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[StefanSava]

Hello guys, I've been lurking around these forums for a while now. And I've finally come to the point where I'm working on my own game as a 1 man team. I'll be posting progress here as I go along, feel free to leave any feedback.

The game I'm working on is called Graveyard Goldmine - a 2D survival game about mining in a post-apocalyptic setting where you and your girl have to keep on moving and make the right calls to surive. It started off as a jam entry on scirra's underground jamhttps://www.scirra.com/arcade/underground-jam/graveyard-goldmine-2341. And now I've already started remaking all the bits into one full game.

I've already decided and setup the game's big parts and how they will interact

Starting from the title menu which is essentially the same as the in-game view with idling zombies standing about.

Starting the game will send a car smashing into all elements on the screen and fadeout to the next screen.
Next screen will be the 'on the road' screen where you manage your resources and make decisions on where to stop next.

There is a intermediary scenic screen where I'll likely have some story elements inserted (nothing defined so far)

And the gamescreen where you start digging and getting as much stuff as possible before getting back to the car.

I have the basic graphics down and some of the animations on the zombies and player, and I'm currently working on the player core mechanics like attacking/digging and the associated animations.

Here are the zombies' idle animations:


Thanks for reading!
Stefan

[Fenrir]

I love the art style, and the current jam entry is really nice!

[StefanSava]

I love the art style, and the current jam entry is really nice!

Thanks, appreciate it!

[Miltage]

Totally came into this thread not expecting much from the title, but I was pleasantly surprised. Zombies are a tired trend, and I thought was going to be another 'defend the base' type deal, but it looks like you've got a new spin on it here.

I'm a fan of your aesthetic too, except the 'on the road' screen looks like it might have some weird pixel scaling going on. It just doesn't look as good as the others, and the branches on the trees appear to be missing some pixels (especially apparent on that smaller tree behind the truck), which makes me think you're doing some scaling in-engine that's causing unintended pixel displacement.

[StefanSava]

Totally came into this thread not expecting much from the title, but I was pleasantly surprised. Zombies are a tired trend, and I thought was going to be another 'defend the base' type deal, but it looks like you've got a new spin on it here.

I'm a fan of your aesthetic too, except the 'on the road' screen looks like it might have some weird pixel scaling going on. It just doesn't look as good as the others, and the branches on the trees appear to be missing some pixels (especially apparent on that smaller tree behind the truck), which makes me think you're doing some scaling in-engine that's causing unintended pixel displacement.

Thanks for the feedback! Your observations are spot on. Some of the trees have been scaled down inside the game and that is what is causing the missing pixels (I used that as a fast way to add a bit more randomization). I also saved the entire image at a lower resolution by mistake and didn't realize it until after uploading it. I'll make a gif of the entire menu functioning when I get to adding the 'missions' on the 'on the road' screen - and you'll get to see it a lot better that way. I'll probably take out the randomization as well if it hurts the visuals more than adds to it :D

[StefanSava]

Here's a in-game view with player and zombie animations working - just the basic stuff, no interaction yet.



Working on the attack animation next - this is what i have so far:



I've been experimenting different ways to do this, I'd like the attack to be very fast and responsive IE no player input downtime also i wanna make it so that you can attack and run, i'm thinking of incorporating a dash in the move+attack combo.

[StefanSava]

Ok it took a little while since my last update - only cause I'm in the process of moving from my home to a new place.

Here's a gif with a new attack animation with a slight forward step.



Looks a little better than the last one, i think. I'm also considering doing a follow-up attack so you can combo for a quick succession of attacks.

[StefanSava]

Another version of the attack animation with more polish, more frames and worked up the zombie death sprite as well. It seems like a improvement over the last one. Still not 100% sure about it tho.

[JWK5]

[Pixel Noise]

Cool concept! I really like the coloring and look of the "digging/combat" screen. Looking forward to more!

[Bombini]

The animations are lovely!

[StefanSava]

Wow, thanks you for the feedback, I'm impressed you took the time to put it together I haven't really thought about that part yet since I am mainly focused on getting the player attack to a state i'm happy with. I did do some work on the zombie death and blood on my last export but I still haven't implemented it in the game yet. I don't feel like the red vs yellow will be that much of a problem because I already have a foreground transparent fog layer that is placed above the enemies layer. So all that blood will be kinda faded to yellow when it goes beneath the fog. However, I like your suggestion of having "thicker" blood with different coloring on the end of the spray point a lot. I think it's a great idea!

Cool concept! I really like the coloring and look of the "digging/combat" screen. Looking forward to more!

The animations are lovely!

Thanks guys! I'll have more updates in a while - I'll be busy with the holidays and moving to a new appartment which will be a slow process - but I'll use the non-pc time to think about some general game design and try to clean up some of the general aspects of the game.

[StefanSava]

Ok got a new update going:

I've changed up the entire way the main character works, he is now skinnable and can have different weapons. Everything has been separated into parts like legs/body/head/weapon . You can see a short preview of me doing the dubstep crouchrun here:

[kevin andersson]

The background colors looks amazing and the walk animations of the zombies are very nice, keep it up!

But in my opinion (I don't know how you want the game to work), the player should be a bit slower and he/she's jumping to high.

[StefanSava]

The background colors looks amazing and the walk animations of the zombies are very nice, keep it up!

But in my opinion (I don't know how you want the game to work), the player should be a bit slower and he/she's jumping to high.

Thanks for the feedback!

Everything regarding player movement is pretty much subject to change, so i'll keep your suggestion in mind when i get to the part of tweaking - right now my goal is building all the logic so i have the basic stuff working correctly.

[PedroNunes]

I love the dramatic art style. Very cool, you've done a great job there. I nearly burst out laughing when the "crouching" animation kicked in

Keep it up!

[Hoj]

This looks fantastic - posting to follow.

[kevin andersson]

Everything regarding player movement is pretty much subject to change, so i'll keep your suggestion in mind when i get to the part of tweaking - right now my goal is building all the logic so i have the basic stuff working correctly.

That's often what I tend to focus on first for a while. Getting the basic stuff working. I'll keep track of this game!

[StefanSava]

Thanks guys, I'll be posting more progress soon! 

[StefanSava]

Ok so - i got some time in between renovating a apartment and other work - and I managed to export this gif with the new weapons working. Here's a quick peak - Kalashnikov kalashnikov!



and some music to go with it