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[LightEnt]

Update #6 -- First working enemy logic -- 7/10/2014

Finally got it working as intended!



During combat the King Slime (now designated with a Royal Stick of Power) will actively seek out weaker slimes and consume them, gaining their powers.

Introducing the Army of Hues



The regular lowly slime. They headbutt you just to annoy you.



And Fire Slimes, what do they do? Why, they provide cover fire of course.



HEY what the -- oh, just a lightning slime. They don't even have to be line of sight?!


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I've mostly just been setting a platform for my enemy logic so that the more fleshed-out foes will be able to do more in terms of interacting with eachother. In that sense, for how basic they are i'm surprised how oppressive these little things actually are depending on how I mix them up. I've got alot of stuff to do but at least now something can kill me without debug keys.


I'd really like for people to playtest this once i fix a few nasty physics bugs. Maybe I should get the HUD and menu working first though? Iunno.

[twotimingpete]

very nice sprite work. the grass thing is pretty awesome. how are you liking construct 2? (edit just saw you're using CC instead of C2, derp me)

I have a few thoughts but I wasn't sure if you wanted crits or not. either way, I really dig the sprite work and I love it any time a game comes up with ways for enemies to interact with eacother.

[TunaUppercut]

The game is looking pretty awesome. I really like the air attack reset and how the enemies interact with each other.

[LightEnt]

very nice sprite work. the grass thing is pretty awesome. how are you liking construct 2? (edit just saw you're using CC instead of C2, derp me)

I have a few thoughts but I wasn't sure if you wanted crits or not. either way, I really dig the sprite work and I love it any time a game comes up with ways for enemies to interact with eacother.

C2 is awesome, it's basically CC except stable and with actual support. Logic wise it's features are superior i think, but in terms of speed, it's just not very powerful. It's also missing some other finer options like per-pixel collision. I believe C2 is done with Javascript while CC was done in C++.

As for criticism, absolutely yes. Go for it, i am ready.

[makohi]

you should post these updates verbatim to tumblr. JS.

[LightEnt]

I agree! Although this is made difficult by Tumblr's hate of GIFs. I think i'm terrible at tumblr.

[makohi]

I agree! Although this is made difficult by Tumblr's hate of GIFs. I think i'm terrible at tumblr.

tumblr doesn't hate gifs; the problem is that gifs over 500kb won't play. So instead of posting them directly to tumblr, use imgur and text posts.

[twotimingpete]

As for criticism, absolutely yes. Go for it, i am ready.

Well, my two cents... I don't know how much this pertains due to the early nature of the game and the possibility of some of the art being temp, but I feel like the game would be better served with a more interesting color palette. Right now it looks very generic, with a rich green and brown palette combined with sort of very ordinary grass, trees, and slimes. It comes off kind of flash gamey. While I think the spritework is quite good, I think the game would stand out far more if it had a more assertive overall motif, and a good place to start with this would be the color palette. I would pick some colors and make them the central colors of the game rather than doing this sort of very generic look. Look for interesting color interplays and contrast. Picking good colors is far from easy and for me is always a great challenge. But it's also extremely important (IMO).

also, regarding hosting gifs, may I suggest http://gfycat.com/ -- it's free and fast, and it turns them into quick loading webms. You can't always embed them in forums (depends on the forum) but it's certainly handy for sharing larger, longer animated gifs.

[LightEnt]

Well, my two cents... I don't know how much this pertains due to the early nature of the game and the possibility of some of the art being temp, but I feel like the game would be better served with a more interesting color palette. Right now it looks very generic, with a rich green and brown palette combined with sort of very ordinary grass, trees, and slimes. It comes off kind of flash gamey. While I think the spritework is quite good, I think the game would stand out far more if it had a more assertive overall motif, and a good place to start with this would be the color palette. I would pick some colors and make them the central colors of the game rather than doing this sort of very generic look. Look for interesting color interplays and contrast. Picking good colors is far from easy and for me is always a great challenge. But it's also extremely important (IMO).

also, regarding hosting gifs, may I suggest http://gfycat.com/ -- it's free and fast, and it turns them into quick loading webms. You can't always embed them in forums (depends on the forum) but it's certainly handy for sharing larger, longer animated gifs.

I actually get this alot, and I agree. I haven't spent much time on background art, and I plan to add alot more "stuff" to the layers to liven it up...but yeah the majority of my pallete problems just come from my lack of knowledge or experience in the subject. I'm not too good at color or value in general. But i've decided to just focus on other things until I get around to it.

 I struggle alot with the colors of the characters too. Pixel art seems to pride itself on using limited palletes, something I try to do but can't really get down with consistency due to my lack of experience in it or time to practice. Part of me wants to just not care (I can't use pallete swaps anyway and have no hardware limitations, hence hue shaders), but the other half sees that as really lazy. Ultimately though i'm just trying to go with whatever helps me move forward with the game, instead of tripping over myself when it comes to creating stuff.


Thanks alot for the advice, i'll be sure to keep it in mind when doing things in the future.

[LightEnt]

Update #7 -- Soldier Concepts -- 7/16/2014

Neeghh this isn't working out for me anymore, just kind of winged it as a placeholder.



So here are a few concept drawings for the base sprite references of the soldier enemies. There are 5 ranks of these guys: Fighter IV/III, Knight II / I, and Order Elite. 

Apologies for monochrome lol



These are the main type of basic humanoid enemy you'll encounter. Similar to the slime they will be distinguished by type, and will appear with different equipment sets. I'll be distinguishing them apart with sprite overlays for armor and weapons.

Similar to the slime, each class and type will have access to different movesets, and higher classes will have more total moves in rotation to use. Leaders will be able to buff nearby soldiers and execute team attacks.





Order Elites are encountered sparsely and will behave more like minibosses. These guys will serve as early-game meatdoors for important areas. An earlygame encounter with one of these guys should serve to show what an endgame loadout will look like, but you'll eventually have to take them down to gain access to certian areas.

The elites don't wear helmets because I want them to feel more like you're fighting someone of importance. Wouldn't it feel weird killing the same guy multiple times? So instead i'll overlay their heads, maybe weapons too if it doesn't make animating them too difficult.
 


Just for sprite height referencing on the base sprites. Estelle actually stands about 6 feet tall. Of course this is a bit impractical to stay faithful to with my chosen resolution. Maybe I should have created a pixel scale? Whatevzz.


I'd like to do a randomized female variant for the low-classes with the same abilities and a different sprite, but it'd be somewhat difficult/time consuming to achieve through sprite overlays and i'm drawing enough animations for these guys as is. So probably not happening.
 




 

[simondevlpr]

The animations look really good,
just posting to follow.

[DeadAlienCult]

Agreed - your animations are really nice!

[TunaUppercut]

How are you handling animations for the project? Are you using sprite sheets?

[lai-studioguts]

  Metroidvania! Very nice animation sketches so far!

[LightEnt]

How are you handling animations for the project? Are you using sprite sheets?

They're all handdrawn sprites, I just sketch a few keyframes out in SAI to get the frames looking how i want them, and then animate the pixel version in Graphicsgale. Despite the drawings, I don't do any outlining tricks or anything, just reference the poses.

I use layers for Estelle's weapon so I can apply shaders to it and swap the sprite out for upgrades, kind of like Megaman X. It requires a different frame for every slash, but it's more versatile i guess. Rotating different weapon sprites just didn't work.

The animations look really good,
just posting to follow.

Agreed - your animations are really nice!

Metroidvania! Very nice animation sketches so far!

Thanks alot!

[LightEnt]

Ohh the neglect...well, i've been neglecting my logs more than anything



Working on assets for the forest area to make it look more foresty. Also a new HUD that's more functional than the placeholder. What do you guys think?



Also, trees! They behave like the grass.




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By the way, i've got a question for you guys: Do you think graphic kill animations on non-cyborg enemies or people is too edgy?

Megaman Zero-styled executions for enemies and bosses alike is just a must for this game. But I have real trouble finding any actual games that do this on non-cyborg victims. Even if they bleed, they're always "technically" not human in some way.

Would it feel jarring if you could overkill enemies in brutal ways without them exploding or something?

[LightEnt]

Creating old magical ruins is pretty fun.



Edit: Forgot one:


Danger!

[Derity]

Nice, I like the golems anatomy

[LightEnt]

Before, every enemy had only one hurtbox, but now i've added compatability for me to add multiples to various enemies, each with their own defense values. So now larger enemies can have weakpoints.




...Of course this brings up the problem of collision order between hitboxes since attacks have a set amount of targets they can hit.

Currently, getting swarmed by alot of enemies of any type is a terrible disadvantage because of target limits, and I kind of want to keep it that way. But i'm starting to see why the concept never happens in action games.

Nice, I like the golems anatomy

Thanks! Was going to have them be floaty golems for easier animating (no legs), but then I couldn't have them jump and stomp on you.

[LightEnt]

"Damn he's huge."