next »

[Relix]

Azure Lands is inspired heavily by The Legend of Zelda series and a little by the Megaman series. The game will be side scrolling, focusing on exploring and boss fights. Not quite Metroidvania, though.

The game will feature Fire Emblem style mugshots, while the other graphics are like those from Snes days Squaresoft:



(pictures from the game's main character)

Music will be made with PxTone, with some more important pieces being in Ogg format.

The story of the game will be pletty simple, but there will be still some surprises.

I'm aiming to the game be about 5-6 hours long, with all secrets found. There will be five major areas, each which should take about an hour to complete.

Made with C++. I haven't actually done much yet, at the moment, only the health system works (weird part to start stuff, I know).

http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/6725/nimetnilt.png
(background is placeholder)

I choose a mix between Megaman styled and Zelda styled healt bar, which I think looks pretty nice.   

At the moments, there are two guys in the team besides me, who focus more on the graphics side of the game.

Still pretty barebones, but you gotta start from somewhere, right?

Also, all help are welcome, especially on graphics and music side.

[Inanimate]

Your mughosts are very loosely drawn, they seem kind of sloppy. And the animation needs a bit of work.

The idle is pretty good, it just needs a few more frames.

Her jump needs a lot more windup, which is the part where she bends her knees and braces her body to 'spring' up and jump. Right now it looks like she floats up, not helped by the linear motion she has. She needs to 'ease' into the jump. Start slow, get a bit faster when she nears the peak of her jump, and after the peak, she starts slowing down in the air. Right now, she just floats up, pauses, and floats down.

[Relix]

The mugshot is still very much work in process, the one posted is a little outdated already.
But I admit it's sloppy, I'm not very good at drawing things.

The gifs posted are just small examples which were made to see the sprites in action, they won't show ingame like that, the jumping/falling speed will be altered. It might need the middle point in the jump, though.

What about the idle animation - I don't see how it needs more frames.

[Aquin]

You're not good at drawing things!?  Yeah maybe it's not super awesome, but still... geeze.

If I could draw half as well as you I would be thrilled beyond words. 


I like Megaman.  I like Zelda.  This can't end badly from my point of view.

[Inanimate]

What about the idle animation - I don't see how it needs more frames.

It's a tiny bit choppy. It seems to just jump into each position. It needs a bit more, as I've said, 'ease'. So, just add a frame in between the existing frames, to make it smoother.

[Aquin]

Or, honestly, reduce the amount she moves about.  You only need to move a few pixels to suggest what you want.

[Relix]

You're not good at drawing things!?  Yeah maybe it's not super awesome, but still... geeze.

I'm not the one who made the sprites, only the mugshot, but I'll see if I can chance them a little tomorrow.

So, just add a frame in between the existing frames, to make it smoother.

Care to clarify a little?


I'll probally start making moving and camera tomorrow, can't decide which way I should do the camera - would it be good if it just followed the player, and in smaller areas, it would be locked in place? Common type camera in 2D games.

[Bree]

Looking pretty good! I do love me some Zelda-influenced games.

Your jump animation is actually too smooth. Your frames are all the same duration, which makes the arc look weird. What I'd recommend is to cut out the frames when she's jumping up and falling down, and then 'hold' the frames where the girl's in the air. This is a classic technique in traditional animation, called "slow in and out". It's used to emphasize certain parts of an action, and makes the animation pop a lot more. You can read a little bit more here. Best of luck with the project!

[William Broom]

My advice would be to not worry about the jump motion at all, since it's your engine that will handle that rather than the animation.

This looks cool btw!

[Relix]

Getting mixed opinions...I'm going to do it the way I intended, using the frames I've, while the game handles the speed and drawing them correctly.

Working on file handling now, because the current system only alloved to import one sprite sheet/class, which caused a lot small problems.
Can't do the moving before I get it to load the files in nifty way, wanted to do it now, but meh.

[Inanimate]

Well, the girl isn't smoothly moving to each position. She suddenly 'jumps' to the next position in the idle. Adding a frame in between each of you existing ones makes it smoother, and slows it down.

Also, in all my animation communities, slow in and out was called easing. That's what I was saying earlier.

Sorry if I sound harsh, I was an animation critic at my old forums.

[Relix]

Ah, I'll see what I can do, I mostly focus just on the programming side - so I'm little out of the loop with the terms.

And don't worry about sounding harsh, I posted this here to get feedback and everything regarding the animations just goes to the guy who made them.

[Relix]

(I hate double posting...)

Was traveling for a few days, still working on this, if anyone is interested.


Slightly improved conversation icon, there's still some parts which I'm not happy with, any tips?

Nobody cares about the coding stuff, but the game can now handle spritesheets and animating, ya! Also there's simple moving system, no animations for all actions yet, tho.
Collision system is also shaping pretty well.

Trying to find someone to do the music, not many people want to deal with PxTone which makes it harder to find people. I can do simple tunes with it, but nothing bigger.

[sloopygoop]

Hm...I kind of liked the spikier bangs from the first icon.  The rest of her head seems to be shaded more smoothly though, and that's nice.

[Relix]

I assume, by the bangs, you mean her front hair? Everyone else has said it's better the way it's now.

Here's little something that doesn't show anything special, but I feel like posting it anyway:
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/7902/azure0.png
Again, the gray blocks are obviously placeholders, easier to mess with them than tiles without level editor.

Nobody asked, but the hearts go into second row when there's more than 10 off them - Zelda style, but they are only worth one point each, which might make the first parts off the game a little harder than it should be.

Just need some small finetuning and the basics are ready, which I think were the hardest part - never done platforming before and I refuse to use guides or tutotrials for this project.

[Relix]

Smallish update:
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/1495/azure1.png
Tile based collission, working camera. If everything goes well, I can start doing attacking and enemies soon.

Been working on level editor more than the actual game - and I still don't have proper tiles in place >>

[Relix]

Proper tiles:
http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/7902/azure0.png
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/1495/azure1.png

[Relix]

Update!!

I've been kinda neglecting this so here's "I'm still alive and making this" update:
New graphics - also logo and title screen:


New mugshot:


New player animations:


Look, a sidekick!


And here's a little mockup I've assembled - it's a bit older than the rest of the stuff:


Actual coding took a small hit, I was part of big programming project in uni for the winter and then I switched to OpenGl and then came summer - it was too hot to actually sit in front of computer coding so...

Anyway, now that the weather is getting colder I can sit down and code again, I hope that I can make an actual gameplay video soon.