I just wanted to say that I find this thread super entertaining. Cool game. Keep doing what makes you happy. Only you can make your game. Other people can make their own games. Y'knowwww?

Yes I basically paid $80 for some good feedback.

I don't think I'll enter it again. Probably won't enter it in anything with entry fees. Lesson learned.

That is the best feedback I've seen from a competition or convention. Usually feedback I get if it is a no is "Sorry, we don't think you're game is a good fit. Thanks."

But I think more so than worrying about an entrant fee, you need to give the game a bit of time before entering it into competitions. Let it find its soul a bit per se. You have something REALLY magical here and the animation is such a huge selling point. Don't get discouraged. I'm in a similar place where I was rejected from nearly all the summer conventions. Just keep trucking and power through. Good luck!

-Dan

Rivals of Aether

Zetterburn Combo:

I'm not sure what any of this is. But it's hilarious. So many hashtags. So much #dev.

I have heard Graphics Gale is better as well, but I also use Photoshop and GMS. But based on your issues in your first post, I am not sure that you are using Photoshop to the best of its ability for Game Maker Studio.

If you have each frame as a layer, then you can use the animation window (View, Animation) and put each layer as a frame and then save it as a gif. You can then load this gif into game maker studio and it will have the full animation.

It's a pretty fast workflow for me. Then if I have issues with a single frame, I just copy the whole frame out of photoshop and paste it over the one I am editing in Game maker Studio. (no need to save a new file)

I could see other reasons for wanting to switch away from photoshop to graphics gale though.

-Dan

When I did Gameboyish restrictions, I followed some rules to help the important elements stand out.

1. I only used the darkest color on sprites and level that the player will interact with (floor tiles and platform tiles).
2. In the mid-ground, I used 3 colors. For things close to the player's plane but right behind it.
3. In the background, I tried to limit myself to two colors to push them even further back. (I did break this rule occasionally, but only in large areas).

In that sense, I would see if you could make clouds that only use two colors as they could be less distracting.

Also I would think of utilizing that light color more to help pop the important elements (player + enemies perhaps).

Example from a Gameboy style game that I made:
https://www.spriters-resource.com/fullview/43089/

i feel like a lot of this was shaded just for the sake of filling otherwise 'empty' space with shading, because a lot of areas seem to be ignoring how something would be shaped entirely for the sake of shoving as many wrinkles in as possible

you've gotta use  your space wisely with pixel art


you can ignore most of the changes on the torso since that was mostly just me getting rid of a bunch of wrinkles

the legs tho, that's not how dress pants work and that's not really how legs (or feet) are shaped

also also, if you're gonna give someone high waisted pants, be sure to keep their crotch intact!! it doesn't magically disappear the higher you hike up their pants

Awesome feedback, ted. Very cool way of breaking it down and showing what you mean. I definitely agree with the point of "filling empty space" as I end up ruining some of my pieces by doing just that.

Also I had not noticed the crouch being very short until you pointed it out. It's very cool that you took the time to dive deep and make those edits. You were able to take a piece that I found quite strong to begin with and break down how it could be even better. Showing the real value of tigsource right there!

-Dan

You thinking for turn-based or real-time or both?

I gave up working on an HTML5 game after struggling with the right way to do turn-based multiplayer.

So yeah, I would be interested for sure.

-Dan

Looks really cool. My feedback is that you might have a bit easier time in terms of readability if you limited backgrounds to 2 colors instead of 3.

-Dan

@eigenbom

I really want to do something like that. Looks amazing and would match my style. Do you know what implementation in games will be like? Would love to try to get it running in Game Maker Studio.

-Dan

Looking very cool and very fast changes.

Perhaps you only get gold from killed enemies instead of gold and XP?
It feels strange that a level up power would reward you more XP...

Edit:

Also would it be possible to have the gold from the Level-up killed enemies spawn at the enemy locations and then move downward instead of at the player's position? It might look even cooler.

Sphinx and worm:

I think you could turn leveling up into a much bigger celebration with a longer pause, a full screen effect and then a noticeable health increase (it seems like leveling up heals you a good amount in this screenshot).

Overall your ability to spice up transitions and feedback is great though.

Sweet looking animations Ashkin and Storsorgen!

Haven't been doing any animation in a long while, but I have been pixeling for a project:


Working on a ton of 34x34 creatures.

I enjoyed your original because I enjoyed Triple Triad and your pixel art style.

The HTML5 stuff if fascinating, but do you have any plans for packaging it as native iOS or Android apps this time around?

Word of advice on readability:

I would strongly consider reserving black outlines for the cards only and their numbers. I would convert the card art outlines to very dark colors of the palette and make the elements in a more "relief" style to make them blend better as well (right now, everything with black borders compete for your eyes and the elements squares look occupied).

So I had thought about this alot, and I am really attached / used to using black in my pixel art. However due to the size I am going for, the black cartoony style was not being conveyed how I would like anyway. I have decided to take your advice. Not all the card outlines are as nice as they should be yet, but here is a screenshot of the game currently at www.elementimals.com/



I think i am going to restrict black to Buttons, Card Borders, Floating Text and the game's border (which makes more sense in windowed mode).

@fylth:
Interesting bug, I have not seen it yet, but I imagine it happens when drag and dropping cards. I will look into reproducing it. Personally I prefer to click a card and then click again to play it.

[@eobet]

@eobet
Thanks for checking out this one and the last one. Yeah the idea is for it to be native eventually using Phonegap. It will probably just connect to my own server though and require internet (since so much will be multiplayer focused, I can't check for cheating otherwise).

As far as readability. I agree with you on many of your points. I think the element slots is the first that needs to change and I will update those very soon. I think the card backs could also benefit from being updated like you have as well. I am not so sure I want the border to have a soft line as it would look quite strange on blue cards and possibily fade into the characters.

I have thought about getting rid of the black in all the characters and one of my friends even started doing so. It would make the numbers read much more clearly if we did so. I just am not completely sold on it from an aesthetics point of view yet. I like how the black unifies the design, but I agree I need to do some work to stop everything from looking so flat.

@fylth:
Yeah the help and options menu probably will not be working for a while. In the final game, I want to have an interactive tutorial that is easy and fun with hardly any text. But in the meantime, here is the How to Play text copied over from the original:

Also I have updated the website to have support for dragging and dropping cards. It is not 100% polished but it was working for me on both iPhone and my chrome browser.

-Dan

Cross Post of Development Update 1 from Danfornace.com:

Hey guys. Working on Elementimals 2, I knew that I wanted to add more purpose and strategy to the Elements that each card has. So far, I have done this in two ways.
 
The first way has been in the test build for a few weeks now. Just like in the first game, each game board has four elements slot on it, one for each element in the game – Air, Earth, Fire and Water. These slots are placed randomly on the empty board at the beginning of each game. When placing a card, if you match the element slots, for example a Green Card onto an Earth Slot, then all the numbers on the card get +1. If you place a card on the wrong slot, for example, a Blue Card onto an Earth Slot, then all the numbers get -1.
 

The new addition to Elementimals 2 are Triple Element Slots, which were suggested by one of my colleagues. Triple Element Slots are exactly what they sound like, slots that have triple the power. When placing a card onto a Triple Element slot all its numbers either increase or decrease by 3 instead of 1. In standard play, there will be 3 Element Slots and 1 Triple Element Slot. The position and power of the slots is different each game.
 
The next addition that I want to add to the game to increase the purpose of the Elements is that some Cards would have special Card Powers. Right now I have a couple ideas for Card Powers, and all of them revolve around Elements. The first power was the most obvious to me. It is the ‘Pool Power’.
 

The ‘Pool Power’ is represented by an icon of the type of power that (Air, Earth, Fire or Water). When a card is placed, the Pool Power activates – all the numbers on the card increase by 1 for each card in play of the ‘Pool Power’ Element. In the below example, there were four earth cards in play so all of the Earth Scorpion’s numbers increased by 4.

Currently Pool Powers can only be found on cards with a matching element, but as the game develops I will play around with how that works. Imagine for all cards that have a Pool Power, you could get a card with any of the four element powers. What is more useful for a fire deck – a fire card with a fire power or a water card with a fire power? The answer may seem simple, but remember there will always be at least a single Water Slot on every element board.
 
Card Powers will end up costing extra deck resources when building them. Currently the Pool Power increases a card’s deck points by 2. In other words, a 2-2-2-2 card with a Pool Power costs the same in your deck as a 4-4-4-4 card. If this is not balanced enough, then I will play with limiting powers or making them cost more.
 

As the game develops, a fire deck may look something like the above screenshot. If the player waits to play their two fire cards then the first will get at least +3 on all numbers and the second will get at least +4.
 
You can check out Card Powers in Endless Mode right now at Elementimals.com. I plan on tackling another power this week, which relates to elements but unlike the Card Power is stronger early into a match rather than late into a match. I will keep you guys posted.

Hey TIGSource. It has been a while since I posted here, but I have started posting updates for Elementimals 2 at my Personal Website and I thought it would be good to cross post my posts here to share my thought process and get some feedback on my designs.

Elementimals 2 (Probably going to just be called Elementimals) is a reboot of an HTML5 Game I made during a University class in 2011. The gameplay is basically Triple Triad from Final Fantasy VIII with a stronger focus on Elements. The old Feedback thread can be found here.

With Elementimals 2, I hope to expand the game into a free-to-play mobile game that focuses around collecting cards using in-game, or purchased currency. By pushing the elemental cards further and creating new element powers, I hope to create a simple deck-building game out of Elementimals that is like Magic the Gathering but much easier to get into and has much shorter matches.

I also hope to use Node.js to make the game multiplayer and user name persistent. (I have not started incorporating Node.js as I am doing all my work in straight HTML and Javascript right now). You'll see in the build currently that most menus do not work, I am simply setting them up with some of the features I may want. Only really campaign and endless game modes are functional.
 

Above, you can see some early screenshots. You can also test the game out on your PC or iPhone at Elementimals.com
 
Currently, the game is lacking many features, like usernames, multiplayer, and most of the menus, but Campaign and Endless Mode are working.

Let me know what you think. I will also update his main post as the game progresses.

Long time no post here.

So I have been remaking an older game that I worked on two years ago. While still going with pixel art, I have changed the game to a much cleaner style than before.

Here is the old menu (2011):


Here is the new log-in screen (2013):


The new menu art was pixelled by me from a sketch done by Ryan Sicat.
The one aspect of the pixel art that is maintained is that the art needs to be quick to produce so I can get my ideas out and get something playable. =D

Looks awesome man. I am really digging the art style! How is local multiplayer handled? What if players drift too far apart? Does the camera only follow player 1?

-Dan

Here was the mockup:


http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=7091.msg432112#msg432112

And here is what the game became:

http://www.supersmashland.com/

For about a week after doing the mock-up I had 0 intentions of making it into a game.

I never did revamp Hyrule:


But I did get better at drawing stages over time: