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[Laitch]

only 4 colors? this looks amazing I will be following this for sure

[Eigen]

Thanks for doing the screencast, and answering my questions. I enjoy watching other people's workflow/process!

Thanks. It was quite interesting to work like that though it felt if someone was watching you work behind your back, which is a bit stressful Also, I hadn't made a plan of what I wanted to work on exactly so I was at a loss a bit.

I'm actually thinking of keeping the stream going whenever because it's really simple and no effort on my side.

Sadly I had to focus on some work related stuff, so I stopped watching at one point. But I did appreciate you taking the effort to stream the development process. I'll be more than glad to watch you coding/designing and interacting more if I have the chance (also subscribed to your twitch channel!).

Sweet, thanks. I actually got the idea for the stream after watching thatshelby's stream of him working on a LD48 warm-up game. I thought that was pretty neat and interesting.

only 4 colors? this looks amazing I will be following this for sure

Yes, 4 colors. Someone more skilled than me could probably do some properly jaw-dropping stuff with that limitation, but I'm still learning also. Things have gotten a lot better since I started a few months ago.


So, anyway, I'm back online at the moment later this evening. I changed the stream from full-screen to only the Code::Blocks window which should make things more readable plus I added a webcam in the corner for extra embarrassment. I'll be working on some more GUI stuff. I want to move the interface creation out of the game code and into a separate definition file. That will make creating and tweaking game windows much simpler. So that's on my TODO list right now. I won't be converting already existing stuff into these files, I'll leave those in code, but all future stuff will be like that. Hopefully.

[Joshua]

Thanks. It was quite interesting to work like that though it felt if someone was watching you work behind your back, which is a bit stressful Also, I hadn't made a plan of what I wanted to work on exactly so I was at a loss a bit.

No need to stress, I'm not watching you 100% of the time. I'm doing other things and occasionally popping in.

[Bandreus]

Thanks. It was quite interesting to work like that though it felt if someone was watching you work behind your back, which is a bit stressful Also, I hadn't made a plan of what I wanted to work on exactly so I was at a loss a bit.

No need to stress, I'm not watching you 100% of the time. I'm doing other things and occasionally popping in.

Yeah! More like "let's see where's Eigen at" every once in a while. And listening to some of your good music in the background too

[Joshua]

Thought I'd play with the color palette a little bit. Some schemes are a bit more radical than others.  

In my opinion, it's more interesting to avoid pure whites/blacks.

[Pineapple]

fyi I am extremely excited for this

[moi]

my favorite is bottom left

[Eigen]

Radical indeed! Thanks. All of them together in one image like that actually looks cool. They are all really nice palettes, perhaps a bit too vivid, but I don't think they match any of the seasons in the game. Okay, the top-left one could work for autumn. I might actually steal it (with slight modifications). The bottom-left one could be spring, if the red was replaced with a blue of sorts, but it is very bright.

I actually mentioned this color issue a little while ago. When I got a new laptop, I discovered that the colors are quite poor on there. Everything is really bright (it has to be for a 3d screen) and has this blueish tone. The colors all feel very cold. My previous screen had very warm and yellowish tones, but it's also a lot darker. So when I looked at the game on my new computer, it was hard on the eyes because the colors (mainly green) was very bright. It drowned out the rest of the colors. When I looked at on my work computer, it was very different and looked decent. So, my point is I have to try find a middle ground for colors that look okay on all of the displays I have access to. When your game has thousands of colors on screen at once, it's more difficult to notice if some of them are a bit off but when the whole screen is filled with basically one color, slight changes make a huge difference. So far I've only worked out the summer palette, which is pretty much locked for now because I like it, it's not too bright and feels solid and the balance between green and blue is pretty good. It's really hard to describe colors but it feels ... mature somehow, which I think suits summer. The black and white are not in fact black and white, but a bright yellowish and very dark brown color.

Spring | Summer
Fall      | Winter


I'm also pretty pleased with the fall colors (obviously the art assets need adjusting as well to lose the leaves on the trees). Spring is not too bad either but I'll definitely play with it some more. The difference between spring and summer is not that vast but when it changes in game you do notice it. The winter one feels too monochromatic and I haven't really worked on it yet. Snow will also fall and whatnot, so that adds to the whole feel.

fyi I am extremely excited for this

I'm glad to hear that!


Oh, and yesterday I finially completed the saving and loading feature. It still needs some UI for the save game list and stuff but technically it's all there. Yay! I really needed it because I want to work on the actual game features and if I had to start from the town every time I would kill myself.

[JobLeonard]

I actually mentioned this color issue a little while ago. When I got a new laptop, I discovered that the colors are quite poor on there. Everything is really bright (it has to be for a 3d screen) and has this blueish tone. The colors all feel very cold. My previous screen had very warm and yellowish tones, but it's also a lot darker. So when I looked at the game on my new computer, it was hard on the eyes because the colors (mainly green) was very bright. It drowned out the rest of the colors. When I looked at on my work computer, it was very different and looked decent. So, my point is I have to try find a middle ground for colors that look okay on all of the displays I have access to. When your game has thousands of colors on screen at once, it's more difficult to notice if some of them are a bit off but when the whole screen is filled with basically one color, slight changes make a huge difference. So far I've only worked out the summer palette, which is pretty much locked for now because I like it, it's not too bright and feels solid and the balance between green and blue is pretty good. It's really hard to describe colors but it feels ... mature somehow, which I think suits summer. The black and white are not in fact black and white, but a bright yellowish and very dark brown color.

Sounds lke a colour temperature (plus saturation) issue. Maybe you could try supporting two/three different, common colour temperatures?

It reminds me of a number of later GBA games which had special colour settings for the classic GBA, the GBA player (in other words, the TV) and the GBA SP. Maybe you could have two or three

[Laitch]

In my opinion Fall should be more yellowish/orange and Winter looks more like a night scene than Winter. Maybe make the blue color white? A snow covered winter scene is very bright after all - Although that would be even more monochromatic

Here is a small example of what I was thinking about:


Anyway that's just what I think

[Pineapple]

some time ago I posted this which I felt was a really good candidate for fall colors:



and I just cooked this up, maybe winter colors might look something like this

[Quarry]

some time ago I posted this which I felt was a really good candidate for fall colors:

http://i.imgur.com/87s6Q.png

Toxic water on mars

[Joshua]

@Eigen
My palettes weren't really meant to be realistic, just having a bit of fun. A monochromatic palette for winter does make sense, I think the ones's I've created are mostly complementary.

A good point about the challenges of low color palettes and monitor calibration, something for me to think about.

@_Madk
It was your post inspired me to play with the colors. 

[happymonster]

My Autumn and Winter variants:

[Eigen]

Nice palettes everyone. This is turning into a palette fest aka. 'who's got the best color picking skill'. I like, learning a lot here
You're all right, the autumn should probably be more orange than dreary poop brown.

Laitch, I like these, that winter actually looks wintery compared to mine but the white should probably be toned down a little. I'll give it a try.
happymonster, I think your winter is a bit too dark, even more night-like than mine. The autumn is good, though. Makes me feel dismal and write crappy poetry about dismal things.
_Madk, yeah I remember that image. But the water, as Quarry said, look a bit toxic.

Sounds lke a colour temperature (plus saturation) issue. Maybe you could try supporting two/three different, common colour temperatures?

It reminds me of a number of later GBA games which had special colour settings for the classic GBA, the GBA player (in other words, the TV) and the GBA SP. Maybe you could have two or three

Yeah, maybe I'll add a calibration thingy under the options. The thing is, I can't just present the user of 3 shades of green and ask which one he/she thinks looks best. What I can do, I think, is ask if the user thinks his/her screen has warm or cold tones in general. The third option would be 'Idunno' and then you see some white squares that could be used to help determine it. Or whatever. We'll see.

My palettes weren't really meant to be realistic, just having a bit of fun. A monochromatic palette for winter does make sense, I think the ones's I've created are mostly complementary.

A good point about the challenges of low color palettes and monitor calibration, something for me to think about.

I know, they were fun! And bold. Sort of like the old CGA palette, only way better, (which by all accounts is the worst set of 4 colors ever chosen. Gah! )



On the development side, I got the saved files listed and displayed in the load game window. It works, believe it or not. To complete the save game window, I first need to write an textbox widget, which I've been postponing for a while now, but I'll try to get it done this weekend. Then I would like to get at least a basic world map working in the town to choose your exploration destination. And add at least one initial quest and then get the build out. It's been far too long without a release ...

[Bandreus]

Yeah, maybe I'll add a calibration thingy under the options. The thing is, I can't just present the user of 3 shades of green and ask which one he/she thinks looks best. What I can do, I think, is ask if the user thinks his/her screen has warm or cold tones in general. The third option would be 'Idunno' and then you see some white squares that could be used to help determine it. Or whatever. We'll see.

The issue I can see with this is... the vast majority of users simply don't know about how colors work. Most people simply assume colors 'should' look the same on every monitor. Things are slowly getting better though, and as technology is more pervasive by the day, even non-geeky people start realizing such things.

General assumptions aside, I would keep it as simple as possible. Do offer a bunch of
possible settings in the options menu. But I would really go a step further with it.
How about, when you first start the game, the ship's commander is having a little conversation with a crew member about their favorite colors? (think the kind of game-tips through npc conversations while sailing idea).

This would blend really well in the game imho. The player would pick a color combination among any proposed alternatives, and the resulting palette would be applied onto game-tiles on the fly (this could be breaking-the-fourth-wall by a tad in a subtle way, which I like). As the player confirms her choice, the npc advice that 'you can always change your mind at a later time by accessing the options menu'.

One last consideration. In order for the player to make a 'good' choice, the palette-calibration/npc-conversation would need to take place in a spot of the map where a good selection of tiles is being displayed on-screen (sea, grass, trees). Obvious good pick would be the starting town's harbor.

That's my 2c.

[Pineapple]

toxic water? bullocks, you guys would never survive in the wild. everyone knows that the water that has opaque sludge on its surface is the best for drinking. god.

[Quarry]

Tell us more... SURVIVAL EXPERT

pffts

[Pineapple]

Tell us more... SURVIVAL EXPERT

pffts

sorry but my teaching services are not free

[Eigen]

You cannot teach survival, you can only learn it.

No, wait, that was how to be zen ...