "set-piece" in each level that showcases some kind of visual effect. Again, I really want to capture that 90s-arcade, visual spectacle flare.

Here's my effect test for the 3rd phase of the boss, where he'll chase you down a lava tunnel in the volcano.


I have a 2nd set-piece that happens in this level, mid-way though, but I'm still working on the gameplay in that part, so I'll post it later

So far I've completed the "base of the mountain" third of the level. I tend to work linearly like this, almost completely finishing a portion of a level before moving on, meaning I fully animate and complete every enemy and complete the level design for that part. Now i'm moving on to the lava-interior. Here's a test for the new centipede enemies there:


This area is just a test for them, but the final will be similar. One of these guys will have a key you need to proceed.

There's still a lot I haven't shown from this level so I may do a followup post a bit later on. For now, I'll try to be more diligent with updates. I may continue to do this style, where I post less-frequently, but with bigger updates.

[Pretzel Bros Studios]

Oh my god! I love that lava tunnel. And the colors! Everything looks very charming and polished. It's like watching a game from my childhood. But way better! I really like it a lot!

[snackycactus]

Thank you so much!!! That's exactly what I'm going for. Trying to capture that 90s goodness

[Pawl]

Go Go Willem, Go Go!! 

[Devilkay]

you mixed the 2D pixel art with the 3D models in a perfect way! O_O incredible! Congratulations!

[snackycactus]

Whoops, I just realized its been like 5 months since I last posted

The game is coming along super well, lots of new additions and lots of of upgrades. I generally tweet once a week showing something cool about the game, so form now on I'll try to make an effort to post here as well

Here's a little tidbit showing how much the visuals have evolved in the 2 years I've been working on the project. I'm finally revisiting Barkopolis City, which was the first pre-production test level I worked on. Tomorrow I'll do another post showing a bit of combat and and a new part of the city level.