wao, so this place is a huge pixel dump for everyone?
now I finally have a place to post all these that didn't make sense elsewhere.

Here's some balloon fight remake


And the current Wild West shooter I'm working on (but thinking of dropping)



main character from a scrap zombie game

Here's Megaman with the KniteBlargh mod-chip:

Makes me wonder what megaman looks like when he defeats us... and the new ability...hmm

Does a piece of unfinished design document qualify as "unfinished game"? If not... do we have a "game design dump"? I figured that all the over ambitious designs will probably serve as an inspiration source to others, and then at least the document does die in vain.

I have an old idea of a "romantic" game I've always wanted to work on... sadly I don't think it's achievable within the time frame :/ That, and because I'm not in love

I still feel honored that you did my Sneakman Love these!

I still feel honored that you feel honored lol

I haven't done more then 10 pieces of pixel art, but I can't believe you guys gave me another chances to post my old work yet again, lol. Anyway, for those that have't realize, this is tobe from Pixellation... but most of you all wouldn't know of tobe either, lol

Dithering can work in a few places, I think.

I think dithering are best used if you're looking for a realistic pixel look. I think if Gears of war were to be done in pixel art, dithering is a must, lol.

The other part is that aside from feeling like I have more control over how the finished composition looks, it carries a certain atmosphere that vectoring doesn't.

A friend of mine (purely gamer, from other line of work) mentioned that pixel art gives him a best sense of space. Since the graphic is almost precise, he knows very well where his punches lands in Street of rage.

In games like Street Fighter 3, it is especially the case. On that precise frame, precise distance, you know you must do your moves. I just don't think that's possible with vector art and all that tween motion.

Hmmm... I personally works on both pixel and vector, but mainly vectors. Pixel has always been more of a "for the fun of it", since I'm really much more familiarize with my vector tools. However, my latest project made me reconsidered my choices.

In the future, if it's a game for the hardcore audience, I'd give pixel a shot. But if it's something for the masses, like an advertising game or sort, I guess it's a lot safer to stick vector.

There's no statistic to back these decisions, but advert games audience does includes female audience and guys who watches cartoons and don't play games. If you throw them a pixel 2D game, they probably gonna think that this is really hardcore (even more so for 3D).

As for vector, the latest project made me realize how tiring it can be. With pixel, you can express so many things without all the details. But for vector, you need to draw exactly everything to express the same amount of information, 1:1.

Here's something I'm working on...

and when you compare to...


I think both are nice (for me), but the time spent to create the 2 out of 3 vector characters are enough for me to create the chunk of Rock man characters below, and still have time for another episode of Bytejacker. It's even more so when it comes to environment artwork.

I might be whoring my portfolio a little, but for those of you that don't mind, you can check out http://www.cnb.gov.sg/kidpower/PDEGame/Sections/maingame.html
It's a game I did 2 years ago in my previous company (it isn't a great game, but since we're just talk about the art aspect...)

Point is, if you look at the details in the artwork, and compare to my sprite work... like this for example
I think they both look okay too. But I'd probably kill myself 5 times working on the vector game, and only once working on the sprite... and that's quite a bit of production cost if you ask me

Well, I didn't even realize the introduction thread is obligatory... but I want to do this either way. Especially since I just wrote a pretty long reply and made stupid comments on the hottest balding quest thread, lol.

To start proper again, I'm Raymond Teo(25), an illustrator and a(young) game designer from Singapore. Some of the artist here may know me as Tobe, from the pixellation forum. You can see my artwork from my blog rayteoactive.wordpress.com though there really isn't much game related materials.

I grew up with the NES (or rather Micro Genius... some sort of Taiwanese pirate version I guess. But we never knew at the time). Moved on to Genesis, SNES, and PS1 and 2, and now Wii...which I love and hate.

As an indie game developer, ashamed to say, I have nothing ready for show yet. However, I'm working on the artwork of Strawhat samurai's sequel. And I'm developing a funded (by the generous government) game at the moment. The game prototype should be out by march and I can't wait to show I've been working on it full time for the past 7-8 months as project manager, designer and lead artist, so it better be good.

Oh, and if anyone ever see this, I'm looking for coder for my next game. He/she needs to be from Singapore - like me

Lastly, I want to add that I'm new to to all this, and I hope to learn from everyone here and then make some money with some great games.

I'm totally new to this, so I'm not sure if I'm actually qualify to the topic. Still... I will try to pump in what I have, hopefully one or two point turns out useful.

I realize most of the designers are also coders. It make total sense. But sadly for me, I'm an artist, and really just picking up on game design. My team and I(Game design + Art Direction) are halfway through our first game as we speak... and the prototype is almost done (assuming march at this point). I'm also preparing the next game while I'm not working on the current.

For me, no matter game design or art, I usually start off from research and not inspiration. Though you can always research what inspired you, I realize that my research tends to get biases and inaccurate. My take is that inspiration is like a sudden rush. It comes and goes. But with research, it gets you interested along the way, back your ideas with fact, and you don't have to burn all your fuel at the go.

I'd avoid looking too much at games from the next gen, and turn to indie, classics, GBA and NDS stuff. It can be an unexplored feature from another game or something forgotten for too long. It's extremely tough to come up with something no one ever did. And if no one ever did it, there's usually a reason. Even not, it just means that there's no reference, you're on your own, and that's not what a newbie like me want to get into

The actual designing process is about the same as everyone else. But 1 thing I tend to do is not to think out every last detail. I'm not sure if it's the smartest thing to do(probably the opposite), but I prefer to leave somethings open for what doesn't seem to go wrong too easily. Allowing some of the design take place along with the rough work seems to keep the passion going. Bottom line is, when the passion burn out, everything became a chore, and nobody works on, so what's the point.

Hmmm....guess I should stop here. I'm pretty okay with what I've mentioned, but things beyond, I better say after I'm done with my first game prototype. Hopefully, what I mention provides at least a different point of view

Well, I'm not sure if I'm allow to post this here, and looks like a pretty long shot, but I'd love to know some coder from Singapore. The local government is really kind to give out grant for us to work on an XNA game (yeap, we're very lucky), and I have everybody in the team (designer, artist, animator, music)all except the coder.

We're working on a 2D platformer, btw.

Well, even if you aren't interested, it'd be nice just to see another guy from the same place, so drop me a PM to say hi!

Paul sold out :<

YEAH! Gosh darn people who make awesome animations! What a jerk!

Well I do get kind of pissy when awesome artists start promoting commercial products, I know that's how the world works, and I'll most definitely also work for advertising in the future, but you know, it makes me kind of sad that nowadays this seems to be the only way that artists and designers can still make money and get some exposure.

The animation is still cool though, but the "DRINK SYKE KIDS, IT'S RAD AND HIP" thing turns me off.

wait... so what's the other way to get the money?

Haha, rayteoactive, that's so in the instructions file.

Haha, I have a feeling that it is, but I don't know why I missed it...twice. Maybe I was blinded by excitement. Despite looking stupid, I'm glad I asked the question. The game play out so well and the visuals are so inspiring. My only complain is that the character runs a bit slow? It's probably just me though. I also realize that I have to hold the up key in order not to fall from a rope...though it's not that uncommon, I guess it didn't quite worked for me.

And lastly, thanks Alec for helping me out. I felt like I was in the dark room and thought I was blind. You came in to switch on the lights, and I was embarrass but eternally grateful at the same time

I feel stupid asking this, but I got stuck in the menu, lol.
How do I get the game started? There's only the door to "about", "animation", "load map" and "exit". Am I suppose to type something in the load map screen? I read the instruction, but I don't any help.

Man, everything looks so beautiful, it's killing me that I can't play!

Thanks a lot for the extra tip, johanp

1 more question though... this might be pretty off track from the title, so let me know if it is, and I'll just open another thread for this.

When we are working on the background, is it a must to go by tiles? I'd imagine games like Odin Spheres to use a stretch of image rather then actual tile sets.

Not like my game's gonna look half as nice as Odin Sphere, but being able to work on an image as a whole makes the artist(me) job a whole lot easier.

I won't chunk the entire BG as one, but I'm hoping it will work fine when I simply chop them into a multiple different parts rather then planning everything in 40x40 pixel or something.

Glad you guys enjoy the visual

It's a lot more assuring knowing it's not going to be a problem, though I find it hard to understand some minor details. Guess I'll have to get my programmer to sort them out.

Isaac: were you using sort of the super-tiles(that's the name I heard) method in that prototype? http://www.strille.net/tutorials/part1_scrolling.php

johanp: hmmm? so how do I do the dynamic shadow thingy?

Wao, thanks for the quick reply, Isaac and Skofo. Appreciate it.

The prototype is going to be a full prototype. Meaning- it should involve every element in the full-game, which can be quite a lot. Hence the worry.

It seems now that I should probably go towards BitmapData for the graphic. But does this means it has to be pixel art? I'm hoping not, as pixel art is seriously going to eat into the production time. Let me post a few of my current image.



Edit: I'm also concern about the fact that the artwork might turn up with white edges (like in the old director output) if I go into BitmapData.

Hi guys, I've been hanging around Tigsource for a long time, but much lesser of the forum. I was actually hoping to get some help regarding the new game I'm working on.

The game is more of a Megaman meet MGS mix, and we're using flash for the game prototype. My question is - what are the restrictions when working on flash? I've worked on flash before, and my main problem is how flash tends to lag a lot if I were to work on vector (my artwork is pretty heavy). So how do we reduce the lag?


Below is a brief view of the specs:
Resolution - 800x600 pixel
Character animation file format - PNG image sequence (not vectorart)
Colour restriction - nil
BG - super tile

My main problem here is that I want to ensure minimum lag and giantic file size. If anyone here is a flash expert, please do help me out.

I'm typing this while dozing off at 5am here, so pardon the language. I'll re-edit tomorrow.

Thanks
Ray