next »

[Alec S.]

One suggestion would be to move the character sprites up (or the grid down)... I dunno, about 20 pixels? It looks like they're standing right on the edge of their grid spaces, rather than standing inside them.

I've actually been doing this in the actual game, but I haven't posted any screenshots recently.

[Bree]

[astrospoon]

I'm really diggin the art style of this game more and more. Very cool looking characters.

The gradient in the logo pic is *just* right. It adds class, not cheese.

[Bree]

Thanks! I was really hoping the gradient wouldn't suck.

Dear Diary,



Walk cycles are hard.

[JaJitsu]

He looks so jolly


and the gradient kind of looks like a spotlight.
which fits in. :]

[Bree]

That's exactly what I was aiming for with the gradient! Good to see it paid off.

[Imagineergames]

Bravissimo! Looks VERY good. I'm actually quite interested in it. Love the original concept.

[Arlecchino]

Hello mates, any update yet? I've been haunting this thread like a zombie in a graveyard but virtually no update has surfaced for quite some time.

I've been thinking about the funny little grid tiles. Perhaps you can make much smaller grid tiles and let each character use four boxes, larger objects more, and smaller objects less, so Brighella is not the same size as a bottle...

[Wander]

hey - this looks cooool.  The wod grain you put on it a little busy, maybe if it constrast a little less it would blend in.

The stage could mayhaps use some of the gradient like spotlight lighting you did so it's not so stark.   If you dropped a light gradient from back to front it might give some illusion of depth, and shaows or little elipses of shadow underneath the characters would "bind" them to the ground.

Keep going THEO, this is looking good!  Go go go go.

[Alec S.]

I haven't been working very much on this recently as the new school year has started, however, now that I've gotten a handle on my school projects, I should be able to doing some work on this pretty soon (although, of course, I can't devote as much time to it as I did over the summer).

[Arlecchino]

No worries, just take your time with the process. No need to rush and come up with something which could have been better, no? I'll just continue zombie-ing the thread again, perhaps with a little Thriller background music...

[Bree]

Thank you all! I'm more or less in the same situation as Malec- I just got both Flash and Photoshop CS3 (WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE), so I'm trying out a couple different ways of animating sprites. It's gonna be a while before either of us get serious amounts of progress made, but rest assured it will be made.

[Jared C]

Yay, congratulations Theo!  I just made the same investment.  I'm having some difficulty learning ASIII, but it's an amazing animation program, and definitely speeds up the whole process. 

[HannesP]

Potentially stupid question: has anything about the gameplay been revealed yet? Or did this thread reach 12 pages without the slightest hint about what this game is actually about?

[ChevyRay]

The actual gameplay is probably best likened to Advance Wars. Players select a mask to play a specific character, and take turns controlling them on a single playing field. Play will be structured on a grid- certain characters can cover ground quicker than others, as appropriate for their mask- and for a predetermined number of turns. Each player has a single goal that they need to achieve- Pantalone, for example, needs to have so much money by the end of the show in order for him to 'succeed'. As they move throughout the stage, they can interact with the other characters and the environment- for this reason, we're currently only planning one stage with a bunch of environmental factors.

On more than one occasion, a player will activate a special lazzi (gag or slapstick routine) as a minigame. Depending on the situation, they will be played by one person or multiple people. The results then drive the story and can help or hinder any of the players.

An example of this system: The male Innamorati is waiting for his lover to return, so he sits by a well. Brighella, seeing this as an opportunity to fulfill his goal to cause as much unhappiness as possible, moves up to the well. Here, he'll have a few options. He could try and convince the male Innamorati to leave his spot (in pantomime, of course), or he could try and distract him with something shiny. He decides that he's just going to push him down the well. Selecting this command, the players controlling Brighella and the Innamorati engage in a minigame, with the winner emerging victorious from the struggle.

The end result is a strategic storytelling game. Every person is playing what are essentially flat characters, and everything that they are able to do with must fit in with their basic archetype. Il Dottore, for instance, is very unlikely to roundhouse kick Il Capitano, and will probably fail, albeit hilariously. In a way, it's like the opposite of Team Fortress 2. There, the characters were designed around the playing style; here, the playing style is designed to fit the character.

I'll explain the system in greater detail later...

That, from early on. It hasn't been all given away, but it sounds like Theo has a pretty strong idea of what the gameplay is gonna be like.

The concept and artwork is already enough to warrant 12 pages, though, so I'm not surprised.

[HannesP]

Ah, thanks ChevyRay!

[Bree]

Yeah, Malec and I tried to pin down the actual gameplay before anything else. We've still got a couple things we haven't really talked about, but that'll be for later. In the meantime...



...I've relearned why The Animator's Survival Kit is my Bible. Such a huge help, and the fact that Photoshop CS3 has a animation tool makes it a very nice upgrade from Elements 2.0 (been using that since middle school, if you can believe it).