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[Alexey Tronov]

“Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.”
© William S. Burroughs

Overview
Primary Host is a hi-bit game that unite 2 genres: fast-paced action shooter and a story-driven survival horror. Game has different gameplay mechanics from each of these genres and splits them up into a two story lines. In the first line player will take control over Frank Foster - a soldier from a special squad, in the second one - player will explore the game world as Sophia Overbeck - a young scientist in a large healthcare corporation.

Frank's basic animations

Some utility items


Early mockup

Workspace

• GameMaker Studio 2
• Paint.net
• SpriteIlluminator (possibly later)

Team

• Me. That's all. Actually, i'm not a professional artist and not a programmer at all. And yep, i know that it will be a tough challenge to do all this stuff alone, but it's even harder to work with someone else for me. So, gimme a try.

Inspiration
I caught a huuuuge inspiration boost from other indiedevs and their games like MegaSphere, Irkalla, Nykra, Skychasers and Cyber Shadow. Thank you guys for your amazing work. I really happy to be a part of a huge "indiedev" universe. Must say that Resident Evil / Dino Crisis series and their soundtracks - one of the main inspiration resource for my game as well.  

p.s. sorry for my grammar

[Alexey Tronov]

Camera Logic
In game camera has 3 different behavior types:
1. Regular behavior: Follow to target.
2. While battle stance: Follow to median between target and position of mouse cursor/gamepad stick.
3. Cutscene behavior: Customizable positions and speed in different game situations.

For the regular camera behavior we need to let player see more visual information in direction that he moves and don't shake camera everytime when player spamming directional button.

Follow to target only when player cross "focus" square.

Battle stance activating while player hold "aim" button (RMB atm.) In this state player's sprite direction depend on a mouse cursor position relatively player coordinates.

Median between mouse cursor and player coordinates while battle stance mode

[flex$]

hey homie, mock-ups and art look slick. get it goin

[Alexey Tronov]

hey homie, mock-ups and art look slick. get it goin

Thank you!

Battle Stance
A character state which decrease movement speed and has different animation sheets. Frank raise his weapon up and can look around. Head rotates with a rifle as well. Will add more smoothness to this a little bit later.

I'm not sure about these projectiles.

Aim angle restricted to 45 degrees in both directions.

Camera logic has minor changes as well. Horizontal line of sight in game has more priority than vertical one - so camera now moves within an ellipse.

Ellipse pattern that camera follow is sized to 180x90 px.

[flex$]

super smooth in motion, both the camera and animations there. yeah, projectiles could use some visual/color/lighting interest.

[HiddenNatureDsn]

This looks interesting, and the fluidity of your camera system definitely benefits from the higher resolution.  I will say, I think you need to differentiate your front and back legs on your character, they create a very awkward illusion in the walking animation.

[Alexey Tronov]

This looks interesting, and the fluidity of your camera system definitely benefits from the higher resolution.  I will say, I think you need to differentiate your front and back legs on your character, they create a very awkward illusion in the walking animation.

Hey, thanks for feedback, you're absolutely right about undetectable legs so I've decided to redraw sprite a bit, check it out.

   

It's almost unnoticeable, but mockup in the first post was updated too.

[HiddenNatureDsn]

This looks interesting, and the fluidity of your camera system definitely benefits from the higher resolution.  I will say, I think you need to differentiate your front and back legs on your character, they create a very awkward illusion in the walking animation.

Hey, thanks for feedback, you're absolutely right about undetectable legs so I've decided to redraw sprite a bit, check it out.

   

It's almost unnoticeable, but mockup in the first post was updated too.

I'd suggest- if I may be so bold- to keep the front leg from your old sprite, and use the back leg from your new sprite, and add a tiny 1-2 light pixels on the front foot.  It still has the problem of looking like the legs are doing a weird switcheroo unless you focus really hard on the hard-to-see light part of the front leg.

[io3 creations]

The style direction is looking good.

But I do agree that there's something off with the leg animation.  Almost seems like quick a "double tap" of the feet that might indicate the frames aren't in correct order.

Could you post all the frames next to one another?

[HiddenNatureDsn]

The style direction is looking good.

But I do agree that there's something off with the leg animation.  Almost seems like quick a "double tap" of the feet that might indicate the frames aren't in correct order.

Could you post all the frames next to one another?

I'm pretty sure it's just because the legs are identical and end up in nearly the same positions.  If you follow a leg individually it seems to mostly move normally.

[sidbarnhoorn]

Awesome and good luck! You're off to a good start.

[Sundrop]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/zGYb8hD.gif[img]
I'm not sure about these projectiles.

Might look better if they'd ricocheted 

This looks really good so far!

[Alexey Tronov]

But I do agree that there's something off with the leg animation.  Almost seems like quick a "double tap" of the feet that might indicate the frames aren't in correct order.

Could you post all the frames next to one another?

Sure. It will be a huge help if someone explain what's wrong.

OLD

NEW

This looks really good so far!

Thank you!

[io3 creations]

But I do agree that there's something off with the leg animation.  Almost seems like quick a "double tap" of the feet that might indicate the frames aren't in correct order.

Could you post all the frames next to one another?

Sure. It will be a huge help if someone what's wrong.

OLD

NEW

Thanks for the samples.  It looks like that frame 4 in both animations is off because the back leg has already passed its vertical position, but it shouldn't have yet.  Basically, it moved more than it should and in the next frame it moves very little.  Likely, the back leg in nearby frames (perhaps at least #3) might need to be adjusted, e.g. moved forward a bit.  It might be easier to see if you create a very basic stickman like animation for the legs.


Also, since you are using a perspective where the character is rotated toward the viewer, I wonder if the back foot should move back as much as the front foot.

[Alexey Tronov]

Thanks for the samples.  It looks like that frame 4 in both animations is off because the back leg has already passed its vertical position, but it shouldn't have yet.  Basically, it moved more than it should and in the next frame it moves very little.  Likely, the back leg in nearby frames (perhaps at least #3) might need to be adjusted, e.g. moved forward a bit.  It might be easier to see if you create a very basic stickman like animation for the legs.

Also, since you are using a perspective where the character is rotated toward the viewer, I wonder if the back foot should move back as much as the front foot.

Many thanks for feedback! It helps a lot, really. Goin' to redraw it one more time.

Almost forgot to show base of the first enemy in the game. It's a sprite for a regular host - human that carries parasitic being. It's still wip and has no details. And i wanna make his head animation a little bit more "uncanny".

Regular Host base

[HiddenNatureDsn]

Almost forgot to show base of the first enemy in the game. It's a sprite for a regular host - human that carries parasitic being. It's still wip and has no details. And i wanna make his head animation a little bit more "uncanny".

Regular Host base

This animation looks really nice.

[Alexey Tronov]

This animation looks really nice.

Awesome and good luck! You're off to a good start.

Thank you guys!

I waste like two days to polish animations and don't even get a good result. Sometimes need do something else to refresh vision. So, character now have ability to run. Sliding in progress.

[io3 creations]

Almost forgot to show base of the first enemy in the game. It's a sprite for a regular host - human that carries parasitic being. It's still wip and has no details. And i wanna make his head animation a little bit more "uncanny".

Regular Host base

That looks like a "weird wobbly walk" ... in a very fitting way!

[Alexey Tronov]

Hello TIG.

It was pretty good weekend and i have some progress to show.

Core movement mechanics almost done. Frank has ability to run and slide. Both of these actions requires stamina points, that regenerate after short period of time.

Weapons system was also implemented. At this moment player has an Assault Rifle with capacity of 20 bullets.

And i did some gameplay UI. It's still palceholders, but looks OK i suppose.

something wrong with this gif. i suppose it's recording problem. sorry

On next weekend i'll try to make first enemy so stay tuned!

[rarelikeaunicorn]

This looks super slick and that placeholder UI is gorgeous! I'm curious about the 7 replacing the 'S' in the logo?