http://scutanddestroy.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/salvage-artifacts-001.jpg

If you're going to risk life and limb digging into a treacherous alien planet there had better be some valuable loot under all that rock.
These are some sketch ideations for artifact forms.  I think I'm going to take a bit of time with them and let them evolve as organically as possible.  I really want them to be vague in function but still fun to look at.

Yes, higher colour palettes would be a nice option.  Perhaps the ability to switch between saved palettes, for example 16bit, true color, and perhaps old system palettes like C64, NES etc.

I understand the benefit of keeping tools simple, so I believe this option isn't crucial, it would just be handy in my opinion.

I gotta make time to learn this app, so far it seems very nicely designed.  Any chance of opening up larger palettes in future versions?

Looks cool.  Post pixel art like this scaled up a few times, makes it way easier to read and appreciate.

This looks excellent...  and spooky!   

This is the first game that's made me want to invest in a new joystick in a long time (edit:  just re-read that the control is going to be mouse-based, but you get what I mean).  Really looking forward to playing it!
Are you planning a commercial release?

Looks cool.  Are you thinking of some form of randomly generated missions?  Are airbases suspended above the clouds, and therefore capable of moving or migrating around the planet?

I tend to prefer tactical games that don't allow for drawn out mental pre-calculation of every move, which takes the thrill out of the fight.  Making actions a risk/reward gamble tends to force improvisation, and to me improvisation is the core of what makes for fun tactics.

Last week I was working on some animations and I finally got around to processing them in a way that looked decent enough for posting.
There are a few little bits I left out, but that gives you some idea of flight and idle animations.

So happy to see you've kept on with the project!  The contrails add wonderful drama, and I love that you've chosen 1950's era jets, they're that great splice of raw horsepower and hints of technology to come that make them sadly under represented in games.  All the crazy x-planes from that era would provide a lot of expansion pack fodder.

A cool way you could embellish the gaseous composition of the Venus sky could be to have clouds with unique properties that are useful in-game.  Low pressure pockets could allow towering columns of the lower corrosive cloud layer to rise up, creating areas to be maneuvered around.  Wisps of 'chaff' cloud, containing metallic particles that scramble radar waves passing through them.  Streams of combustible gas that your engine can scoop up for boosts of range and speed.

The trees look excellent Ant!  When in doubt, make things crazy!

The only thing that immediately springs to mind is the Credit Card item in Kid Icarus for the NES. This item was earned by completing a mini-game perfectly. Normally the player must have enough money to buy items from stores, but with the credit card it was possible to buy items any time you had a positive amount of money. If the transaction left you with a negative amount of money you could keep playing normally, but you couldn't buy from a shop again until you were back at a positive value. Even dying did not reset this value.

That credit card sounds like a pretty cool mechanic, kinda surprised more games haven't tried something similar.

All the suggestions so far have been really helpful.  Thanks a lot.

I think one of the main things I'm thinking about is how to simply, but effectively deliver the feeling of debt, and how it can force someone into taking spiraling risks.  I suppose the factors that need to be conveyed visually would be both the amount of debt, and the rate at which you are either sinking into the hole or climbing out.  Perhaps it could be visualized as a person carrying a load up or down a hill.  The volume loaded onto their back is like the amount of debt, and the pitch of slope is the rate of repayment?

Debt is slippery as a game mechanic because I think if you want to make it functional for a player to understand, you need to project some sense of how that debt will play into the future.

I'm looking for suggestions of games that modeled finances in elegant, interesting ways.  Ideally I'd like some inspiration on how to convey information regarding debt-load to a player that's not just a bunch of line graphs.

One example I can think of for a game that made finances fun was M.U.L.E.
M.U.L.E. didn't have debt as far as I recall (correct me if I'm wrong), but it was great for risk management, and taught the player some pretty advanced concepts with a minimum of clutter.

Thanks for the tips yo.  I monkeyed around with Graphics Gale a few years ago and while it seemed really cool the control scheme made my head hurt as I recall.

The entirely customizable control scheme? You can change any hot key except for the view dragging (which is ctrl+lmb)

I recommend Beneton Movie GIF. It allows for your individual frame timing and such, as well as being free.

Downloaded, thanks for the tip!

Progress



switched from brown to purple. still deciding if I like it or not

I think the purple right up against the red creates too much 'vibration', but if you used the old brown as a transition into the purple it would look great as a bounce highlight around the edges.

Also, you say this is becoming a cyborg?  I am SO wooting!

Thanks for the tips yo.  I monkeyed around with Graphics Gale a few years ago and while it seemed really cool the control scheme made my head hurt as I recall.  Still, 20 bucks really isn't much of anything as a business expense.  I should take another crack at it.

Got a work in progress:



took roughly ~2 hours to get the anatomy down right (still have the head and hands to do ), I've spent about 30 minutes on the detailing.

It would be too much to request Syndicate-style cybernetic overlays on this I suppose?
I like the horizontal stripe technique you used for shading.

Maybe it could slip around in both directions?

Like a bifurcation, yes perhaps.  Will have to experiment once that bridge needs to be crossed.  I know I want to keep enough information ambiguous so that the player will be forced to go digging at some point to determine what's really down there.




http://scutanddestroy.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/energy-sail-rough-crop.png



http://scutanddestroy.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/energy-sail-acceleration.png

Sorry for not posting much this week.  I've been drawing a lot of animations and haven't had the time to process them for you folks to look at.  Any recommendations for .gif creators that allow timing on individual frames?  Gimp only allows a blanket timer to the best of my knowledge.
So above is just some hacked together layouts showing my process for figuring out how one aspect of the flight animations should work in-game.  The energy field on your flight device inflates like a sail, basically it functions visually the same as a tachometer in a car, indicating how much you're accelerating.

I made myself a new desktop background. Sorry for the glow, but I like it

Jumping on the bandwagon of drool for this!  Truly we are entering a golden age of digging games!

Thanks y'all.  I concur with the bald space marines note.  I guess all I'll say is, things were cooler when Squats were an option.   

I'm working on some animations this week, so there should be some more neato pixel art up soon.