My Pixel Thread

jaz · Thu 07/10/2004 08:34:35

Hey, thanks for your replies.

James Kay: hmm, Pyromania

I will probably have to change the explosion anyway since I'm not too happy with it. Rastering seems like way to go, thanks. This game will be ported to various devices with different screen size so I'm keeping it simple and I want as much GFX to be reusable as possible.

blackman890: The vehicle is that big due to aforementioned planned ports, the same will be used for series 60 phones with 176x208 resolution. The design will be probably changed a bit since only when I was designing the splash screen I got the grip on how it should look like.

Mr. Colossal, Gilbot: some darkening of background is in order as well as lightening the ground a bit so that the contrast is a bit tad higher, it's necessary for gameplay.

New splash: (shading on the alien is off but it just looked better this way... maybe I'll keep it)

Moox · Thu 07/10/2004 23:39:28

Nice work, very profesional. I have this game for my ti 83+. Will there be anything new about it, and in the screen shot I noticed there was no mines, will they be included?

jaz · Sat 09/10/2004 18:49:41

New level: Alien Jungle:

Background:

Game mockup:

Both pics before desaturation of BG (it's way too distracting as it is now)

What do you think?

And yes, a sketch of level 3, Alien City:

BTW: LostTraveler-the mines will be included, don't wory,as well as some bonuses.

BlackMan890 · Sun 10/10/2004 01:46:28

Jaz, as normal, the new stuff is great

i can't wait to play this game.. oh... wait, i don't have a cellphone

:'(

jaz · Mon 11/10/2004 18:23:16

OK, things are shaping up well and I got one more job. This time it's a remake (kind of) of Galaga shooter for Pocket PC and Series 60 Symbian enabled cellphones.

I just started with this one and after first day I come up with this so far:

Some enemies (there is suppossed to be 15 diferent types):

And for those who don't know Galaga some veeeery quickly done game mockup so that you can imagine what the game is about (this won't be used in final version):

plus some makeshift explosion:

It would be great to implement some particle effect to the game similar to ones that can be found here:

http://www.wondertouch.com/default.asp

but the proggy is expensive as hell and I would have to do a kickass job to justify spending $400 for Particle Illusion... but it would be nice :-)

Well, we'll see...

And some progress:

James Kay · Tue 12/10/2004 02:01:23

Damn, nice stuff!

Moon Patrol:
The jungle background is way too detailed and colourful. It'll clash with the action in the foreground. Replay some old arcade games and you'll see they often use monochrome colours for backgrounds. Partly due to technical restraints but also because the foreground is much more important. I'd say remove the colours and make it all a dark green. Focus on shapes, in stead of colours.

Galaga:
Very nice stuff! Where would you use particles? For explosions? You could always fake that, depending on how much texture memory you have left. Again I see you went for the ZeroGa explosion from Pyromania. You see this explosion everywhere!! You should really try to create your own, either my rendering an explosion on a 3D package or doing the old fashioned way - pixel by pixel!Ã,Â

I'd also suggest making those blue enemies *slightly* lighter to set them off from the spacy background. Mobile screens are small enough - you should make it as easy as possible for people to see/play.

Still,. nice stuff. These are nitpicks.

jaz · Tue 12/10/2004 08:05:41

Blackman: I command you to buy a cellphone at once!!!

James Kay: You're probably right about jungle being way too colourfull. I will see how this one will play and maybe tweak it a bit. Not too sure wheter use green hues only but maybe some desaturation with a bit of green colouring could work.

Galaga: yes, particles could be used for explosions, fire traces and other stuff. It has been done in Sky Force. Not that nifty particle effects as those seen in Particle Illusion but it looks great in action. But i'll prolly have to pixel my way through

http://www.midlet-review.com/index?content=review&id=274&rel=symbian#Screenshoot12

As for explosion: it's NOT the one from Pyromania this time I did it myself as I needed some small one for test purposes but after rendering, resizing and deleting some redundant frames it came out looking as Pyromania again

Sample of original explosion can be seen on the game mockup.

BTW: your tips help me a lot, do you pixel professionally or are you somehow involved in real gamemaking?

James Kay · Tue 12/10/2004 08:18:04

Quote from: jaz on Tue 12/10/2004 08:05:41BTW: your tips help me a lot, do you pixel professionally or are you somehow involved in real gamemaking?

Pixel-art is my love, my mistress, my hobby, my wife, my life. Sad, isn't it? And I'm glad my comments are helpful, as they are only my personal perspective - you are free to ignore me every time because it already looks like you know what you're doing - it's all very lovely stuff.
As an answer to your second question, I am also part of the "real" industry, whatever that means, but sadly don't get much opportunity to do pixel stuff.Ã,Â