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[NinjaKyat]

What
Antipaint is a colorful twinstick shooter where each level you beat becomes art. The enemies move in various different patterns and leave colorful splats when popped. After defeating them, you end up with an abstract painting that is uniquely yours. The game features various enemies, various painting styles, different brushes to paint with, powerups, supermoves, bossfights and the juicy arcade-y goodness.



How
I'm making Antipaint with Unity. This is my solo project, so I am doing most of the work, with some small help from friends here and there (testing, feedback, sounds, perhaps some art). I work on Antipaint only on my free time, as I have a full time job. I've been working on Antipaint since the autumn of 2020. I hope to finish and release it this year. I intend to update this thread every once in a while to list the stuff I've been working on and the progress I've made.



Example Art
Here's a few pictures I made while playing/developing Antipaint





Demo
There is a small alpha/demo version available for playing on itch.io
I appreciate any feedback I can get!

Lastly, I've got a Steam page if you'd like to follow the game there.

[Rogod]

I am surprised this has never been done before now xD

Good on you for being the first! :D

(I find myself imagining if a 3D version would work too)

[bram_dingelstad]

This looks amazing! Can't wait to see the progress on this, it seems as if you're in the last few stages of the core gameplay atleast?

What are some things you want to improve on? Because like others said it's a pretty solid concept that I think stands on it's unique-ness alone.

[NinjaKyat]

Thanks!

While uniqueness might get people interested in the game, I have to make sure that the core gameplay loop is sound and fun. I've got to make sure there is enough variety in the game so that the levels don't feel completely the same - I can do this by using different enemy types, painting patterns, silhouettes, level modifiers, adding boss fights and probably some other things. But I need to add them - so it's a big task of creating content that is fun and fits the game.

I'll probably also have to add some form of storyline, to ground the game in reality since right now it's pretty darn abstract.

Lastly, since this is an arcade style game, I'd like to have at least a few different game modes. So the main story would be hand-crafted levels, whereas the alternative game modes would give people something to do after beating the game or in-between levels. Since it's about generating art, you gotta give people different ways of doing it.

It's a bit daunting to think about just how much stuff still needs to be done, but if I consistently work on the game I'm sure I can deliver.

[bram_dingelstad]

The way you're putting it, yeah, it definitely sounds daunting. Don't forget that just publishing a really well polished level as a demo can get you a little bit of traction for getting player attention and perhaps a little bit of motivation as well! (assuming you haven't done so already)

There's also another strategy you could follow for the development of the game. Think about a smaller set of core features or gameplay changers/modulators you can add, and just slowly enable/disable them as the player progresses.

I think you could hypothetically publish the game with 25% of what you would want to put in and still have something people would have a lot of fun with.

[NinjaKyat]

Yeah, I'm taking everything step by step. Definitely don't want to feature creep this. I've got a demo up on itch.io, but it's not super polished yet, as the whole game is not super polished yet :D

Speaking of features, I've added a very basic dialog system into the game to allow me to write some sort of story/narrative. I have no idea how/what/why the story will be, but I don't expect to write anything too super serious - kinda keep the lighthearted theme of the game going.

[l0bster]

hehe, cool idea. reminds me of hotline miami, but instead of covering everything in blood, you are creating something pretty 

[NinjaKyat]

Heh, I love Hotline Miami, very happy to hear that :D

Today I wrote a basic random level generator. It still needs some fun features like scaling the difficulty over time, but it now opens the possibility of various neat things like infinite levels, daily doodles, etc.

[NinjaKyat]

I've been tinkering a lot with the UI design in the past week or so, it's probably one of the things with whom I struggle the most. Don't really like where it's at right now, so decided to take a little break and do something more fun instead - so I implemented a snake enemy:



Meanwhile, if anyone has any tips or tricks or resources on designing a good looking UI, I'm all ears :D
I've looked at a few UIs in https://www.gameuidatabase.com/ but my biggest takeaway is usually that I need an artist to help me :D

[Beastboy]

You made a perfect pitch title. I congratulate you

[NinjaKyat]

Haha thanks!

These past few weeks I've been tinkering around with steam. I finally integrated a leaderboard into the game, so now you can compete against others in a daily doodle challenge. First time doing it, I used the facepunch steam library and it just works. Neat!

Today I added a slight zoom out after popping enemies to give the game a little bit of an oomph. A bit afraid that it might be a bit too distracting, but I feel like it's appropriate.

Here's how it looks in action:
https://i.imgur.com/mne6aJo.mp4
(not a gif since it's a subtle effect and gifs kinda shred the quality too much)

[logophil]

Great idea for a game, love it!

Meanwhile, if anyone has any tips or tricks or resources on designing a good looking UI, I'm all ears :D

In general the UI should fit the theme of the game, so maybe a font and icons that look kind of like brushstrokes, or pencil, or a spilled paint-pot effect? Maybe something that looks like a canvas, or a single broad brushstroke as a UI background. Just an idea. Readability is really important too of course.