Those pixels <3<3<3

If you're the pixel artist, are you open to future (paid) colabs?

final gameplay video!
(I won't be making any more of these since the game is pretty much done)

also, spoiler alert!

started working with an artist to replace my shitty graphics - so happy to finally post here!!
more on the original thread:
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=26618.0

finally got round to updating the art, so I took some screenies!
all art is by Leonard Robel, really happy with the results.
nearly there now!

(click to enlarge)

do you like the name change?

big lasers

worms miniboss

I just love big lasers

always looking for testers, hit me up on twitter! (@nachobeard)
thanks!

[position has been filled, sorry!]

position has been filled, sorry!


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Hello!

I've been working on a game for a few months, the game is done now except for the graphics, which are all placeholder.  I've drawn some placeholder art myself as well as used some sprites from here and there, always thinking that I'd replace all the art at the end.  So now I'm looking for a pixel artist and animator.

I've prepared a very detailed asset list, but for a quick overview the workload is about 13 characters (around 20x30 pixels, 5-7 animations each), one background and a few extra sprites (bullets, title screen, etc).

For this game, I'd like the sprites in a chunky pixel-art style, something NES-inspired but more colourful (because NES pallette can be a bit dry sometimes). It's important for me to the game to be in this style.

The current theme of the game is "a robot in space" but if you find that uninteresting I'll be more than happy to agree on a different theme.  the same goes for the characters, they can be substituted for whatever - as long as I don't have to change the code.

The game itself is an action game for iPad only, with somewhat unique controls.  You can watch a gameplay video here (like I said all graphics are placeholder right now):

Regarding timing, I'd like to get started on the final graphics asap but I can also wait for a couple of weeks if needed.

I'm not sure what the going rate for this kind of job is, so unfortunately I've no idea how much money to offer.  However, I'd like payments to take place on a per-milestone basis, as the assets are delivered.

Your name will appear in the options screen, together with the musician and myself (pic.twitter.com/7MIYHr2iIH).

For those interested, you can get in touch with me (only people with low res pixel art and animation portfolios please), and I'll send you the complete asset list if I think it's a good fit.

If we go ahead with this I'll ask you to sign a very simple document stating that all images are produced without infriging any copyright and things like that.

Kind regards,
-Nacho.

is there any plan to add structued levels or is it all random?

it's all randomized, but there is some structure because as you get better, new enemy types start appearing.  but yes there's no levels as such.

From the video and screenshots it seems like you have some depth sorting issues ..
coins should never be appearing on top of enemies/other important stuff.

good point, I think I did that on purpose because in this game coins are more important than anything else to survive.

thanks captain! 

just uploaded a new gameplay video with lots of new enemies and featuring all new soundtrack by gavin harrison (http://gavinharrisonsounds.com)

nearly there now, though I'm still looking for a pixel artist and animator to redo the graphics (since they're all placeholder).

hello

I uploaded a new gameplay video.
There's a bunch of new graphics and enemies and stuff!

as always, I could use some testers 
check out my testflight here:
http://tflig.ht/RwXE6V

thanks!
-nacho.

Hi Alec!

that's all valid criticism, though it sounds like you're using the web build, which is outdated and kind of not very good because it has no touch controls.  if you're on testflight and have an ipad, I can send you a build if you sign up here: http://tflig.ht/RwXE6V

I think the game will need a very quick tutorial, I don't think I´ll be able to convey the controls otherwise.  I can already tell this is going to be hard :p

I'm also working on a miniboss these days, based around some of the ideas you mention
here's a quick screenshot (you cling onto the planets to cover from enemy shots, then attack the head by throwing enemies at it).

thanks for your comments!
-nacho B  

Hi Yuji,

wow thanks for such great feedback!
I'll get right to it.

art style

all of the art is placeholder at the moment.  I've been working with a pixel artist but for various reasons we won't be working together anymore :/ so I started drawing stuff on my own, hoping that I'll find someone who will paint over my horrible drawing when the game is done.

grappling physics

I think what you're basically saying is that the player should sway like a pendulum as he hooks to the enemies, maybe something like this:

I'd like to try this! but I'm a bit concerned about how dodging bullets would work, it seems like it would be very hard to predict what your exact trajectory will be and what you'll bump against along the way (and because you have no joypad, there's no way to control the main character while it's hooking).  I'd like to try this anyway, even if it's just to see what it feels like.

progression

yes, I'll try to add in things to keep advanced players entertained along the way.  these will probably be hard-to-kill special enemies (like the UFO in ziggurat) which trigger bonus areas when you kill them.

time limit

what a fantastic idea!
this solves the biggest problem I saw in the game, which is "why should I bother picking up coins".  I generally don't care much about score in games, but if instead of picking up coins you pick up "seconds" and you die when you run out of time... that solves it!

I was thinking that instead of having a timer I could have something in the background like a bomb with a fuse, and every time you pick up seconds you turn back time a little bit making the fuse longer.  naturally when you run out of time, the bomb explodes and it's game over.  (hopefully I can think of something cleverer than a bomb with a fuse, but you get the idea)

thanks for that!!

difficulty in throwing enemies

I´ll make a note of this, maybe I´ll put bigger hitboxes or some sort of auto aiming.  I've gotten quite good at aiming with the enemies, but I've played it too much (and most people will probably not be willing to put the effort to get good at it).

yellow ring

I put it there because it makes it easier to see in the videos what's going on, but yes I should probably remove it.


thanks again for the feedback!
-nacho B

Not to totally twist your point, but the reload doesn't seem to be the problem judging from your reply, but rather the position of the shells on the UI?  If I could position them over the character do you think that would help?

EDIT:  I just tried putting the UI over the character and it is fucking god awful, I don't think there is anything that can be done aside from some flashing / decent sound effects, whenever they get done...

such a shame!
I think it definitely works for barabariball (they have the number of jumps you have left on a kind of radial gui thing around players) http://barabariball.com/

but yeah, flashing might be a better idea.

played two games, didn't find any bugs.

only thing I noticed is that I got to an enemy with a machine gun, it seemed to me that when the enemy fires the machine gun you trigger multiple gun-firing sounds at the same time, and you get that weird effect that happens when you trigger the same sound twice, where it kinda cancels itself out and sounds all funky.

gameplay wise, I realize you're probably against this but I would personally prefer if I could reload the gun completely just by pressing a button.  I'm playing with the xbox controller, and it's a bit annoying to me because I'm trying to shoot and it doesn't shoot, so I realize it's loading one bullet every time I try to shoot, but I never really know if the next shot is going to come out because I'm too busy dodging bullets to look at the gui and see if I'm done loading bullets.  It seems to me this is all intentional, but in my opinion it detracts from the experience.

but overall a fun game, I quite like the graphics too!

wonderful game!

some suggestions:

1.
a "warning effect" to let the player know that the freeze powerup is running up would be very useful.

2.
more backgrounds as already suggested, maybe attempt to "tell a story" or develop the theme like in ziggurat (

) this will entice players to see what's happening next in the background (at least for me, beating a score is simply not enough to keep me interested for very long).

3.
at the moment it seems like the game gets progressively harder but the falling spikes and powerups are simply random.  this gets very repetitive and you quickly get to situations where it's impossible to survive.

I would try scripting the falling blocks by hand for 10-second sections, and then have the game string them together in random order (according to difficulty).  super hexagon (

) does something like this (I guess) where the sections are scripted by hand and then assembled in random order so you recognize the current pattern but you don't really know what's coming after that.

this is a great benefit because you can put in the game hand-crafted interesting situations for the player to beat, which is something that never happens with totally random levels.

good luck!
-nachobeard.

Got killed a couple times today by enemies that spawned on the edge of the screen.
Felt a bit unfair!
Just a small thing to keep in mind 

hey yuji!

tilt controls

good point about screen size on iphones.
I think I haven't played enough games with tilt controls to be good enough to make the most out of your game, though I still see the appeal (and have played it probably more than most games I buy on the appstore).  my max score is only 12 but I've gotten to the point where I feel more in control, and although I can't reliably make enemies kill each other I can favour them kill each other.

level of difficulty

I can see what you mean about easing players in.  you could maybe tone difficulty down a bit, but I'd try to keep that mysteriousness that surrounds difficult games.

about the learning curve, I've been thinking about this a lot, because I'm also working on a survival game where you start from the beginning every time.  but how can you make the beginning of the game interesting for experienced players without making it too difficult for new players?

ziggurat starts the same every time, and if you've played it a bit the first couple of minutes is always boring (even though they tried to do things like the ufo to keep things interesting), so that's no good.  super hexagon instead adds unlockable difficulty levels but that doesn't seem like a very elegant solution.

so I guess I'd like to try a game which makes itself harder the better you get at it, so it's always challenging the minute you start.  but that's probably not possible, nor desirable because players will never feel like they're improving at the game.

I think punch quest does something like add more enemy types (right from the beginning of the game) as the player improves, so you don't get bored of killing the same enemies all the time.

testflight

I'm so glad that you noticed my game earlier! but I had no idea that you signed up to be honest I don't really know what the process is with testflight because no one has signed up so far.  but when I sign into tesflight I don't see any notifications or anything so I'm not sure what's going on there.

what has worked for me in the past is add testers manually (by adding their email address), so if you don't mind sharing your email address I'd be glad to add you!

bye!

hi Yuji,

I signed up to your testflight thing because I really like ziggurat, super hexagon, irrupt and so on and your screenshots looked interesting.

anyhow, about your game.

some initial impressions (playing on ipad3, basic mode)

control feels pretty tight, particularly considering you're using accelerometer/gyro/whatever.  the game might benefit from using touch controls so that when you slide your finger on the screen the main character moves in that direction (would probably feel more accurate to me).

the game is quite fun, but I would need more variation for it to keep my attention (probably more enemy types or enemy variations).

although the game is not frustrating to me, I don't feel like I'm improving over time either.  getting the enemies to kill each other feels more like plain luck to me, and for that reason it doesn't satisfy, because when it happens I just didn't plan for it.  when I'm playing I just have time to dodge bullets and hope for the best.  I feel the homing missiles should disappear after a few seconds, otherwise it's just impossible to survive (for me anyway) for more than 20 seconds, if that. maybe putting some of your own gameplay videos on youtube might help?

regarding graphics, I think the chunky pixels are funcional and easy to read.  if you want to "improve" them I wouldn't increase resolution, but add more sprite animations (for example to make the worm more crawly), and also more "transform" animations (eg make the enemy recoil back when it shoots a laser or missile, or scale things up and down for a "bouncy" feel).
for the laser, I think it would benefit from making it quite a bit thicker when it's shot and change colours all the time because it's kinda hard to notice when it's firing and you're focused on something else.

maybe look at how this guy (http://youtu.be/57Xy2p2mpG0?t=45s) does the lasers.  they vibrate with power, the whole screen shakes when they're fired, they feel great, yet require virtually no art

so yeah, regarding the graphics, maybe put more juice into it! explosions, trail effects, screen shake, white flashes

might help for inspiration?

I don't see the connection with helix, gameplay seems totally unrelated to me, and I've played both games

shield mode I didn't play very much at all because I can barely survive in basic mode.
boss mode seemed... the same game but with one oversized enemy sprite.
as already pointed out I would personally try to get one core thing "right" rather than add different modes (but you're probably just experimenting with different modes so in that case that's great!)

I would keep it one-hit kill.
I like that, even though the game kicks my ass every time.
it allows for short bursts of gameplay which is good for mobile and also I don't get frustrated when I die because I can just restart.

incidentally I'd love to get some feedback from like-minded individuals for my current game project.  that would be super cool because we seem to draw inspiration from the same sources.  check it out in my sig if you're curious!  (testflight link http://tflig.ht/RwXE6V)

good luck with your game, I'll be following this thread.
-nachobeard.

[re: jumping]

re: jumping
rather than applying constant force for height control, I'd apply a single-frame force and adjust gravity when the player releases the jump key.  this can be tricky to adjust.  these might help:

http://teknopants.com/2012/09/on-variable-jumping/
http://meyermike.com/wp/?p=160
http://meyermike.com/wp/?p=175
http://teknopants.com/2012/11/movement-and-response/





re: aiming
it'll change the feel significantly but I'd try gravity-less shots or laser shots.

good luck!

ok, I've played this for a bit (around 15 mins).
here are some initial thoughts.

handling is pretty tight, but I think the jumping can improved.  it feels too floaty to me.  sorry for the generic term here, but I can't really be more specific.  to me it feels like at the beginning of the jump you're applying a constant force upwards for some time, which is kinda weird because I expect the force to be instantaneous.  I could be wrong of course, but that's what it feels like to me.  air control feels pretty good.

regarding the aiming, it looks like you put effort in making sure that the bullets pass through the point where you're aiming with the mouse, even though they have gravity.  this might throw some people off because as you move the mouse further away from the tank the turret tilts upwards to compensate for gravity, so the turret isn't actually aiming at the mouse.  may using a gravity-less laser instead of a pea shooter might help, but I don't know, maybe if you play the game a lot you get used to it.

that's it, if I keep playing the game I´ll keep writing my comments here.
good luck!

looks like a lot of fun, congratulations! I'll try the demo and give you some feedback hopefully later today.