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[Spennerino]

Hello all and welcome to Mimix!





Mimix is a brand new action-adventure platformer featuring only the best of the classics that have inspired it. Rediscover the fun and simple time honored gameplay by playing alone or cooperatively with up to 4 friends. Impersonate your way through the world's many obstacles and rediscover the lost art of Mimicry!

Inspirations for Mimix include Kirby, Mario, Megaman, Donkey Kong, Sonic and Final Fantasy Tactics.

The primary concept of the game is that you play as a mime and any human enemy you defeat will grant you the chance to copy their job class.



This project is still in its very early stages but if you are interested you can follow my progress here on Tig or follow my more frequent updates on twitter: @Spennerino, or on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, itch.io, and finally on Steam as a greenlight concept.

Dustin van Wyk has joined the project to provide music. Here is the first track: Mimix: Welcome to ImpersoNation

Thank you!

Updates!

• Update 18: Off Screen Location Identifiers
• Update 17: Join Game Menu
• Update 16: Crystals, Knight Job & Sprint
• Update 15: Coins
• Update 14: Designing The GUI
• Update 13: General Update
• Update 12: Music
• Update 11: All About Cameras
• Update 10: To Do Checklist
• Update 9: Designing the First Level
• Update 8: WIP Background Art
• Update 7: Mime Art
• Update 6: Render Modes
• Update 5: Tools and Workflow
• Update 4: Job and Enemy Art
• Update 3: Job Classes
• Update 2: More Enemies
• Update 1: Collectibles and Enemies

[Noyemi K]

Cute GFX, looks like a first-party GBA game with how colourful it is.

[Spennerino]

Cute GFX, looks like a first-party GBA game with how colourful it is.

Thank you! That is a really nice comparison to hear!

I am trying my best to follow the NES color pallet, but i might not stay true to it as development progresses.

[eigenbom]

This looks great! Good luck with dev

[Spennerino]

This looks great! Good luck with dev

Thank you, kind sir

[Spennerino]

Update 1: Collectibles and Enemies

This is going to be a pretty small update this time, but I wanted to show some of my design process as the game develops.

First I would like to talk about collectibles. I have not decided if there will be any extremely common collectibles yet like for example, coins...but I have decided to have major collectibles at the end of, or hidden within each level as a goal to achieve.
The collectible I decided to use for this is crystals. Not too original but its a bit better than coins haha.
 

Second thing is the monsters that populate the world. It took me quite a while to come up with an idea for the starting enemies in the game. I wanted something original to my game as well as something that would work as a standard enemy. I designed the Shadow Puppet and Shadow Pup enemies below to relate to the mime player character in a similar way to how evil mushroom Goombas relate to Mario.

Let me know what you think, and thank you!

[WhyNot]

Looks really exciting! I like the way you mixed a nes-like color pallet with a bit more modern and polished pixel-art style.
Looking forward to play a demo with my friends.

[Spennerino]

Looks really exciting! I like the way you mixed a nes-like color pallet with a bit more modern and polished pixel-art style.
Looking forward to play a demo with my friends.

Thanks man! I still have a lot to learn and lots of room to improve with my pixel art but the compliment means a lot!

Adding in Multiplayer is going to be one of my top priorities very soon so that I can design the game around the feature. I still haven't decided if I am going to make it local only or go full online with it. I'm not sure if players would really care if there is an online option or not, but having both is probably the best option.

-Spencer

[KaiTheSpy]

This is really cool What platforms do you plan on targeting?

[Spennerino]

This is really cool What platforms do you plan on targeting?

PC is going to be my focus, at least until I get a demo out, but that could change. The game is being built with Unity so I will hopefully be able to release on every platform possible.

[WhyNot]

Adding in Multiplayer is going to be one of my top priorities very soon so that I can design the game around the feature. I still haven't decided if I am going to make it local only or go full online with it. I'm not sure if players would really care if there is an online option or not, but having both is probably the best option.

I would definitely say yes for an online-coop. Let the boring people with no real life enjoy the game as well
As far as I know Unity 5 got a new, really easy to implement system for online multiplayer, so it won't be too hard to create both local and online coop.

[Spennerino]

Adding in Multiplayer is going to be one of my top priorities very soon so that I can design the game around the feature. I still haven't decided if I am going to make it local only or go full online with it. I'm not sure if players would really care if there is an online option or not, but having both is probably the best option.

I would definitely say yes for an online-coop. Let the boring people with no real life enjoy the game as well
As far as I know Unity 5 got a new, really easy to implement system for online multiplayer, so it won't be too hard to create both local and online coop.

Yes! I'm aware of, and very excited to try out Unity's newly updated UNet multiplayer solution. I've done manual networking in the past with XNA and I've played around with networking in Unity before so the technical aspect shouldn't be an issue.

My issue is more with the design of the camera and the levels and forcing people to stay on the same camera screen if they are playing online. Either that or having a different solution for each, but then designing and balancing the game gets more complex.

[Spennerino]

Update 2: More Enemies

Working on some more enemy mockups. I decided that going with a theme of shadow play monsters would be really interesting. It sort of goes along with and is a nice parallel to the pantomime theme that i'm using for my mime designs.

I am really liking my bat (which is why I animated it) even though its not very original and the skull blob design. You can't have a sidescroller without bats, and you can't have a fantasy game without chickens. My art style for the game is starting to get better defined so i updated my chicken sprite.

-Spencer

[Storsorgen]

Jesus christ, those gems look juicy as hell :D

I love the compactness of your whole design, it also has great volume. Good job on everything!

The only thing that strikes me a bit off is the "landing" animation after jumping, looks a bit like the character sprite is dynamically tweened by code rather than animated.

[lithander]

I understand why you want to have a 4-player coop game. But i think 95% of the players that might stumble upon your game (for example due to the charming very beautiful graphics) will want to give it a try right away. Only if they get hooked from that very first interaction with it they might consider getting 3 friends to play the game with them later.

If there is no single-player mode planned I can't see the game getting off the ground. Even if there's online coop how big is the chance that you get into a healthy group composition that is fit enough (has the controls figured out, has time and inclination to spend a couple of minutes playing) for fun to emerge within the short(!) timeframe within which a first-impression is formed and the decision is made to continue investing into a game or move on to the bazillion other games available to anyone with an internet connection, these days.

I'm sorry for the negative stance. It's only because I really like what I'm seeing and would like it to suceed!

[Zorg]

This looks cool!

One minor suggestion: you seem to use a black shadow as an overlay at some points. You should use additional hue shifting, for example the chicken could have blue feather shadows and red/orange shadows for the peak.

The blue character looks very good, i like the animation, too.

[Spennerino]

Jesus christ, those gems look juicy as hell :D

I love the compactness of your whole design, it also has great volume. Good job on everything!

The only thing that strikes me a bit off is the "landing" animation after jumping, looks a bit like the character sprite is dynamically tweened by code rather than animated.

Thank you, thank you! I iterated quite a few times on the style and I decided to go with the chubby look you see here rather then the skinny single pixel leg look that's really popular right now. I am also trying my hardest to keep sprite sizes as close to the NES games that I'm inspired by as I can.

The impact squish is actually an animation and not a tween but it definitely needs some work. Currently it's just a single frame...but its a difficult problem because I want the animation to be as fast as possible so that it doesn't impact game feel. I don't want people moving around much while the squish animation is still playing. I might try adding a second frame, orjust cleaning up the single frame I already have to see what works better.

I understand why you want to have a 4-player coop game. But i think 95% of the players that might stumble upon your game (for example due to the charming very beautiful graphics) will want to give it a try right away. Only if they get hooked from that very first interaction with it they might consider getting 3 friends to play the game with them later.

If there is no single-player mode planned I can't see the game getting off the ground. Even if there's online coop how big is the chance that you get into a healthy group composition that is fit enough (has the controls figured out, has time and inclination to spend a couple of minutes playing) for fun to emerge within the short(!) timeframe within which a first-impression is formed and the decision is made to continue investing into a game or move on to the bazillion other games available to anyone with an internet connection, these days.

I'm sorry for the negative stance. It's only because I really like what I'm seeing and would like it to succeed!

Oh don't worry! There definitely is a single player mode. Think of the game as like a New Super Mario Bros or New Super Mario Bros U where the game is the same no matter the player count and you can add / drop players whenever you'd like. I should probably clear this up on the first post so that there is no more confusion.

If I do decide to do full online I'm not sure if it will include full matchmaking. I'll likely just stick with people entering IP's or private rooms only so that it is only friends playing with friends. But currently I'm leaning more towards not including online play and keeping it local coop / single player.

This looks cool!

One minor suggestion: you seem to use a black shadow as an overlay at some points. You should use additional hue shifting, for example the chicken could have blue feather shadows and red/orange shadows for the peak.

The blue character looks very good, i like the animation, too.

I'm not completely sure what you mean by using a black shadow as an overlay? Using more hue shifting is definitely something that I need to do, I am still learning how to use the NES palette effectively. Thank you for pointing that out.  

The chicken using blue color instead of the grey for the feather shadows is an amazing idea! I'll make that change as soon as I can, it should look like a pretty big improvement.

I'm really glad that people are liking my animations so much because I have so little experience doing proper pixel art animation. I just started using Aseprite 2 weeks ago.

Thank you for your help!

[PiedPiper]

Don't quote me on that, because I'm but a humble learner myself, but I think you should squish them by one or two pixels tops to avoid making your characters feel like they are rubber balls.

Also, for someone new to pixel animation, you already show great progress. I will definitely follow this project!

[Spennerino]

Don't quote me on that, because I'm but a humble learner myself, but I think you should squish them by one or two pixels tops to avoid making your characters feel like they are rubber balls.

Also, for someone new to pixel animation, you already show great progress. I will definitely follow this project!

It was one of my first animations for the project and I feel like I've gotten much better now that I did my chicken and bat.(which bat needs some major improvements too) So i think if i take another look at it i can improve it without getting rid of the style I'm going for.

I'm no expert but animations are more fun to watch when you exaggerate all of the movement. I tried doing some squash animations with only a couple pixel's different but it doesn't really suit the style I'm going for. I want all of my animations to be fun and squishy so that the game looks and feels playful and not serious. So the rubber ball thing is completely intentional.

Thank you so much for the compliment and I am glad you are going to follow the development of my project!

If you are interested, this is the learning resource I used to help with my animations: 12 Principles of Animation

I think its an excellent resource.

-Spencer

[7Soul]

I'd go even further:



The upwards motion is faster so I use a smear to convey that. The wings-down frame has a second frame to "overshoot" the animation and prepare for the upwards movement. Total 5 frames (the body movement might be a little too exaggerated)

I recommend this great video on animation: