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[alvarop]

this looks sweeeeeet.
post more!

[no1hitjam]

I've been doing some work on this! I've really beefed up the motel interior, added NPC's with random movement, and gone further with the lighting engine, having interior lights light up windows on the outside, and neon lights outside shine back into the windows! I've written an introductory blog post here and I'll have more to show in the coming days!

Here's an interior shot of the motel:



blog post with more details

[nathy after dark]

Looking cool, and reading through from the first post I didn't realize the project had been inactive for 2 years. It's exciting and inspiring that you've come back to it!

The GIF a few posts back isn't appearing for me.

[no1hitjam]

Looking cool, and reading through from the first post I didn't realize the project had been inactive for 2 years. It's exciting and inspiring that you've come back to it!

The GIF a few posts back isn't appearing for me.

Thanks! I'll have to look around for those old gifs, they're somewhere on my hard drive.

I've been getting a lot of work done on it, here's a link to a blog post that goes into a bit of detail. I just now got moving vehicles in the street that I'm pretty happy with, here's a gif of what it looks like:



It's a bit smoother in game, I just recorded the gif at low FPS so it wouldn't be too huge of a file.

[io3 creations]

That gif is looking super sweeeeeet!

[rarelikeaunicorn]

These colors are so dreamy! 

[nkm]

Wow.. the neon-city vibe really comes across! 

[Nrin]

I love the way you approached lighting! It really sets up the atmosphere.

[SolS]

Beautiful

[no1hitjam]

Thanks everyone, the positive feedback really means a lot to me, it's what helps me keep going. The lighting is really important to get right, and I've continued to make subtle passes on it. Otherwise, I was in a bit of a rut but I decided to flesh out the alleyways and other buildings on the block.



EDIT: This gif really shows how I'm going beyond ASCII in a way. While I'm staying in the 16x16 number of tiles that extended ASCII restricts to, a lot of my tiles are not based on legacy ASCII tiles, but on things I'd just like to have. The result is a sort of blur between symbolic and representational graphics. (I'm also sticking with the two-tone restriction, although my colors go far beyond what old ASCII displays could represent) I feel like I might annoy ASCII enthusiasts with this choice because it's sort of non-committal, but my attitude has always been to do what feels right, and for me, that means really tinkering with the standard tileset.

[Zireael]

This just looks more and more awesome!

[[ - Null - ]]

Hehe, this can sound a little bit weird, but do you make the lighting whit OpenGL/DirectX shaders or simply using the tileset?
Gawsh, this looks so beautiful and great! 

[boymakesnoise]

I really want to see where this can go. Keep going!

[io3 creations]

EDIT: This gif really shows how I'm going beyond ASCII in a way. While I'm staying in the 16x16 number of tiles that extended ASCII restricts to, a lot of my tiles are not based on legacy ASCII tiles, but on things I'd just like to have. The result is a sort of blur between symbolic and representational graphics. (I'm also sticking with the two-tone restriction, although my colors go far beyond what old ASCII displays could represent) I feel like I might annoy ASCII enthusiasts with this choice because it's sort of non-committal, but my attitude has always been to do what feels right, and for me, that means really tinkering with the standard tileset.

I also wondered about similar things - especially the title for a game that would used ASCII characters but not in the pure ASCII form i.e. not located perfectly on an ASCII grid.  My idea so far is if I use ASCII in the title, then I'll likely make it a pun.

But, perhaps the bigger question now is: why are the characters not "stickmen" (or variation) and just "Pacman heads".   
(Looking at the smilies above the reply textfield, I notice some resemblance too)
 

[no1hitjam]

Hehe, this can sound a little bit weird, but do you make the lighting whit OpenGL/DirectX shaders or simply using the tileset?
Gawsh, this looks so beautiful and great! 

Thanks! Right now it's all in the tiles. I'm using RLNet for rendering, which hooks into OpenGL, and I'm going to look into what I can do with shaders eventually. For now, the tile based system is working fine for me and lets me do stuff like moving lights and turning them on and off in game pretty easily.

I also wondered about similar things - especially the title for a game that would used ASCII characters but not in the pure ASCII form i.e. not located perfectly on an ASCII grid.  My idea so far is if I use ASCII in the title, then I'll likely make it a pun.

Yeah it's hard because I think my title right now more than any I've thought of really gets the feel across, even if it's not entirely accurate. So I'm always looking for a better title in the back of my head.

But, perhaps the bigger question now is: why are the characters not "stickmen" (or variation) and just "Pacman heads".

I've tried adding bodies, but so far I haven't found a way that looks good with my current two-tone grid setup. I'll try again at some point (especially if I ever remove the grid based restriction on movement) but for now the little heads have been growing on me 

[io3 creations]

Yeah it's hard because I think my title right now more than any I've thought of really gets the feel across, even if it's not entirely accurate. So I'm always looking for a better title in the back of my head.

New challenger has arrived!  I'll let you know if I come up with something. 

But, perhaps the bigger question now is: why are the characters not "stickmen" (or variation) and just "Pacman heads".

I've tried adding bodies, but so far I haven't found a way that looks good with my current two-tone grid setup. I'll try again at some point (especially if I ever remove the grid based restriction on movement) but for now the little heads have been growing on me 

Looking at the "little heads", it gives me a virtual world like feel.  Since you mentioned sci-fi, perhaps that could work?

[Thaumaturge]

I really like the artwork here. Aside from the lighting mentioned by other, I was quite impressed by the representations of cars and motorcycles, given the restrictions!

As to an alternative title... perhaps they're similarly non-representational, but perhaps "Terminal Rain", "Character Rain", or "Encoding Rain"?

[Zireael]

I really like the artwork here. Aside from the lighting mentioned by other, I was quite impressed by the representations of cars and motorcycles, given the restrictions!

As to an alternative title... perhaps they're similarly non-representational, but perhaps "Terminal Rain", "Character Rain", or "Encoding Rain"?

Oh yeah, those cars and bikes look awesome, how did you pull that off?

[qMopey]

extremely cool. posting for follow ... 

[no1hitjam]

I wrote a new blog post talking about how I'm designing the game and my implementation of player goals. Here's a gif from it showing computer navigation:

I really like the artwork here. Aside from the lighting mentioned by other, I was quite impressed by the representations of cars and motorcycles, given the restrictions!

As to an alternative title... perhaps they're similarly non-representational, but perhaps "Terminal Rain", "Character Rain", or "Encoding Rain"?

Thanks! I really like Terminal Rain... I might end up going with that.

Oh yeah, those cars and bikes look awesome, how did you pull that off?

They're just like any other element in the scene, I just made them move. I drew them first in REXPaint with my ASCII tileset which is a great tool for drawing ASCII art.