Swarm Development: Postmortem

[Wyz]

I was wondering, are there any (beta)testers needed for this project?

I'd say not yet.

I really like the twin portraits (the smiling versions), they look genuinely nefarious.

[Icey]

It would be cool to see that merrick had a evil brother. The evil brother was a failed experiment and long ago he escaped the factory. He later comes back and try's to kill the mad scientist.

But is he able to follow through with his plans? Well that's just up to baron if he decides to add that to the story.

[Secret Fawful]

Okay, thanks for the replies. This is what I've got so far.




So I fixed the eyes, eyebrows, and ears on both of these characters, but I decided that having them both facing the same direction would be infinitely boring, so I flipped the blonde around and reshaded and reworked her so she would be on the right side of the screen or so. So, I'm thinking of drawing in one's hand (black) resting on her bosom, and the other (blonde) biting her fingernail, but I'm not sure exactly how much animation you're planning on having for closeups, so both of those things might work against the shots. So, if you have any more suggestions, let me know.

I'm also curious on what exactly you guys want the Exit Cutscene BG, or Evening Sky to look like. I know you want Purple for it if it's night, so I'm basically wondering if you have any ideas on what you want for that, since I love drawing night shots.

[Baron]

Those vampire chicks are awesome HOT!  I say the more hands resting on bosoms, the better.  The finger in the mouth may be a nice touch.  These close ups will only be used in the final cutscene as the twins discuss Merrick's demise and their own escape from his explosion while travelling within the robot monster.  They will be a nice touch to reward the player and explain away loose ends, but besides talking to each other they won't be doing much.  So pose them in an interesting way and give them a few mouth movements for talking and I'd say they're pretty much done.

Cutscene backgrounds need not be very complicated at all, as the scenes will be dominated by foreground portraits talking (and only briefly at that, except for the lab ceiling for the beginning cutscene).  I wouldn't spend too much time on the cutscene backgrounds unless you really want to make a project out of it for its own sake.

In other news I've contacted the other BG artists and despite a few IRL setbacks they seem to be on track to deliver the rest of our in-game backgrounds.  I've got the rest of our assets imported into the latest Rough Copy Build .  Check out the new walking, the scientists idling, the exercise yard + patrolling guard, and the proposed smiley cursors.  Discussion on all aspects is welcomed, but do try to be constructive.

Moving forward, we're waiting on pick-up and biting animations before I can implement Tabata's fleeing and dying scientists, a robot probe (Studio3 has volunteered to draw it) for the banana gag to implement Ali's slipping and zapping of the guard animation.  Things we need that are still unassigned:

OBJECTS: umbrella, banana, probe (Studio3), restraining chair, poodle (?), fridge magnets (?), crucifix...  Also lighting "shafts" for the exercise yard (and hallway, guardroom once the rooms have been completed).

INVENTORY: design a standardized inventory icon and draw pictures of usable inventory inside.  What I can think of is a bag of blood (cheetah), carrots, alphabet magnets, solar probe, pine cone, banana (maybe), cockroach.

ROOMS: cutscene backgrounds -lab, night (Secret Fawful), pod interior

CHARACTERS: a generic guard character with gun ready for the final scene.  I suppose he should roughly look like Ali's guard.  We still need scientist close-ups, too.

CODING/AGS Assembly: I've been kind of puttering at this but I'd love if someone else was keen to take it on (I do have this other project I'm trying to make progress on....)

MUSIC DIRECTOR: Yes, still.  Someone to come up with a theme and very general guidelines (file format, instruments....) for the many musicians (5ish anyway) who are keen to do some composing.

I'm sure I'm still forgetting things -I'll go back over the design doc and update the first post when I get a little more time to myself.

[Secret Fawful]

Okay, I'll continue to work on the twins. Here's a night sky background with the game pallette. If you have any suggestions let me know.

[Jared]

Hey, I'm keen to contribute something now that I've been basically ousted from a project I was working on... the most accessible option there seemed to be the guard. I've been getting a lot of sprite-y practice but I'm self-taught so I tend to still do slightly paint-over stuff still.

Made him a bigger black guy with a couple of signs of rank for the hell of it, give him a mild kind of 'boss character' appearance... which, when I stop to think about it is kinda the exact opposite of 'generic guard' but what the hell. Don't know if the gun's visible enough.



Keen to help with writing, too, but the thread's a little bit difficult to follow at times..

[Baron]

Nice!

@ Secret Fawful -that background is really good -it's a shame to put characters in front of it!

@ Jared - that guard will do fine.  Once we have a background I might have you pose him a little differently, but I think stylistically he'll fit in great.  Sorry to hear about your other project -you're always welcome around here!  I must apologize for the muddled thread -it had been suggested that I set up a whole forum for the project but that seemed like a lot of work for such a short project.  In retrospect it probably would have made organization easier, but that benefit might itself have been compromised by the difficulty of getting people to sign up to yet another forum.  Something to think about for next time, I suppose....

I'm still waiting for feedback about the rough build, specifically the emoticon cursors.  Do they work?  Or should we go with something more conventional (ie Cat's submission)?

[Scarab]

I'm still waiting for feedback about the rough build, specifically the emoticon cursors.  Do they work?  Or should we go with something more conventional (ie Cat's submission)?

I think the current cursor definitely needs to go, for these reasons:

a) They clash stylistically, (Thick black outline rather than a volumetric shading that most of the other assets use).

b) The way it hops around relative to the pointer each time you right click is jarring, because it's the same base image, and it's distracting to see it hop around when the illusion is that the character is just changing poses, rather than a new image being swapped in.

c) To be honest... it's a bit tacky. Although it has been animated specifically for this project, it still reads to me as some smiley ripped off the Internet that's been shoe-horned in. Especially because it does not specifically resemble the protagonist.

I'd be happy to see a variation of Cat's cursors come back. Or perhaps a cyborg bat could be the cursor? Flapping its wings for Walk To, clenching and unclenching its feet for Use, glowing eyes for look and exposed fangs/ biting for Talk/Bite? The bat that Sephiroth drew earlier could probably be adapted to make this work. I could mock something up if that idea interests anyone.

[selmiak]

I want to join in on the fun, but I'm too lazy to read the whole thread, I just want to paint a bg and then sometime in the future play the final game =)

okay, I red the style guidelines and see what is left:

6) Intro Cutscene (lab ceiling behind talking doctor)
8 ) Exit Cutscene 2 (robot monster interior behind talking vampire twins)

are there any plot details related to these two background already known and where can I find them?

[Jackpumpkinhead]

Okay, thanks for the replies. This is what I've got so far.

my only suggestion is to give them more of a Vampirella/Elvira look with the hair
that was kind of the look i was going for when i did the sprites
besides that they look great!!

[Secret Fawful]

I did some heavy edits to get them to look more like Jackpumpkinhead originally intended. The only two things I made slightly different between the sprites and the portraits is a bit of long hair on one side, and I gave the dark-haired vampiress purple lipstick.



Let me know if these are good as the finals or not, so I can work on the talking animations.

[Armageddon]

I think most girls chew their pinky finger, not their index.

Also why is the one on the black dress pressing her... Area.

[Secret Fawful]

Because it's freaking sexy. Also, should they be looking at each other? I just realized I have no clue how you're portraying close ups; from the doctor close up I assumed that you were having characters looking at the "camera" when speaking.

[Jackpumpkinhead]

the only other thing i would do is extend their fangs to kinda come out of their mouths
also i was thinking more like this hair

but instead of the point just make it straight across

[Baron]

I think looking more or less at the camera is fine -the exchange will be too short for anyone to get bored.  If it drags on we'll just get Secret Fawful to animate the dark vampire's arm a bit: that'll keep everybody interested!

It's hard to see the exact hairstyle of JPH's in-game sprites so I'd just go with whatever looks good.  My personal preference would be the curly hair.  I also think the blond one would look more un-dead if she also had purple lips.

As for cursors, these are the ones currently in the game for those of you who haven't checked out the rough build:

                                         

we have Cat's originals as an alternative:  
I think there were some potato comments and they were never developed further. 

  I suppose Studio3's GUI submission could also provide the basis for cursors:



That gives us three options.  I need preferences stated or alternative suggestions in visual form so that we can move on.  My next implementation binge will be over the weekend so you have roughly 2 days to have your say.

[vertigoaddict]

Hmm... I like Tabata's a lot because it's really cute, but it might be a little hard to see what's really happening when you're clicking fast trying to get to the right cursor.

I didn't realise Cat's eye was an eye until much later on (kinda slow today anyways)

I think studio 3's first action cursor set is the easiest to understand (although maybe adding a spearhead at one of the corners might help to know where the tip is), the forward symbol as a walk cursor is a nice touch.

I really like Tabata's but Studio 3's is more practical

Spoiler

something I never thought I'd say

[close]

NB: The R1 and R2 buttons... I don't see a use for them

@ Secret Fawful

Maybe you can give the brunette bangs and return the blonde's hair to how it was previously (I just think she looks prettier with wavy-er hair but that's really just preference)

[Icey]

Thanks, The R1 & R2 were A1 & A2. A1 stands for action set 1(walk,talk,look,etc...)

After looking a some swarm game when some blue things I thought this would be a game were you would create vampires and control them in a group. So A2 would be these fun little thing s you could have the group do.

[Icey]

Btw, I finished the robot.




Now when I was making it I thought hey, this looks to much like a wall-E copy and I said I didn't want to make a R2-D2 copy ether. So I thought of that little robot vacuum thing. I thought I could make a ball and put a another ball in between it so it can move. It picks up things with some type of gravitational force and holds it over it's head until it wants to trash it. It has a hole in the top of it's head that can be used to melt anything that goes inside it.

[Secret Fawful]

Okay, so anian messaged me and we spent some time going over some improvements on the vampiresses, and he sent me an edit of a more current version I had with some ideas on how to improve them. Needless to say, I loved them, so I worked off of his edit on the blonde and reworked, again, both vampiresses, also taking into account Jackpumpkinhead's reference picture. I also took vertigoaddict's suggestion, so I made two different versions of the current blonde for you to choose between.

[cat]

we have Cat's originals as an alternative:  
I think there were some potato comments and they were never developed further. 

Well, I was hoping someone might do a paintover. I admit the eye didn't turn out very good.