next »

[Earworm]

Wow, I'm really excited about this. I love the art style and different color pallets you're using. Not to mention the Zelda franchise has always been a favorite of mine.

In one of your first posts you mentioned that you already had the music all picked out for this project - out of curiosity what did you use for inspiration for the music? Did you compose it yourself, or hire a composer?

[jg.camarasa]

Holy shit, the art style is so beautiful and different, amazing work!

[SolS]

@jg.camarasa - Thanks so much!

@Earworm - Well I have a few tracks as placeholders mostly and I'd like to compose some new stuff for it at some point soon. The music will be heavily inspired by Super Hydlide on the Genesis, Ys 1 and 2 on the Turboduo, Dungeon Explorer on the Turbografx 16, Columns on the Genesis, And I'd love for it to sound like some of the tracks in the movie neverending story! And a bit of zelda. Also Really happy to read you're excited about the project, thank you very much!

Haven't updated in a while but I'm still making progress! Here's some of the most recent stuff.

(stuff from the last page)

And here's a few more I recently posted on Twitter.









Other greens I tested on older mockups.





And here's some alternate colors for the mossy garden caves.

[oahda]

Hadn't come across your thread/game before. It's gorgeous! Would love to know more about the gameplay and so on, wasn't able to find that much in this thread besides the inspirations you listed and how you wanted some MM-style sidequests. Very curious to know more! You've got so many cool locations all arted up, so it feels like you have a lot of the story thought out already?

[Earworm]

The Super Hydlide soundtrack is such a classic. Some really amazing tunes on there. I've actually never heard the Ys 1 and 2 soundtracks. I'll have to do some searching to find the original - when I looked quickly it looks like maybe there was a remake that's available on Steam with a different score?

It seems like you were/are a big Sega fan growing up. I missed out on the Genesis when I was a kid so I'm playing catch up learning about a lot of these games. NES and SNES dominated my house and my friend's houses growing up.

[Dr. Büni]

Beautiful as usual, SolS. Your mock ups are always so visually unique.

[QOG]

Glad to see more progress on this one! Also, I'd agree with:

Would love to know more about the gameplay and so on, wasn't able to find that much in this thread besides the inspirations you listed and how you wanted some MM-style sidequests. Very curious to know more!

[Rogod]

Loving the washed out dark colour palette - the style alone captures me in a way no other game has since the 90s. It would be awesome to see this finished :D

Can we get a playable WIP version? - Something tells me this'll feel awesome to play

[ternbasedcombat]

Yooooo!

This looks AMAZING!!

Is someone already writing music for you? I would love to do a track for you!

TM

[SolS]

Here's the Ys 1 and 2 ost and a few other music inspirations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLzFTGYa_evXgK-r2yeG3wToCez2t1p8ww&v=H-NymFN7nJo

Dungeon Explorer, the Turbografx had a really great sound chip so I'm hoping the music in my game can sound similar. The songs themselves are so good too, probably some of the most memorable game music from my childhood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL-vD6rIjXrcJIqAhxiqIq1z-SOYoYI2v0&v=tBJMe3XqxnI

Super Hydlide has a really mystical sounding ost, very dreamlike like the rest of the game itself.





@Prinsessa - Thanks so much!   gameplay will be pretty zelda like overall. I haven't gotten much work done on anything other than art. I've been putting most everything off until my health gets a bit better, which it is, but very slowly and I have to patiently just do mockups time to time until I have more time and energy to take on the rest.

With each mockup I get a better idea of what the story may be and how the areas may connect but for now it's pretty open for anything. I'd like to do things with alternative history, mythology, comets, floods, resets in society and probably bits of story ideas from the game inspirations I mentioned.

I'll look at the locations I already have and think of a lot of ideas but there's so many different ways I can go with things I have to just wait and see what stands out most to me as I make the game.

@Earworm - Yeah I highly suggest you listen to the turbografx ys 1 and 2 ost it's sooo good. I think I might have heard a bit of the remake's ost but I wasn't too drawn to the remakes overall.

Yeah I grew up with a Genesis, a Turboduo, and a 3do. I eventually got a gameboy and a n64 but I pretty much missed out on the nes snes until later, which was fine since I still have nostalgia for the games I ended up playing later, I always really wanted Super Mario All stars!

@reila nimu - Thank you!

@QOG - Thanks! Glad you're still following!

@Rogod - Thanks so much! Recapturing what I loved and wanted to see expanded on from the 90s games was my main goal with this. I have a few other games started I may never finish but this one hopefully will be!

I have a small prototype made in The Games Factory but it's really not much, just enough to test the sprites animations and movements seen in the gifs.

@ternbasedcombat - Thank you! I'll likely do most of the music myself but I'm definitely open to tracks if I happen to like them enough, especially if they sound like the music I linked above!

-

Also here's a few works in progress I posted on Twitter at some point.

[Rogod]

Hah, a good choice - I started out (for 2 years) in The Games Factory many moons ago - I'd be happy with a .gam file release if they didn't crash after long play-times on modern machines

[SolS]

Here's an unfinished location from this week!

[Earworm]

Here's an unfinished location from this week!

Really cool! Out of curiosity, what do the blue and white cloudy regions represent?

[oahda]

@Prinsessa - Thanks so much!   gameplay will be pretty zelda like overall. I haven't gotten much work done on anything other than art. I've been putting most everything off until my health gets a bit better, which it is, but very slowly and I have to patiently just do mockups time to time until I have more time and energy to take on the rest.

Thanks for explaining! Mockups really do look amazing tho. Hope you get better soon!

[SolS]

@earworm - It's a bit unclear in that shot but it's the rock edges seen in other shots.

@Prinsessa - Thanks!

Here's a few of the very first mockups with the borders to see if they still look too faded with the larger areas of shadow around the serpent. I think the border helps unify the colors, otherwise anytime I try to add contrast to some of these they start to look a bit off in various ways.

Like the yellow begins to stand out too much near the white or the overall softness of certain shots can get lost. Either way It's hard for me to tell for sure on this monitor since the contrast can change depending on what angle I look at the screen.

The faded border works well for the low contrast locations but I'll likely need a darker border for high contrast shots with large areas of darker grey or black.







And and here's an unfinished hydra variation.

[muki]

I absolutely love the look of all of this!

[diegzumillo]

Just coming to say hello so I can be notified of more project updates. This looks really great. I don't know how you make such simple and beautiful images. I know a lot of it is in the color palette but even the visible seams between tiles seem like they belong.

[SolS]

Thank you both so much!

I might have mentioned some of this already but here's a few things I prioritize in art,

I always kind of need something to be going on in a mockup that stands out or adds intrigue, other than interesting palette moods I try to also be open to any kind of detail that gives it an ornate / mystical mood, sometimes a bit surreal. And the cozy feel of a smaller screen size, like link's Awakening gives, combined with extra detail, dithery stuff to add a sense of texture like the art in Super Hydlide. A good balance of color and detail overall is one of the main goals, which is also why I think OOT and MM looks so good, not too cartoony but also not too gritty or dark.

Also if it resembles something you'd maybe see in an authentic retro game but hasn't really been seen yet it gives me that lost prototype / beta vibe that always inspires me. I would like the game to look a bit less scribbly and sketch like but over polish might remove a lot of the intrigue or might not be the best use of my time for now, the more scribbly a mockup looks the more I might rely on pretty colors to balance it out or a few repeated tiles to give it back that game like feeling. A lot of the useful repeated tiles come from using tiny doors and windows in various patterns.

Not every pixel has it's purpose which is very freeing, especially with ocd! Stray pixels, for the most part, can just become a part of the image.

Basically I try to think "if there was a sequel to this game, a Link's Awakening sequel, a Majora's Mask expansion, or a new Hydlide sequel that came out around the same time what would it look like?" then any ideas that feel worthy of that can then be used in your own game. Like I could easily call this a Hydlide fan game and the direction would be about the same!

Some early Autumn like settings. Light effects were somewhat unintentional, along with some of the colors so it's a bit experimental.

[SolS]

Border palette variations I might use in places if the original border clashes too much with an area.

[SolS]

Quick hue shifting concept art.