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[Kryptot7]

Wow! The 3D modeling in this game is fantastic and completely nails the late-90s CGI aesthetic. I got really excited when I read the part about 4-player brawling and the ability to choose sides. Sounds like chaotic fun! 
I noticed that the shading color tends to be black and the object's colors are fairly true-to-life. The sprites also look pre-rendered. This is what makes it look like late-90s pseduo-realistic CGI and not like pop-arty, bright mid-90s pixel art. I think it will look very nostalgic for a lot of people. The backgrounds are awesome as well. A few areas do look a bit monochrome in some places so you might want to consider adding a bit more ambient color later on.
Good luck!

[darrenagar]

@Kryptot7 - Thankyou, I'm glad you appreciate pre-rendered style, I feel there are a lot of pixel artists that have a bias towards pixel art games - understandably! Players will say they want something new - when in reality games that tread on familiar ground are way more successful commercially. I've always been an outsider, always loved the underdog consoles instead of the playstation iterations etc. for eg: AMOK on the Sega Saturn blew my mind- all the 3D games of that time had lovely colourful simple polygons, AMOK had voxel graphics that looked pixelated with a v.short fading draw distance- probably looked ugly to an average playstation gamer, BUT (my opinion) the game still looks gorgeous today whereas the polygon games have aged horribly. did it do well commercially? hell no.
     

A few areas do look a bit monochrome in some places so you might want to consider adding a bit more ambient color later on.

Too right, I'm gonna add some colour grading later on I think, I've been building it without any Unity plug-ins for reasons, but colour grading should better help bind the characters/BG image as a whole, give it that ambience. I've also purposefully left out something very important - Graffiti! when(if) the game gets a large enough community I would like the graffiti to be drawn by the community, much like real graffiti! I had some placeholder drawings in an early build but took them all out so that the walls/doors etc are clean- ready for artists to tag!

[The Moon Robot]

(snickers) any updates ?

[darrenagar]

With all the excitement of Streets of Rage 4 being announced (my own excitement of course) I can't help but show a little of what I've been upto for the last. . . . oh my god, a year!!

So, I was super happy with the vertical slice of gameplay that I had, but there was one thing that Streets of Rage had, and my game didn't. Palette swaps. . . .

so last December I set out to R+D the shit out of this last piece of the puzzle - there are NO EXISTING games that are able to palette swap with full HD sprites that have a full colour range, and with advancements in Normal mapped sprites - I had to have that as well, so anyway it took me 6 months but I succeeded, this game now has the most advanced sprite renderer on the planet (I challenge anyone to find anything comparable)

Anyway, that led me down a rabbit hole because the sprites could now be dynamically lit from any direction, and the game was still 2D, So. . . .



the environments are now 3D - and that's where I am now, very close to having that vertical slice again, but this time with all the ambitious things I thought were unachievable

[darrenagar]

So here we are, the most challenging aspect of game development; user engagement.

As of writing, I've made the demo available for free on Steam and Itch.io and they will quickly descend into the bowels, at the mercy of the visibility algorithms.

I would like to think that the quality and ambition of the demo would be enough for it to rise above the trash. I would like to think that, but this is 2019. Players are bombarded with so many great game releases as well, which makes it even harder to overcome consumer apathy. Considering the survival of the game is at stake with a Kickstarter on the way, this is what I'm faced with - also as a new father.

So in all honesty, I have to prepare myself for the possibility of walking away from this. I've completed my goal, and don't want to return to development until I know it has enough support to continue. I adore spending time with my son, and with a full time day job, that might have to be enough.

[sbeast]

Been following for a while, great progress man!
Is there much of a soundtrack at this point?
I think I messaged a long time ago actually, and I have a few musical ideas which could work.