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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsCogmind (sci-fi robot-themed roguelike) - BETA RELEASED
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Author Topic: Cogmind (sci-fi robot-themed roguelike) - BETA RELEASED  (Read 234596 times)
happymonster
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« Reply #120 on: March 15, 2014, 02:27:11 PM »

Ok, so what about an 8 x 12 font? Smiley
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Kyzrati
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« Reply #121 on: March 15, 2014, 02:38:02 PM »

I guess I should add that the map font should ideally be square. 8x12 would imply 16x12 map cells! Some people wouldn't mind since it is roguelike tradition, but I prefer to avoid the distortion that comes with non-square cells. (Theoretically it's possible though--someone could just draw a new font set and drop it in the game.)
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NinthPower
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« Reply #122 on: March 21, 2014, 12:08:57 PM »

I think the font looks great IMHO.
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Kyzrati
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« Reply #123 on: March 21, 2014, 01:28:46 PM »

Thanks for the comment--always nice to hear support for the other side. You were looking at the text font he was referring to, yes? (see OP, not the map font)

It's a difficult font to improve on considering the small space restraints. I think happymonster's point is not necessarily that it looks "bad" per se, just that it's a bit narrow, which can't be fixed! I think it's at least pretty readable despite the small size. I've yet to see what will happen with the 5x10 font for the extra small laptop screen version :/
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Kyzrati
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« Reply #124 on: March 21, 2014, 06:21:19 PM »

The first post about ASCII art. More to come. (Just finished drawing 600 pieces of ASCII art and added them to the game!)

See the Neutron Cannon in all its code page 437 goodness, scaled even:
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JobLeonard
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« Reply #125 on: March 22, 2014, 05:02:46 AM »

You going to animate that ASCII art? Wink
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Kyzrati
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« Reply #126 on: March 22, 2014, 05:31:10 AM »

Haha, don't tempt me, dude. Actually, I got this same question/comment on two different forums today.

The official answer is "sort of "Wink

Currently I'm only animating the images when they appear, and all using the same method/style. (I've shown a gif of the animation before, but it was kinda tucked away in another gif a long time ago and not much in the spotlight--I'll do another one focused on the images soon, now that there are plenty to play with.)

I have considered doing more complex animations with the art. The engine does support breaking art into layers and interfacing with / animating each separately, so it's possible, but that particular feature is extremely low priority because it would probably take a lot of work to get right. If anything I'm thinking of adding another type of cooler more involved animation that modifies the art somewhat when scrolling through component schematics, which is normally just a list of item names. (Right now art only appears in the item info window.) That's still pretty low priority though, since you wouldn't reference that list very often. Mostly just an excuse to add more animation Wink

We'll see. Need to move on to sound effects now.
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JobLeonard
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« Reply #127 on: March 22, 2014, 10:57:27 AM »

I think limiting yourself to "simple" stuff like blinking lights could keep it from becoming excessively much work but still add a lot of flavour.
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Kyzrati
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« Reply #128 on: March 22, 2014, 02:57:35 PM »

Sort of. The main problem with animating the art in any way more specific to each piece is that it probably can't be done properly in an automatic procedural way. It will require manually defining animated parts for all the art, which is a *lot* of art. Even something simple eats up a lot of time when you have to do it 600 times Shocked
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Kyzrati
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« Reply #129 on: March 22, 2014, 04:24:42 PM »

Here's how items are currently animated in game, showing a few images/types that I've already released elsewhere:
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Kyzrati
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« Reply #130 on: March 28, 2014, 06:09:48 PM »

Having finished most of the ASCII art for Cogmind, I've written up a little overview of the process, including examples and more art.

Ex:
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JobLeonard
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« Reply #131 on: March 29, 2014, 04:21:24 AM »

Why did you decide to not use coloured backgrounds for individual tiles? Or is that just a result of the steps you took?
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Kyzrati
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« Reply #132 on: March 29, 2014, 04:34:02 AM »

Good question. I should've brought that up since most traditional ASCII art uses a lot of blocks, making it almost like low-res pixel art. I found that it's a lot easier to be more expressive in a smaller area using primarily line art and glyphs. Background colors result in a lot more square corners that impact the flow of an image, and they also tend to cause a strong weighting towards an area, limiting their use even further. A lot of my earlier concepts played with the idea of using more background colors, but I stopped adding them almost entirely later on.

Maybe I'll go back and add a section on this to the post when I get a chance.
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Kyzrati
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« Reply #133 on: April 05, 2014, 02:45:56 AM »

Just recently finished adding a couple hundred particle effects for Cogmind weapons: New blog post with some screenshots/gifs.



Now I'm on to adding sound effects for all these things, which is going to take even longer...
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JobLeonard
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« Reply #134 on: April 05, 2014, 04:08:41 AM »

I like your solution to EMP-causes-noise
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Kyzrati
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« Reply #135 on: April 05, 2014, 05:09:02 AM »

Thanks, seemed to be the most sensible solution in an ASCII world of robots Wink

I tried to stick to set themes throughout the particles to aid recognizability, one of the themes being all electromagnetic weapons relying heavily on ASCII for their effects--most other weapon types use minimal or no ASCII (color only). In fact, I should have covered this in the blog post. Suppose it wouldn't hurt to do another particle effects post that covers this, talks more about the creation process, and shows some more samples.
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Kyzrati
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« Reply #136 on: April 11, 2014, 08:30:52 PM »

A little more about the making of Cogmind's weapon particle effects: http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/04/making-particles/


Lots of animated gifs in the post, though mostly chosen for explanatory purposes.
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JobLeonard
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« Reply #137 on: April 11, 2014, 10:53:30 PM »

> Weaker versions of laser weapons are yellow, stronger ones are green.

Just a heads-up, as a representative of the 5 to 10% of your male audience that is colourblind, this is not distinguishable for us based on colour alone. Making the yellow darker to reflect it being weaker wouldn't help, because especially "dark yellow" is often confused for green Durr...?.

I don't think it's worth the hassle of finding a fix for though - it's a tiny strategic disadvantage when fighting unknown enemies I suppose, but nothing game breaking.
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Kyzrati
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« Reply #138 on: April 12, 2014, 12:40:31 AM »

Ah yes, sorry for the lack of mention, but throughout the project I've had color-blindness and how it will affect gameplay in the back of my mind. I say "back of my mind" because I won't let it determine the design for everyone, but when the time comes I will address it as best as the engine is capable, which is pretty good given its flexibility.

In terms of weapon colors specifically, they're actually of little consequence. More a simple visual reminder and more importantly an attempt to remain consistent. In game you won't be frequently meeting lots of new types of enemies with different weapons that matter; that and shape/style truly holds the most useful information, since all you care about is whether you're being shot at by ballistic, thermal, or electromagnetic weapons, all of which have very different styles.

That said, it is actually very easy to reassign colors in the particle engine, so what I've planned to do for colorblind players is, once I get some real feedback, add a place to the game files where you can reassign any major colors you want. It could be as simple as "change all green lasers to color X" or something more involved/extensive. We'll see what needs to be done!

Once again you remind me of important topics to cover; maybe I'll go back and add relevant information to the post a little later!
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Kyzrati
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« Reply #139 on: April 12, 2014, 03:15:01 AM »

On second thought, after going for a walk and thinking about it some more I realized colorblindness would be a pretty good topic for an entire post on its own.
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