The choice of shot styles in X-Com became needless as players crunched the odds and settled on one type of shot for each weapon.  The other options became so rarely used that they could have been deleted without altering the way the game felt.

I think your idea for simplifying shot styles for individual weapons would work fine, and might actually lead to more tactical variety as each soldier will fill a more specific role.

As an alternative suggestion, you could give radically different effects for different shot types.  For instance a snap shot could provide a free move, simulating a unit hustling from cover to cover.  An auto shot could have a low chance of actual damage, but suppresses a target making it easier for other units to outflank it or attack it.

This deserves to be quoted because it is some sweeeetly done pixel art.  Great palette and energy in the line work.


My latest addition to the thread!  A big monowheel!  Monowheels are useless!  Monowheels are fun!
(actually it's kinda a compound monowheel but it's still pretty silly)

Not as sexy as the Ford Falcon, but I was in a trucky mood.

Data Golems!  Quick, seal the bulkhead!

Agreed, contact details and perhaps a link to this dev thread.  Love the header graphic, and the fact that you show the trailer promptly.  As Cliffski says:  "Show me the game!"   

Sorry if I missed it earlier, but thanks for the explanation!  Sounds like a really smart idea.

What is the ring around the cursor at the target square signifying?  Is it for assigning a facing at the end of the unit's move?

Serious tactics players all suffer from aspergers and will lose their shit if something unforeseen occurs.  Don't say you weren't warned Happymonster.   

Some amount of randomness is a lot of fun in wargames.  It's a level of friction that the player needs to manage.  It also allows for abstraction of the kinds of unpredictable things that occur in chaotic situations, such as a gunfight.
When done well it can encourage a player to trust their experience and use their intuition.  When it's not done so well it can lead into 'math-hammer' where players spend more time crunching probabilities than they spend actually playing the game.

My suggestion would be that the acid test for random elements in this game is 'did it offer the occasional fun surprise or heightened tension?'.
If the player is constantly mulling over the odds instead of making moves it probably means there's too many percentage marks sloshing around in their head.

Looking back at classic X-Com, it probably had too much randomness and percentile overload.  The lack of clear links between stats and likely outcomes added to the confusion.
It was a brilliant game, but I believe it was the cryptic delivery of stats and random chance that led most players into adopting a strategy of inching across a map with overwhelming firepower.  The tactical battles were not showcases of maneuver.

Looking great.  Still squeezing a lot out of that palette!

The editing tools are looking very cool too.  Will they be open for modding?  Seems like you could make a tower defense construction kit as a spinoff of this.

Booyah!  One of the best action films of all time.  Watch the director's cut some time, you'll find out how many scenes were paid for in beer!   

I own GraphicsGale, but I still use Gimp for all my pixel art.  I just find it's such a good all-round tool for image editing that I'm more comfortable with it.

You can get Gimp for mac as well:  http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/

I think if you want to try a variety of apps you should set yourself a small project to draw and then execute it with each program you're interested in.  You'll get a feel pretty quickly for what app suits you better

That Delorean is amazing !

Hmmm, I love DeLoreans, but this isn't one.  Try again!

As for your piece, it seems like you've got your base values and forms blocked in nicely. Spend some time working over the lines to bring it out and clean up the proportions.  Don't go heavy with the filter effects at this stage but your direction seems clear.

Guess what cult classic film I've got on the mind!

Pumping station, solar panel farm, crashed ships, landing craft, geodesic domes, massive radar or radio telescopes, transit hubs (rail platform), algae vats, hangars, space temples, orbital elevator base, mass driver, pit mine, robot factory, virus lab (Andromeda Strain!), spaceport, refugee camp, quarantine zone, antennae complex, command bunker, experimental crops, munitions dump, supercomputer mainframe, nuclear waste containment, hospital, particle accelerator, photonics lab (lasers), clean room, parklands.


Okay, draw those up and get back to us when you need more suggestions

I wasn't trying to pull down your comments.  I just think the explosion is cool...  because it is cool.  Also it resembles old hardware special effects used in television from the days of genlock encoders and betamax editing decks.

The timer above the explosives is great, keep it.  This is a game about a gun-toting television with legs, I see no break in continuity if it has the power to know when a bomb will detonate down to a tenth of a second.  The explosions look like something from an Amiga demo, and not many things are as legit as Amiga demos.

Is the user going to have any control over the zoom?  It looks good.

Trash TV has lots of little things that break the status quo for platformers, and I think you should use that to the utmost.

Check that link, not working for me even after trying to clean it up.

Firaxis' X-Com is made by a whole team with millions of dollars in funding.  SpaceHero Command is made by just ONE happymonster!

Also, more X-Com-likes can never be a bad thing.  Also also, I bet you can piggyback on X-Com's hype and get posted on Rock Paper Shotgun.

http://scutanddestroy.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/sub-luminal-01-scut.png

Game mockup and design for a sci-fi roquelike with a streamlined battle system.  Mostly tackling a basic tile set right now.