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[snackycactus]

Hey, awesome looking game!

I was wondering what program do you use to draw/animate your sprites. I use photoshop, and have always wondered if there was a more animation friendly alternative.

Amazing work, can't wait to play your game! :D

[barneycumming]

hey snackycactus!  I also use photoshop, and I also suspect there are much better programs out there for 2D animation

I have posted a few things about my process if you're interested:
http://www.powerhoof.com/pixel-art-in-photoshop/
http://www.powerhoof.com/doodling-a-combo-anim/
http://www.powerhoof.com/walk-anim/

I find photoshop great for short simple animations- it's nice having all my usual color/layer tools available, but when I'm doing a long anim, the photoshop timeline stuff is very limited and ends up hampering my process pretty badly

Thanks for the encouragement Conker, Belimoth, happymonster, _rephil & RLofC makes the hard work worth it!

[oodavid]

This looks silly fun! Animation style reminds me of "The Reward" (short animation) for some reason :-)

[barneycumming]

hey thanks for getting me onto "the reward" what a cool animation!

it's getting hard to remember what images I've posted where now- here is another recent one from our twitter

[oodavid]

Hah! That flashing move is excellent!

The thing I like about The Reward is that it really mixes it's genres, settings and even history and yet, because of the style and running theme it really works.

When do you plan on releasing?

[FraktalZero]

First time I see your project, sir, and this is just masterfully done! I'm in love with the gameplay and artwork and animations are just incredible. Like everyone else, I just can't wait to pay for such a great game.

[_bm]

Wow! This looks ridiculously fun! 

[UmutD]

This is just amazing.

[barneycumming]

still got lots of effects to do but that's basically the boss spawn anim...
don't mind the crummy photoshop camera shake - just a mock-up - we'll do it properly in-game

oodavid- we're starting on Greenlight as soon as we get our trailer done and a couple of tiny tweaks to the build and we're hoping to do early access as early as possible, so the date depends on the Greenlight process really... we'll look into releasing on our website and other avenues too, just a bit preoccupied with Greenlight til we get it launched on there

[Ruxar]

Those animations are so slick, action looks very fast paced.

Loving the blog posts about your animation workflows, picking up lots of tips.

Good luck with Greenlight.

[oodavid]

...as soon as we get our trailer done and a couple of tiny tweaks to the build and we're hoping to do early access as early as possible

A trailer would be super useful, just tried to show this to a pal of mine and there was a lot of fudging around on this thread explaining gifs and summarising play mechanics.

This might be the game that makes me buy an Ouya.

[barneycumming]

we're hoping to explain the gameplay and premise a bit better in the trailer, so hopefully people get the gist of how the gameplay works just from watching

a little snippet form the trailer:


we've roped in a friend of ours to do some voice work for the trailer, i'm pretty excited

after the main trailer we'll probably do some smaller ones showcasing individual monsters and mechanics

can't wait to get people playing this

[DarkWanderer]

Will there be a tutorial mode for creature control in the start menu? I could see the main player having an upper hand if as Player 2 you have to figure out new mechanics for a new move set on the spot(Unless the mechanics are to be pretty straight forward).

[barneycumming]

yeah that's definitely an issue to look out for- I've tried to keep it as approachable and arcadey as possible- you have an attack button and a "special move" button- the attack is always basically what you'd expect for the weapon/monster, but the "special move" is always something different, so it does take some learning

definitely it's not the best environment to learn while you're already being pummeled by potentially 3 other people

we are likely to include some kind of a practice mode with bots, so people can at least get the hang of the controls on their own before they get together with people, but that still doesn't quite solve the issue

[Skydsgaard]

OMG I just can’t believe what I am seeing, maaaan, this is incredibly well done!!!
The water animation flowing through its tentacles, it’s soooo perfect, I love it, I can't stop watching it.

I know that it’s wip, and that you have already talked about working with water splashes on the floor but I just have this silly idea, since it looks like he arises like in an elevator, slowly without making any effort, not even to go up nor to keep himself up there. Therefore it came to me that he could do it on top of a kind of huge arcane altar which activates through some secret/hidden mechanism (just like the blocs of stone in Indiana Jones).

Anyway it’s just an idea 

I'm waiting for the 4friends pack :D:D:D

[barneycumming]

yeah Skydsgaard that sounds cool- like he's on some some rising lovecraftian monolith that pushes up out just of the water... doing the water draining off him was really fun, made me think i'd really like to come up with an excuse to have more things slowly revealed from liquid- maybe i can find one of our mechancis we haven't implemented yet and dress it up as something like that

but for now i'm onto the next thing- i haven't even a chance to finish the water splashes and ripples yet, it's getting very hard to know where to draw the line with this stuff- there are so many layers of effects i could add!  bubbles before he rises, saliva splashing and spurting as he screams, water churning as he screams, etc etc and i want to do it all but there's so many more systems that need animations!

i really like the more unorthodox fantasy weapons like the spear and the sling, so i'm making sure to have them in there and make them just as good as the regular old swords, just with different feel/technique

here is the sling in action:


secretly i want to make sure the best magic weapon the random generator can create is some form of magic sling- killing huge monsters with a sling is sweet (i think!!)

[barneycumming]

oh and i captured some footage of one of the types of magic you can get for your sword- they weapons are randomly generated with various properties, one of the possibilities being this "bloodstrike magic":

[Pineapple]

I add my own to the cacophony of affirmations: That animation is perfect.

[Guv]

I can't even put in to words what I'm feeling. This game looks glorious. The animations are great but the, for lack of better word: squishyness and other effects like screen shake just bring it to life.

[eobet]

Holy smokes, the animations here are some of the best I've ever seen in an indie game!

Also, those swords smashing into the ground are incredibly three dimensional for some reason... they really pop (in an awesome way).

 




EDIT: Now I know what it reminds me of! Moonstone for the Amiga. Mmm... sweet co-op memories (though frustratingly difficult, even back then... the Dark Souls of its day, I guess).