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[Blizzard]

I'm certainly no expert on pixel art, but the new ones look much better!

I agree. I like the progress already. I feel it's a combination of improving the color choices, using the low-contrast gray pixels on the fighter for volume (try this on the other characters, but using whatever color is appropriate instead of gray), and making the outline more human-like.

 

[Rafa_Z]

Wow, that's gorgeous! Reminds me of Guacamelee in a way, sans the Mexican influence of course. I'm very taken by good vector art, so this registers high for me. The music is also very fun.

From the trailer, it seems like most of the game's action is aiming and throwing the spear in various circumstances. Does that sound about right?

I Read your comment to Bartek who's doing the art and he said: "Wow that's flattering, but still Guacamelee is way better". Thanks!

You got the core of the game right, the basic mechanics are simple, but we're playing around with level design, enemies an level mechanics. It's interesting how a game changes when the only form of interaction is shooting a spear.

 

[Ito]

Is any of you guys having trouble starting Game Maker: Studio?

Apparently Yoyo Games is having some server issue (caused by that last humble bundle) which keeps user from accesing and validating their license keys.

If you happen to update or reinstall GMS (as I did), and you're asked your license key, then you're fucked.

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

I do see the progress... I attempted the new style on other characters.

I also think is coming along. Not perfect, but its a pretty nice change form the originals.

 

[sbkodama]

Hello, I convert my project over unity since some time and I wanted to ask if someone here know how to make a character motion like in an adventure game ?

I already made a state with third person shooter motion where the character move forward, backward, strafe left, strafe right, and where the Y axis of the character copy the Y axis of the camera with something like this:

claris_rotation = new Vector3(0F,claris_camera.transform.eulerAngles.y,0F);
claris_motion = new Vector3(Input.GetAxis("Move X"),0F,(Input.GetAxis("Move Z");
...
transform.rotation = Quaternion.Euler(claris_rotation);
claris_motion = transform.TransformDirection(claris_motion);
claris.Move(claris_motion*Time.deltaTime);

And I want to add aonther state with an adventure motion where I use the same input but where the character move always forward, to the front of the camera, to the rear of the camera, to the left of the camera, to the right of the camera.

Thank you in advance if you can help me.

 

[Jacksinthe]

Need some opinions, all!

Quote to see: vvvv


You can PM me your thoughts! We will be set to announce this Saturday. I have a few more things to tidy up on the site but that's where it's at right now. Don't share the link, plz. Since we are just days away.

I appreciate the feedback!

 

[PirateHearts]

Hi GAF! I've been lurking in this thread for years, and I figured I should jump in and join the conversation at some point.

Quick introduction: I'm a mostly-solo dev, ex-AAA-gone-indie, founded a company (Minor Key Games) with my also-mostly-solo brother a couple years ago. I'm a coder first and everything else by necessity; I roll my own tech because I enjoy it, and recently I've been on a retro pixel art thing which is awesome because no one else is doing that.

I'm working on two games at once right now, in a sort of a Ground Zeroes / MGSV or P.T. / Silent Hills configuration with a standalone prequel game that will lead into something bigger.

My elevator pitch for Gunmetal Arcadia is "Zelda II but as a roguelike." I'm taking the core gameplay mechanics of a game like Zelda II (or Faxanadu, or the Battle of Olympus, or Castlevania, or...you know, pretty every NES game was an action platformer with melee combat, wasn't it?) and marrying that with roguelike or roguelite elements like randomized levels, permadeath, and short 20-30 minute sessions. The hook is, even when you die and lose your progress, decisions you made and actions you took during your last session will carry forward into your next session. I want every run to feel meaningful in some way, even when it ends in death.

I'm about a year into this project, and I've been maintaining a weekly devlog the whole time, so there's a ton of content here now if you're curious: http://gunmetalarcadia.com/

 

[Michael Armbrust]

Hello, I convert my project over unity since some time and I wanted to ask if someone here know how to make a character motion like in an adventure game ?

I already made a state with third person shooter motion where the character move forward, backward, strafe left, strafe right, and where the Y axis of the character copy the Y axis of the camera with something like this:

claris_rotation = new Vector3(0F,claris_camera.transform.eulerAngles.y,0F);
claris_motion = new Vector3(Input.GetAxis("Move X"),0F,(Input.GetAxis("Move Z");
...
transform.rotation = Quaternion.Euler(claris_rotation);
claris_motion = transform.TransformDirection(claris_motion);
claris.Move(claris_motion*Time.deltaTime);

And I want to add aonther state with an adventure motion where I use the same input but where the character move always forward, to the front of the camera, to the rear of the camera, to the left of the camera, to the right of the camera.

Thank you in advance if you can help me.

For just the motion,

claris_motion = new Vector3(Input.GetAxis("Move X"),0F,(Input.GetAxis("Move Z");
claris_motion = claris_camera.transform.TransformDirection(claris_motion);
claris_motion = claris_motion-Vector3.Dot(transform.up, claris_motion)
claris.Move(claris_motion.normalized*Time.deltaTime);

Is that what you're wanting?

 

[Kalentan]

What do you guys think of the systems I have outlined?

http://pastebin.com/txjep7Fa

I want to make sure there's a decent variety and 'depth' in place.

...Annnd another character! I need to make a blog or somethin.

"Sir, I have the latest dossier."

"Took long enough, well, get on with it."

*Sighs* "Yes Sir."

Kekiro, age twenty-nine. When you think of most mages you imagine them with staffs or magical gloves, but not Kekiro nor anyone from the order she hails from. The Order of Mythic Blades instead have honed for years to actually manifest their magic through a weapon whose magical inhibitors are far less. Since finding a blade with magical imbuded metal is much harder than finding a staff or a glove, the amount of people in this Order is small. Kekiro excels in using a large battle axe with fire magic. Whether she's using magic through the axe or not, getting in close is enough to ensure your death. Unlike the others, Kekiro was actually a Vanklor native who actually fought against Corles during the war. Despite this, she was eventually exiled for failing to go through with orders she felt was crossing a line she dared not cross. While her Order still had her back, she found herself feeling sympathetic for the Corles and joined the Corles military till the end of the war. When she was on the the battle field, the ground would shatter and the land became scorched with flames. Following the fall of the Corles Capitol, Kekiro has been working in the Order as a mercenary. Yet when I spoke to her, she showed clear signs of guilt for having fought against Corles in the first place. I think we can trust her. Plus, a large flaming axe wielding woman? Don't see that often enough.

Oh yeah, if anyone's wondering what the character classes have been thus far it goes: Knight (Marlow), Hunter (Masara), Ice Mage (Tyler), Death Mage (Lyrolia), Priest (Svevoth), and now Flame Warrior (Kekiro).

I will admit, while her design isn't final, her current design is based on the outline of Marlow's sprite.

 

[sbkodama]

For just the motion,

claris_motion = new Vector3(Input.GetAxis("Move X"),0F,(Input.GetAxis("Move Z");
claris_motion = claris_camera.transform.TransformDirection(claris_motion);
claris_motion = claris_motion-Vector3.Dot(transform.up, claris_motion)
claris.Move(claris_motion.normalized*Time.deltaTime);

Is that what you're wanting?

Thank you.
I tried you first draft without the vector3.Dot and the character move in the direction wanted so this is somehow what I want yes.
But then I tried to add the vector3.Dot and I have the error " Operator '-' cannot be apllied to operands of type 'UnityEngine.vector3' and 'float' ", is this supposed to make the character facing the direction or something else ?

Edit: one thing about the direction, when I move my camera up down the character move in these direction, is there a trick to get rid of the Y motion axis of the camera for the " claris_camera.transform.TransformDirection(claris_motion) " ?

 

[Jobbs]

These were all drawn independently of eachother.

And they'll be tweened together using various selection/manipulation/etc.

This is generally the way to produce the best results (as far as my style goes), but it definitely is a bit more work than what I do on some enemies, which would be to just pretty much have one pose to work from.

 

[GulAtiCa]

Decided I am going to try to get my Tower Defense game ZaciSa: Defense of the Crayon Dimension! onto Steam. Going to sign up and try placing it on Greenlight.

 

[Nezzhil]

Hi GAF! I've been lurking in this thread for years, and I figured I should jump in and join the conversation at some point.

Quick introduction: I'm a mostly-solo dev, ex-AAA-gone-indie, founded a company (Minor Key Games) with my also-mostly-solo brother a couple years ago. I'm a coder first and everything else by necessity; I roll my own tech because I enjoy it, and recently I've been on a retro pixel art thing which is awesome because no one else is doing that.

I'm working on two games at once right now, in a sort of a Ground Zeroes / MGSV or P.T. / Silent Hills configuration with a standalone prequel game that will lead into something bigger.

My elevator pitch for Gunmetal Arcadia is "Zelda II but as a roguelike." I'm taking the core gameplay mechanics of a game like Zelda II (or Faxanadu, or the Battle of Olympus, or Castlevania, or...you know, pretty every NES game was an action platformer with melee combat, wasn't it?) and marrying that with roguelike or roguelite elements like randomized levels, permadeath, and short 20-30 minute sessions. The hook is, even when you die and lose your progress, decisions you made and actions you took during your last session will carry forward into your next session. I want every run to feel meaningful in some way, even when it ends in death.

I'm about a year into this project, and I've been maintaining a weekly devlog the whole time, so there's a ton of content here now if you're curious: http://gunmetalarcadia.com/

Hey!, I follow your game in tigsource (I'm a lurker there). As a Zelda II fan, I'm very interested in the development of your game. Recently, I saw that you have redo the main character's animation. I hope that your game gain visibility, keep working so hard!

 

[Ito]

These were all drawn independently of eachother.

And they'll be tweened together using various selection/manipulation/etc.

This is generally the way to produce the best results (as far as my style goes), but it definitely is a bit more work than what I do on some enemies, which would be to just pretty much have one pose to work from.

The arm's size and shape aren't very consistent through the different frames, but I'm impressed by your ability to keep the detailed coloring equalized. Do you use a color pallete or just use the eyedropper a lot?

About the arms, it's not really important since it's a deformed monster (that's the reason why drawing monsters is easier and funnier than stylized stuff).

 

[Jobbs]

The arm's size and shape aren't very consistent through the different frames, but I'm impressed by your ability to keep the detailed coloring equalized. Do you use a color pallete or just use the eyedropper a lot?

About the arms, it's not really important since it's a deformed monster (that's the reason why drawing monsters is easier and funnier than stylized stuff).

I typically notice and correct any proportion problems once I start tweening them together. it's also true that this monster is gelatinous and it warbles a bit.

Typically I'll color them separately, then sample little textures from them and overlay them on eachother to help make it more consistent.

 

[Candescence]

Now that I've gotten by pathfinding grid data saved and able to work on it without it disappearing, I've also made some tweaks to how the grid works, is displayed, etc. One of the big changes in the grid settings is that now there's twice as many nodes, now, and the grid spaces are half a unit. This in theory shouldn't be too big a deal, as I don't plan on having many pathfinding agents active in a scene at any one time, and considering it's a 2D game, the memory footprint shouldn't be a problem either. What it has achieved, thankfully, is more accurate pathing for drops and slopes - I had to implement a bit of a hack for 20-30 degree slopes previously, but now every node above any 45 degree or below slope easily recognizes other floor nodes in the generation process.

Oh, and I've added clearance checks so nodes can know if they're in areas where most NPCs won't be able to pass through without, say, crouching.

Of course, this complicates jump node generation even bloody further, so for the most part, I'm just sticking to manual generation of jump nodes for my level design on a node-by-node basis. I'm gonna make it easy for myself, though, I'm working on the node editor right now, and I'm basically gonna let myself assign and remove links as I please, even if the generator doesn't think a jump link is valid (which is displayed as a straight line).

Okay, sure, interface is kinda bland and shitty, but I'm going for function over form right now. I can examine nodes (and modify certain properties), their links, add and delete links of any type, and basically adjust things manually without having to worry having to get the automation process exactly right for all use cases.

Still some issues, but I've made a lot of progress, pretty much all in one day (everything after making sure the data persists, that is), considering all the testing and bugfixing and whatnot.

 

[Michael Armbrust]

Thank you.
I tried you first draft without the vector3.Dot and the character move in the direction wanted so this is somehow what I want yes.
But then I tried to add the vector3.Dot and I have the error " Operator '-' cannot be apllied to operands of type 'UnityEngine.vector3' and 'float' ", is this supposed to make the character facing the direction or something else ?

Edit: one thing about the direction, when I move my camera up down the character move in these direction, is there a trick to get rid of the Y motion axis of the camera for the " claris_camera.transform.TransformDirection(claris_motion) " ?

Yeah when I first posted I forgot to get rid of the Y axis. So I quickly edited in the next line hoping to mask my mistake before someone noticed

Silly me only wrote half the edit though! Just add *transform.up; to the end.

claris_motion = claris_motion-Vector3.Dot(transform.up, claris_motion)*transform.up;

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

Hi GAF! I've been lurking in this thread for years, and I figured I should jump in and join the conversation at some point.

Quick introduction: I'm a mostly-solo dev, ex-AAA-gone-indie, founded a company (Minor Key Games) with my also-mostly-solo brother a couple years ago. I'm a coder first and everything else by necessity; I roll my own tech because I enjoy it, and recently I've been on a retro pixel art thing which is awesome because no one else is doing that.

I'm working on two games at once right now, in a sort of a Ground Zeroes / MGSV or P.T. / Silent Hills configuration with a standalone prequel game that will lead into something bigger.

My elevator pitch for Gunmetal Arcadia is "Zelda II but as a roguelike." I'm taking the core gameplay mechanics of a game like Zelda II (or Faxanadu, or the Battle of Olympus, or Castlevania, or...you know, pretty every NES game was an action platformer with melee combat, wasn't it?) and marrying that with roguelike or roguelite elements like randomized levels, permadeath, and short 20-30 minute sessions. The hook is, even when you die and lose your progress, decisions you made and actions you took during your last session will carry forward into your next session. I want every run to feel meaningful in some way, even when it ends in death.

I'm about a year into this project, and I've been maintaining a weekly devlog the whole time, so there's a ton of content here now if you're curious: http://gunmetalarcadia.com/

I like that gif, the use of colours and backgrounds reminds me a TMNT for the NES.

 

[sbkodama]

Yeah when I first posted I forgot to get rid of the Y axis. So I quickly edited in the next line hoping to mask my mistake before no one noticed

Silly me only wrote half the edit though! Just add *transform.up; to the end.

claris_motion = claris_motion-Vector3.Dot(transform.up, claris_motion)*transform.up;

Thank you again, my character move in the direction in relation to the camera and the input like I wanted.
But he still face the same forward direction, so now I need to find how to make him face the direction while keeping the correct movement.
Maybe I will need another way to make the movement for it because if I change its orientation its direction will change too.

 

[anteevy]

I'm currently cutting a new trailer and would like to have some feedback:



(click)

 

[Razlo]

I do see the progress... I attempted the new style on other characters.

Definitely an improvement. Keep practicing and look at other pixel art to see how they solve things, and I think you could get there.

 

[Razlo]

Hi GAF! I've been lurking in this thread for years, and I figured I should jump in and join the conversation at some point.

Quick introduction: I'm a mostly-solo dev, ex-AAA-gone-indie, founded a company (Minor Key Games) with my also-mostly-solo brother a couple years ago. I'm a coder first and everything else by necessity; I roll my own tech because I enjoy it, and recently I've been on a retro pixel art thing which is awesome because no one else is doing that.

I'm working on two games at once right now, in a sort of a Ground Zeroes / MGSV or P.T. / Silent Hills configuration with a standalone prequel game that will lead into something bigger.

My elevator pitch for Gunmetal Arcadia is "Zelda II but as a roguelike." I'm taking the core gameplay mechanics of a game like Zelda II (or Faxanadu, or the Battle of Olympus, or Castlevania, or...you know, pretty every NES game was an action platformer with melee combat, wasn't it?) and marrying that with roguelike or roguelite elements like randomized levels, permadeath, and short 20-30 minute sessions. The hook is, even when you die and lose your progress, decisions you made and actions you took during your last session will carry forward into your next session. I want every run to feel meaningful in some way, even when it ends in death.

I'm about a year into this project, and I've been maintaining a weekly devlog the whole time, so there's a ton of content here now if you're curious: http://gunmetalarcadia.com/

Looks good! Are you looking at Monster World at all for inspiration? I think you may find some stuff in those games that would work great in your game.

 

[GulAtiCa]

Has anyone here gone through Steam Greenlight? Got any tips/suggestions?

 

[Aki-at]

Hi GAF! I've been lurking in this thread for years, and I figured I should jump in and join the conversation at some point.

Quick introduction: I'm a mostly-solo dev, ex-AAA-gone-indie, founded a company (Minor Key Games) with my also-mostly-solo brother a couple years ago. I'm a coder first and everything else by necessity; I roll my own tech because I enjoy it, and recently I've been on a retro pixel art thing which is awesome because no one else is doing that.

I'm working on two games at once right now, in a sort of a Ground Zeroes / MGSV or P.T. / Silent Hills configuration with a standalone prequel game that will lead into something bigger.

My elevator pitch for Gunmetal Arcadia is "Zelda II but as a roguelike." I'm taking the core gameplay mechanics of a game like Zelda II (or Faxanadu, or the Battle of Olympus, or Castlevania, or...you know, pretty every NES game was an action platformer with melee combat, wasn't it?) and marrying that with roguelike or roguelite elements like randomized levels, permadeath, and short 20-30 minute sessions. The hook is, even when you die and lose your progress, decisions you made and actions you took during your last session will carry forward into your next session. I want every run to feel meaningful in some way, even when it ends in death.

I'm about a year into this project, and I've been maintaining a weekly devlog the whole time, so there's a ton of content here now if you're curious: http://gunmetalarcadia.com/

Hey welcome, I remember seeing this at TIGSource when I pop there every so often, glad to see you could make the jump to here. Liking how the project has been progressing

I do see the progress... I attempted the new style on other characters.

This is definitely a lot better. I thought there wasn't any point for me to give my own 2 cents since everyone already offered far better and more detail advice but I felt your previous designs felt way too minimalist. Like if you asked me to draw something based off of the character designs from sprites, I'd have to use a bit of my imagination. Right now though each character is starting stand out from one and another. Good effort so far!

 

[Michael Armbrust]

Thank you again, my character move in the direction in relation to the camera and the input like I wanted.
But he still face the same forward direction, so now I need to find how to make him face the direction while keeping the correct movement.
Maybe I will need another way to make the movement for it because if I change its orientation its direction will change too.

No this handles movement independent of rotation.

You can do whatever you want with rotation. If you don't care about the character snapping angles, just put "transform.rotation=Quaternion.LookRotation(claris_motion, transform.up);" at the very end.

This resource explains how that function works: http://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Quaternion.LookRotation.html Then you could use a Quaternion Lerp to make a more advanced version that doesn't snap to the exact angle.

 

[anteevy]

Has anyone here gone through Steam Greenlight? Got any tips/suggestions?

It's really not that big of a deal anymore. The most important things are probably your square preview image (that is shown in the "new on Greenlight" list) and a well-made trailer. The first should entice the viewer to go to your Greenlight page, while the latter should get you the click on the "yes" button.

 

[PirateHearts]

I'm currently cutting a new trailer and would like to have some feedback:



(click)

I dig it. The combination of the art style, music, gameplay, and reaction quotes is working for me. I feel like some of the shots in the first half maybe run a little long, though. It might play a little better edited down to an even 60 seconds.

Hey!, I follow your game in tigsource (I'm a lurker there). As a Zelda II fan, I'm very interested in the development of your game. Recently, I saw that you have redo the main character's animation. I hope that your game gain visibility, keep working so hard!

Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me I have a TIGSource thread! I've been forgetting to keep that one up to date. :V

I like that gif, the use of colours and backgrounds reminds me a TMNT for the NES.

Thanks, TMNT is definitely one of the games I've been sourcing inspiration from, especially its ladders. It's surprisingly difficult finding NES games with good ladder designs.

Looks good! Are you looking at Monster World at all for inspiration? I think you may find some stuff in those games that would work great in your game.

Yeah, I haven't played all of them yet, but I did pick up the Monster World collection on XBLA a while ago. I'm really enjoying Monster World IV, so many good things there. It reminds me a little bit of Super Adventure Island 2, which I loved as a kid. I think the risk/reward nature of not knowing what's behind the doors in Monster Land is something I can adapt to Gunmetal Arcadia, too.

 

[GulAtiCa]

It's really not that big of a deal anymore. The most important things are probably your square preview image (that is shown in the "new on Greenlight" list) and a well-made trailer. The first should entice the viewer to go to your Greenlight page, while the latter should get you the click on the "yes" button.

Thanks for the tip.

What do you mean by "not that big of a deal anymore"?
Edit: If you meant that it's not as hard/difficult to get greenlit. I think I understand what you mean.

 

[Michael Armbrust]

I'm currently cutting a new trailer and would like to have some feedback:



(click)

Game and trailer both look great. Found it hard to read the quotes and focus on the gameplay simultaneously. Don't think that's too much of a problem though since it convinced me to watch it twice.

 

[SeanNoonan]

Meep.

 

[sbkodama]

No this handles movement independent of rotation.

You can do whatever you want with rotation. If you don't care about the character snapping angles, just put "transform.rotation=Quaternion.LookRotation(claris_motion, transform.up);" at the very end.

This resource explains how that function works: http://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Quaternion.LookRotation.html Then you could use a Quaternion Lerp to make a more advanced version that doesn't snap to the exact angle.

After some rework for my jump and gravity with all this new code it now work fine.
Next I will see how to keep the last direction pressed for the idle direction and maybe a lerp.

Thank you very much for your help.

 

[timetokill]

Meep.

Cute!

 

[Aki-at]

Has anyone here gone through Steam Greenlight? Got any tips/suggestions?

Yeah I went through and got Greenlit in May after submitting it in March. From what I can tell, I had a decent trailer but I don't think my project title "Brock Crocodile" interested people enough. Nor do I think I used the right preview image either and later switched to what you get now after getting some feedback. But a few votes were definitely lost, so it's really important you get the right type of preview image. Like 80% of my votes came from the first week of greenlit and I feel if I had a better preview image I might have passed Greenlight within a couple of weeks.

What did help was I kept getting votes weeks after my initial reveal, definitely try and hit some journalists if you can!

EDIT: And what I presume the other poster meant by not a big deal is you don't need as many votes as you did in the past, sometimes needing over 10,000+ votes, the number/rate now is A LOT lower now.

 

[liliththepale]

Meep.

Aw, it's adorable! And it kind of reminds me of the similarly named creature from Phineas and Ferb.

I'm currently cutting a new trailer and would like to have some feedback:



(click)

Hey, that's really good! Nothing to critique here.

 

[Icyflamez96]

Hi GAF! I've been lurking in this thread for years, and I figured I should jump in and join the conversation at some point.

Quick introduction: I'm a mostly-solo dev, ex-AAA-gone-indie, founded a company (Minor Key Games) with my also-mostly-solo brother a couple years ago. I'm a coder first and everything else by necessity; I roll my own tech because I enjoy it, and recently I've been on a retro pixel art thing which is awesome because no one else is doing that.

I'm working on two games at once right now, in a sort of a Ground Zeroes / MGSV or P.T. / Silent Hills configuration with a standalone prequel game that will lead into something bigger.

My elevator pitch for Gunmetal Arcadia is "Zelda II but as a roguelike." I'm taking the core gameplay mechanics of a game like Zelda II (or Faxanadu, or the Battle of Olympus, or Castlevania, or...you know, pretty every NES game was an action platformer with melee combat, wasn't it?) and marrying that with roguelike or roguelite elements like randomized levels, permadeath, and short 20-30 minute sessions. The hook is, even when you die and lose your progress, decisions you made and actions you took during your last session will carry forward into your next session. I want every run to feel meaningful in some way, even when it ends in death.

I'm about a year into this project, and I've been maintaining a weekly devlog the whole time, so there's a ton of content here now if you're curious: http://gunmetalarcadia.com/

fire boy got hands

 

[spazchicken]

Thanks guys, and you'll probably never find the Skab Device, much less figure out what its purpose is.

Challenge accepted!

 

[Kitbash]

I'm currently cutting a new trailer and would like to have some feedback:



(click)

Very nice trailer! But one of the quotes stands out like a sore thumb to me: "Roll Playing Game is one letter from becoming an RPG." That doesn't tell me anything other than the fact that the author noticed the obvious play on words in the title. Is the quote meant to be funny? Am I missing something?

Other than that, the trailer's great.

 

[cbox]

Dynamic borders eh?

 

[Ranger X]

I am wondering if you guys would like to help me with a quick little something here.

I am trying 2 different compilers for game. One that is theorically slower but my game ends up with much less debug to go through, or a compiler that is theorically faster bug causes me alot more issues.
I would love to know what version runs the best for you people. And that would be fantastic if people with shitty computers would try because my goal is for the game to run 60fps on a very large majority of computers.
The game is a Metroidvania in pixel art influenced by early SNES looks likes Super Mario World. You can choose "New Game" and play the first 2 areas, Ezuma's Village and Ezuma's Grounds.

Theorically slower but more stable version: The Life Ruby - Test 440s

Theorically faster version: The Life Ruby - Test 440yyc



For people running old computers with XP or Vista, or again if for whatever reason the executable doesn't work -- get those versions with in installer:

Theorically slower but stable: The Life Ruby - Test 440s - with installer

Theorically faster version: The Life Ruby - Test 440yyc - with installer



Anybody who would be kind enough to tell me which version runs better for them would be lovely. I have an extremely hard time to get feedback on this with the public right now.

Press F3 while in-game to have the fps drawn on screen.

 

[liliththepale]

I am wondering if you guys would like to help me with a quick little something here.

I am trying 2 different compilers for game. One that is theorically slower but my game ends up with much less debug to go through, or a compiler that is theorically faster bug causes me alot more issues.
I would love to know what version runs the best for you people. And that would be fantastic if people with shitty computers would try because my goal is for the game to run 60fps on a very large majority of computers.
The game is a Metroidvania in pixel art influenced by early SNES looks likes Super Mario World. You can choose "New Game" and play the first 2 areas, Ezuma's Village and Ezuma's Grounds.

Theorically slower but more stable version: The Life Ruby - Test 440s

Theorically faster version: The Life Ruby - Test 440yyc

I'm getting pretty much the same results on both. Mostly between 450–580, but a few brief spikes up to ~900.

Something odd though is that sometimes when playing the framerate will inexplicably drop to 59–61fps. When this happened in the stable build, it didn't go back up until I went back to the main menu. When it happened in the YYC build, it went back to normal after I died and returned to a check point, and it never dropped back down again. For what it's worth, I've witnessed similar behavior in my own game, so I know it's a bug in GameMaker somewhere, but I don't know where. Also, because 59–61fps is still perfectly playable, I haven't ever thoroughly investigated it.

 

[AriEX2]

This evolution has been really interesting to follow and these characters seem like a good start, but really, without the environment around the characters it's impossible to make calls on what colours to use, what design is more effective, how much contrast there should be etc.

The originals could be perfect in the right context. Earthbound has sharp, dark lines around its characters and those look perfect in that game's style.

I always think that designing characters (or anything) in a void is a bad idea. You start to fixate on details that are largely irrelevant. Mock up some temp environments and work out a whole picture of the game, with temp HUD, temp enemies and all that. The characters might be the main focus for the player, but they're tiny blips on the whole screen.

Also really important to consider: all that additional fidelity in the new versions is going to massively (read: MASSIVELY) increase the time it takes to animate your characters. (mind you, I do prefer limbs to the floating blobs so I'd argue they at least are worth the additional effort).

Do you have the time for all that additional animation? If you don't, then maybe the original style is actually better for you. I imagine with the blob hand style, because it's so abstracted, you could replicate base animations easily from character to character and just change colours, which is a really efficient system.

 

[Icyflamez96]

I'm currently cutting a new trailer and would like to have some feedback:



(click)

I don't have anything constructive to say but I really love the look of this game.

 

[Michael Armbrust]

I am wondering if you guys would like to help me with a quick little something here.

I am trying 2 different compilers for game. One that is theorically slower but my game ends up with much less debug to go through, or a compiler that is theorically faster bug causes me alot more issues.
I would love to know what version runs the best for you people. And that would be fantastic if people with shitty computers would try because my goal is for the game to run 60fps on a very large majority of computers.
The game is a Metroidvania in pixel art influenced by early SNES looks likes Super Mario World. You can choose "New Game" and play the first 2 areas, Ezuma's Village and Ezuma's Grounds.

Theorically slower but more stable version: The Life Ruby - Test 440s

Theorically faster version: The Life Ruby - Test 440yyc

First one was just all over the place. Lowest was 300 something for a split sec, while highest was above 2,000. Kinda averaged around 700-900. It was really inconsistent.

Second was much more consistent. Averaged around 600. Lowest was 400 but it reached that a fair amount of times. Highest was around 1,100.


So the yyc was slightly slower but much more stable for me. I have an Intel CPU and an NVIDIA GPU if that matters to you.

 

[Five]

I Read your comment to Bartek who's doing the art and he said: "Wow that's flattering, but still Guacamelee is way better". Thanks!

You got the core of the game right, the basic mechanics are simple, but we're playing around with level design, enemies an level mechanics. It's interesting how a game changes when the only form of interaction is shooting a spear.

Oh, good! Well, I think some of Guacamelee's animation looks better, perhaps as an artifact of the different animating methods (puppet here instead of the flipbook that Guac does), but the actual art style is on the level.

Please do keep posting and sharing updates! I'm excited to see more.

Is any of you guys having trouble starting Game Maker: Studio?

Apparently Yoyo Games is having some server issue (caused by that last humble bundle) which keeps user from accesing and validating their license keys.

If you happen to update or reinstall GMS (as I did), and you're asked your license key, then you're fucked.

Thanks for the heads up. I pretty much only reboot GMS once every few months, but I'll avoid it in the near future if possible.

Need some opinions, all!

Quote to see: vvvv


You can PM me your thoughts! We will be set to announce this Saturday. I have a few more things to tidy up on the site but that's where it's at right now. Don't share the link, plz. Since we are just days away.

I appreciate the feedback!

New title? I like that a lot. The site is clean and simple, which appeals to me a lot. It reflects well on the game.

Hi GAF! I've been lurking in this thread for years, and I figured I should jump in and join the conversation at some point.

Quick introduction: I'm a mostly-solo dev, ex-AAA-gone-indie, founded a company (Minor Key Games) with my also-mostly-solo brother a couple years ago. I'm a coder first and everything else by necessity; I roll my own tech because I enjoy it, and recently I've been on a retro pixel art thing which is awesome because no one else is doing that.

I'm working on two games at once right now, in a sort of a Ground Zeroes / MGSV or P.T. / Silent Hills configuration with a standalone prequel game that will lead into something bigger.

My elevator pitch for Gunmetal Arcadia is "Zelda II but as a roguelike." I'm taking the core gameplay mechanics of a game like Zelda II (or Faxanadu, or the Battle of Olympus, or Castlevania, or...you know, pretty every NES game was an action platformer with melee combat, wasn't it?) and marrying that with roguelike or roguelite elements like randomized levels, permadeath, and short 20-30 minute sessions. The hook is, even when you die and lose your progress, decisions you made and actions you took during your last session will carry forward into your next session. I want every run to feel meaningful in some way, even when it ends in death.

I'm about a year into this project, and I've been maintaining a weekly devlog the whole time, so there's a ton of content here now if you're curious: http://gunmetalarcadia.com/

I love that! Zelda II was one of the main inspirations for combat in the game I'm working on. Not a lot of people are familiar with the game which is sad to me because I think the combat is quite elegant for its time, and it's not emulated in a lot of other games.

 

[Kalentan]

This evolution has been really interesting to follow and these characters seem like a good start, but really, without the environment around the characters it's impossible to make calls on what colours to use, what design is more effective, how much contrast there should be etc.

The originals could be perfect in the right context. Earthbound has sharp, dark lines around its characters and those look perfect in that game's style.

I always think that designing characters (or anything) in a void is a bad idea. You start to fixate on details that are largely irrelevant. Mock up some temp environments and work out a whole picture of the game, with temp HUD, temp enemies and all that. The characters might be the main focus for the player, but they're tiny blips on the whole screen.

Also really important to consider: all that additional fidelity in the new versions is going to massively (read: MASSIVELY) increase the time it takes to animate your characters. (mind you, I do prefer limbs to the floating blobs so I'd argue they at least are worth the additional effort).

Do you have the time for all that additional animation? If you don't, then maybe the original style is actually better for you. I imagine with the blob hand style, because it's so abstracted, you could replicate base animations easily from character to character and just change colours, which is a really efficient system.

When it comes to animations... I will admit the new ones will take more time but I feel like in the end it will be worth it. Though I will admit that not every character will have unique animations. Like if you have Marlow and and an enemy that both use a 1 handed sword, both will use the same animation to attack.

So I think for me, it's going to be a matter of making the 'outlines' and merely copying. I can't imagine making a unique animation set for every enemy. (In a way, all human enemies that aren't bosses, will be based off of animations from the main eight party members.)

Here is an example of the alpha tutorial bar level. The tileset isn't done but I think it might give a decent idea still. The HUD isn't up yet... then again really I haven't even been touching the gameplay in a while, just working on the main menu. This has been because of me not able to figure out how to make the enemy AI.

From this quick example, I think the outline is a nice divide without being too strong.

Edit: Also I noticed from gameplay footage in that... when it comes to attacking animations, outside magic, projectiles, or elaborate skills, that the attacking animation never actually collides with the ground where the target is. I wonder if this is due to many games like this using a grid system and having the animation actually move forward to hit the target would mean actually leaving said grid.

 

[Five]

When it comes to animations... I will admit the new ones will take more time but I feel like in the end it will be worth it. Though I will admit that not every character will have unique animations. Like if you have Marlow and and an enemy that both use a 1 handed sword, both will use the same animation to attack.

So I think for me, it's going to be a matter of making the 'outlines' and merely copying. I can't imagine making a unique animation set for every enemy. (In a way, all human enemies that aren't bosses, will be based off of animations from the main eight party members.)

[/img]http://i.picpar.com/Ie6b.png[/img]

Here is an example of the alpha tutorial bar level. The tileset isn't done but I think it might give a decent idea still. The HUD isn't up yet... then again really I haven't even been touching the gameplay in a while, just working on the main menu. This has been because of me not able to figure out how to make the enemy AI.

From this quick example, I think the outline is a nice divide without being too strong.

Edit: Also I noticed from gameplay footage in that... when it comes to attacking animations, outside magic, projectiles, or elaborate skills, that the attacking animation never actually collides with the ground where the target is. I wonder if this is due to many games like this using a grid system and having the animation actually move forward to hit the target would mean actually leaving said grid.

If you're set on drawing things with simple geometric shapes, it might help to add some texture to keep things interesting.

This is only half finished, of course, but you can already see how much warmer and more interesting the scene becomes with some texture and extra design:

 

[Kalentan]

If you're set on drawing things with simple geometric shapes, it might help to add some texture to keep things interesting.

This is only half finished, of course, but you can already see how much warmer and more interesting the scene becomes with some texture and extra design:

Oh wow... That's uh... wow. How do you... decide to put everything. I think that's my biggest issue I have when it comes to going into the nitty gritty details. I always feel like I'm going to make it look too busy.

 

[Blizzard]

Oh wow... That's uh... wow. How do you... decide to put everything. I think that's my biggest issue I have when it comes to going into the nitty gritty details. I always feel like I'm going to make it look too busy.

I have the same problem. I feel like it's some level to overcome in learning to do sprites.

 

[Five]

Oh wow... That's uh... wow. How do you... decide to put everything. I think that's my biggest issue I have when it comes to going into the nitty gritty details. I always feel like I'm going to make it look too busy.

Practice, practice, practice. Mess up a lot. Study other people's art. Study the way things look around you. Study the physics and laws of light and color so that you know both how to recreate them and also how to break the rules when need be. Practice more. Seek criticism. Learn from your mistakes.

Many (I might even say MOST) good things were overdesigned at first and then toned down. When you eventually master an art, you can usually find the proper balance on your first attempt, but better to overdo something and then undo some of it than never even meet the target.

 

[Kalentan]

Practice, practice, practice. Mess up a lot. Study other people's art. Study the way things look around you. Study the physics and laws of light and color so that you know both how to recreate them and also how to break the rules when need be. Practice more. Seek criticism. Learn from your mistakes.

Many (I might even say MOST) good things were overdesigned at first and then toned down. When you eventually master an art, you can usually find the proper balance on your first attempt, but better to overdo something and then undo some of it than never even meet the target.

Now did you use any like... 'rendering' things if that makes sense for any of it. Or did you go in by hand and drew everything?

Also... do you mind if I build out the rest of the tileset sort of trying to use the same technique from that template?