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[happymonster]

Code:

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Tried to have a go..

[standardcombo]

Not bad. It's better than with slashes and I can see it working for some materials. Thanks!

[happymonster]

Code:

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Or a blurred kind of line?

[Sjonsson]

Whenever I look into this thread I'm continuesly baffled by how hard it must be to get this art to come together. Keep it up!

[happymonster]

Any news?

[standardcombo]

Any news?

The project is still very much alive but I had to pause due to 2 urgent games which need my attention. It's very tempting to work on Stone Story. Each day is a struggle to keep focus away from it, while dreams of ascii ahaunt.

I've done a bit of pre production on the audio but nothing to show yet. Sfx are such an important part of this game because they can convey details about the materials and environment which is simply not possible in the game's low resolution. For example it can communicate that a certain item is made of wood or metal and even how heavy it is.

[happymonster]

I thought of you when I saw this:
http://protoraider.com/index.html

[standardcombo]

Cool! Thanks for the reference!

[oldblood]

I got excited thinking there was an update on this...

Forget the other 2 urgent games. You have something very special here.

[Kyzrati]

I've done a bit of pre production on the audio but nothing to show yet. Sfx are such an important part of this game because they can convey details about the materials and environment which is simply not possible in the game's low resolution.

So true! Most indie games might have a couple hundred sound effects at most to go along with their detailed art, while with ASCII, not many do it, but the ideal game that wants to build a compelling world should have thousands of audio samples to support the abstract approach to the visuals. That's what I do, at least

For a while there I was thinking I'd somehow missed an e-mail and wasn't getting updates on this, but apparently you were just busy

[Pixel Noise]

Very cool - looking forward to following this! This speaks straight to the heart of anyone who grew up with old computer games.

[standardcombo]

Both games I've been working on are now approved for release! woot 

Have resumed light design work on Stone Story and will post when there is something to show. Hoping the ascii techniques have not gone rusty! The tempo of the game needs work and so does some of the enemy art.

[Kyzrati]

Woohoo, it's coming back!

[JobLeonard]

AW. YISS.

EDIT: And congratulations on the two releases!

[standardcombo]

Nothing too exciting but I did some doodling and a UI animation related to ongoing feature changes.

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Having some trouble capturing a decent gif on this new computer.

[standardcombo]

I've finished reworking the first 3 levels of the game into the new form, where levels no longer keep scrolling indefinitely. That implementation was making it difficult to control the flow of content. Instead, each level is finite and composed of a fixed number of "pages". The camera focuses on one page at a time. Your character enters from the left, completes any challenges, then the camera quickly moves to the next page and so on. Each level ends with some form of "boss fight".

This solves lots of problems and is closer to the original prototype. It's funny that I tried different approaches just to go back to what worked in the first place.

Now all that's needed is to add the Star Stone and rework how weapons upgrade so the new approach makes whole sense.

[standardcombo]

Making of: Star Stone

The Star Stone is one of 9 Soul Stones you collect throughout the game. The first one created was the Sight Stone, and it was one of the first art assets made for the game! (p.s. item names may change). To keep them consistent, and save some time, I picked up the Sight Stone text file and set out to modify it into the Star Stone. Considering my skills have improved since then, I was hoping it would turn out better and I can fold the style changes back into the Sight Stone.



Not too crazy about the mix of block and line styles, but I'm happy with the overall angle and size.


The Star

The first step is to isolate the central space for the star symbol and get to work.





At this point the shape is good, but the direction of the star didn't turn out how I wanted.



That's more like it! It doesn't look as sharp, but we can improve that as we go. The important thing is the shape is close to what I need.


The Stone

Time to do some work on the stone itself.






More Black Plz

Looks great, but I really want the background to be black for these screens. Let's bring the block+line combo back and see if we can improve upon it.

Note I am using black font on white background, with the full block, half top and half bottom symbols █ ▀ ▄





Blocks or no Blocks?

At this point it looks good enough. The black background and white stone is what I want.. but instead of hitting my head too much against the ascii limitations, let's explore the full line-art once again. Perhaps I can make it work with a black background.




Looks alright to me. I'm happy with this result but I can go either way. Box+Line works too.


We Need to go Deeper

Time to revisit the star symbol a bit, perhaps some texture and depth will do it good.

No doubt I will be changing the Sight Stone now. This looks way better.

[Kyzrati]

I've found that using white on black is far more effective for creating suggestive shapes and line art, due to the way bright colors visually bleed out into dark colors. Inverting an ASCII image balanced for white on black tends to cause it to lose much of its effect as the black glyphs are overpowered by all that white.

[standardcombo]

Had to try it round. Lookin' a bit Dragonball-Z

[JobLeonard]

I don't mind summoning a ASCII dragon near the end