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[Camdag]

[The-Imp]

That actually looks fairly tasty. Like some sort of pixel muffin. Mmm, pixel muffins... Anyway, good stuff, I especially like the robot mockup!

[Ishi]

An explosion of colour! I especially like the grass tiles, and the metroidy screenshot is cool.

[JLJac]

Well, your custom title is obviously not for nothing. I love the colours. Good work

[Xion]

Woah. The entire first image didn't show up for me and I was about to ask ishi "How is it metroidy?  " and then it showed up and I was all like "Woah."

But yeah though, cool stuff. I 'specially like the boxer dude.

[Inanimate]

That's all amazing! You have a wonderful style. 

[Camdag]

Creating a protagonist- Thought processes:

-Ok, he's got to be bright, and high contrast, so the player can see him no matter where he is. Robots are cool. Lets do red and white. Yeah, a shoot-em-up sounds good, lets give him a gun. A golden gun. It's fun working with only the limited GIF palette in MS Paint.

Wait, fuck. White skinned robot, red, gun, low resolution, metroid-ey type setting...

- Ok, now he's green. I'm gonna cover up those eyes. Everybody uses the vertical black slit eye design nowadays. He gets a visor. But he looks a bit goofy.

-Ok, different look. Ehhh...he doesn't seem to have much personality. I'm going to go ahead and make him a non-silent hero, so he needs a complete face.

-Ok, a mouth, red hair, there's some personality. It goes well with the green. I am digging the color scheme.

-He still reminds me of a thinly disguised Quote. He doesn't get a gun. He gets throwing knives. And he will be able to flip around like a ninja and run up walls.

[The-Imp]

Oh god the was hilarious. I still like the mouth of the first one.

[Lynx]

Love the thought process iteration.  I need to be better about iterating on ideas, like this kind of thing - I'd have gone around and around on the 'it's a robot' thing instead of going 'hey, turn him into a ninja with throwing knives'.

How much of the game idea do you get set in your mind before you start drawing for it?

[Camdag]

As an artist and wannabe game designer, I usually think of the gameplay and mood as the very first things, and then I focus the graphical style around that. I usually play the game part way in my head, before deciding on a definite graphical style.

I was recently playing Lyle in Cube sector, and really dug the graphical style. I wanted something bright, eye-catching, and with a limited color palette to give that old-school feel. Mostly, I just wanted things to pop! Color explosions! Eye candy! So I decided to use saturated colors against a black background.

I was thinking of starting it as a deceptively traditional oldschool shoot-em-up, but with a twist. The hordes of enemies would occasionally drop special powerups(in varying degrees of rarity) that allowed the player to buy special abilities for the character. The abilities will do almost anything, like allowing the protagonist to store a certain number of health powerups for later usage if he's full on health, the ability to hop on enemies to damage them instead of just chucking sharp objects at them, increased "flicker" immunity-to-damage time after character is hit, resistance to getting knocked backwards through the air after an enemy runs into the character, a higher jump, wall running, and so forth.

Instead of running all over to find the exact spot where the double jump power-up is, he might simply kill a few enemies as he explores other areas and then buy the double-jump ability with the loot he attains. Basically, this system will allow "flexible exploration", and the player will never be at a dead end, wondering where to go. If a player is getting his ass wooped by mega-monsters in a certain area, he only needs to "level up", as it were. But unlike a straight up rpg, you can run around in a "high level" area without being insta-killed, by relying on reflexes and skill instead of the power of the character and chance. If a player wants a challenge, he can give it to himself. And if he feels like his character is too strong, he can just flip the little off switch next to each ability in the menu screen!

After I figured on all that stuff is about when I decided to make some tiles and sprites.

[Camdag]

[Lynx]

Makes sense but the juxtaposition of him being an android with the kinda medieval look of his hood and greaves is making me go   

[medieval]

Camdag, that idea is great! It's in a way similar to what I had in mind, to give a twist to the endless storm of MMORPGs, namely to bring a fighting element into battles, so that a player can actually be skilled at battles.

Also, those sprites look damn lovely. I was this close to licking the screen to see if it tasted like apples.

[Camdag]

It would be a neat system for an MMO, and with such simple graphics, lag might not be a problem. I'm glad you all like the colors, this super saturated style is kind of new for me.

[handCraftedRadio]

This is so awesome, Camdag. I love all of your stuff!

[The-Imp]

That screams *barf*. 

[medieval]

That screams *barf*. 

WHAT

[Plasticware]

A reference to River City Ransom, perhaps?

Loving your stuff, Camdag.

[andy wolff]

great stuff

[godsavant]

Egyptian boxers are awesome.