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[Inanimate]

I'm not trying to be a dick here, but I can't tell the difference between any of those screens (except the first one I think seems a teeny bit darker on the corner icons).  Are you referring to the HUD elements in the upper corner?  If so, maybe crop the images to just show the element you want us to analyze.

He changed the border. Took me a bit to notice.

Brighter.

[Hangedman]

I realize it's a subtle difference. I had just kept the full size screenshots for context initially. I'm going to mess around with it and see what I come up with. But it'll definitely be brighter, as the tilesets all use the same value levels, so their darkest colour will all be that dark.

[Hangedman]

I'm currently interested in resolution.
I was thinking about upping the resolution (currently 640x480) and the quality of all the sprites/tiles.

In essence, I've lately been considering taking the Spelunky HD route: improving the graphical quality across the board and upping the base resolution. The game will still run at smaller resolutions if so desired, but will have a higher max resolution.
I've also thought about the possibility of widescreen, which would give more room to work and be stupidly easy to implement, except for the possibility of contending with a dozen freakshow resolutions between the usual ones.

I never really did anything about it previously, because creating tremendously detailed art assets from scratch is not my forte.
Now that the majority of the art assets are done, upsizing them and refining the details would actually be a fairly straightforward, if time-consuming process.

As the level editor is currently under construction, I essentially have to make this decision now.

tl;dr? My options are:

• Keep the art as it is, upsizing the resolution just makes the pixels big.
• Redo a fair bit of the art for a higher resolution, at the cost of the pixelly feel.

And on top of that:

• Fullscreen, which is simple.
• Widescreen, which is complicated but gives me more room.

I'd really like some advice on this, from people who not only make games but play a heck of a lot of them. 

[Scut Fabulous]

Could you implement a zoom function?  Who says you need to redraw everything?  If people want more detail / fine control they could just zoom in.

[Hangedman]

well, my pixel art is designed for 640x480 resolution (32x32 tiles) so increasing the resolution would be, as I said, one possible path: the giant pixel route.

The thing is, this tends to be a contentious issue. As in 'more indie pixel games pfffff'.

Or did you mean something else by 'zoom'?

Because implementing what I think you might have meant may be incredibly complicated.

[Scut Fabulous]

Yeah just scale up the pixels with each zoom level.  To me it has nothing to do with 'retro' or anything, pixel art just looks fine when you can see the pixels.  How about this, if the game is a hit you can hire or entice an artist to come in and redraw everything to the way you'd prefer, but don't let niggling little things like that stall your overall vision.

[Dozer]

I nominate Scut for the redrawing once this game is a hit! :D

Also, I agree completely with Scut... I play Spelunky in full screen on a 1366x768 screen and enjoy the art. I don't mind that "chunky" feeling when you enlarge the pixels. Good luck! :D

[Hangedman]

So I'm keeping it pixelly.

Not much to report. Dreamed up new game modes, thought up more story elements, thought of a great way to streamline the whole thing.

Life happened, as it tends to.
I'll be back on this soon, but I have some stuff to sort out first.
Apologies.

[Hangedman]

Level editors are hard, but I can weather the storm 

[Dozer]

That's a pretty sexy UI... are you planning on releasing the editor or is it just sexy for you?

[Hangedman]

Still trying to decide.

Custom campaigns are, as someone pointed out, a little bit odd in such a story-driven game. But a lot of the game is action/puzzle platforming, with a kind of time attack scoring bent (more concern for those who like replaying/100%ing games). Which does lend itself to custom campaigns.

I have to build the level editor for my own use anyway, because sticking variables in an array manually would drive me nuts, and the structure of the level editor code will be largely similar to the level building code in the game itself.

[Hangedman]

I am so, so glad that I tiled all those damn corner possibilities
Tileset switching at the drop of a hat
(No the game won't look like this, just illustrating the sheer manly power of my RUINSTRUC-TOR)
 

[PleasingFungus]

I am so, so glad that I tiled all those damn corner possibilities
Tileset switching at the drop of a hat
(No the game won't look like this...)

Except in certain boss battles, perhaps...?

[Hangedman]

I'm trying to decide if a ROM CHECK FAIL style tile screwup weirdness is the suitable method to show a descent into psychic overload and insanity.

[Inanimate]

I'm trying to decide if a ROM CHECK FAIL style tile screwup weirdness is the suitable method to show a descent into psychic overload and insanity.

Sounds perfect! Do it!

[Hangedman]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7216965/Ruins/Structorpreview.exe

Right-click in tilebox to switch to blank tile, WASD to easily move around selected tile.
BGs are not implemented.
Only the first two tilesets are available to tool with, as even they are incomplete and all need finalizing and reorganizing.

 

[Hangedman]

Level editor is practically complete: all it can't do now is load. Which is kind of a serious shortcoming, but it's the last hurdle.

I'm going to be supporting custom tilesets, and I'm also expanding the tileset to 5 columns rather than 4. 95 tiles per set over 76. And that means that my overzealous creation of EVERY POSSIBLE CORNER CONFIGURATION will not limit the number of props and background objects as it has previously.

I don't know if any of this will ever end up getting used. But it doesn't really matter, as I'm enjoying working on it and learning a lot.