08-18-2014, 03:36 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-18-2014, 05:09 AM by Raccoon Sam.)
Well, removing the Google Play integration was a wise choice. With no useless tutorials or Google Play integration dialogs, I feel like I'm sucked right into the game as soon as I hit play. So a bonus point there. Quick start = awesome.
I can't say much about the new control scheme. The overlays still clash with your style, and as you said, it's a bit unresponsive. Work on it, I'm sure you'll nail it down.
What format is your music in? There's a 'flaw' in the MP3 file format which causes a very small pause at the beginning of the audio data. I'm not sure if this is the case of it, or just GM bad looping, or both, but if your music is in a tracker format (think IT, MOD, XM, MID) then find a method of playing the music natively. NEVER convert tracker songs to WAV/MP3. It bloats the size and loses quality.
Now, I don't know the whole truth – it might be that you truly use a tracker song and I'm just barking at the wrong tree here, but the game's file size is just suspiciously large. Why's that?
And finally, the cog. This is even worse! You broke the pixel resolution on every non-256x144-resolution device. Here's a screenshot:
![[Image: nZDnw7T.png]](http://i.imgur.com/nZDnw7T.png)
Here, every single pixel is 1:1 except the cog, which is 0,5:1 every frame it's spinning. This breaks the old-school vibe illusion completely.
When you make a game that's style is old-timey pixely-graphicy, you choose a pixel resolution and you stick with it. Here are three examples:
![[Image: esFvX8x.png]](http://i.imgur.com/esFvX8x.png)
• The first is the worst because the fish breaks the pixel resolution. Just like your cog.
• The second, although it might seem counter-intuitive, is better. Sure it looks ugly, but it sticks with the resolution. Think about the flowers in Yoshi's Island; they rotated too and sticked with the pixel resolution. Homework: play Yoshi's Island and find out why the rotation looks great there, but bad in this example.
• The third is hands-down the best, but only because it was drawn pixel-by-pixel from scratch. It takes more time, but it's worth it. You might want to look into RotSprite. It rotates pixel art but with a custom algorithm, so it's bound to look better than simply rotating a sprite in Photoshop.
Keep it up! You'll know when the cog looks right. You just will.
EDIT: i re-read my post. i didn't mean to sound offensive or picky. it might seem like i'm making a way too big of a deal out of this but in my opinion it's the many little things that make the one huge difference
I can't say much about the new control scheme. The overlays still clash with your style, and as you said, it's a bit unresponsive. Work on it, I'm sure you'll nail it down.
What format is your music in? There's a 'flaw' in the MP3 file format which causes a very small pause at the beginning of the audio data. I'm not sure if this is the case of it, or just GM bad looping, or both, but if your music is in a tracker format (think IT, MOD, XM, MID) then find a method of playing the music natively. NEVER convert tracker songs to WAV/MP3. It bloats the size and loses quality.
Now, I don't know the whole truth – it might be that you truly use a tracker song and I'm just barking at the wrong tree here, but the game's file size is just suspiciously large. Why's that?
And finally, the cog. This is even worse! You broke the pixel resolution on every non-256x144-resolution device. Here's a screenshot:
Here, every single pixel is 1:1 except the cog, which is 0,5:1 every frame it's spinning. This breaks the old-school vibe illusion completely.
When you make a game that's style is old-timey pixely-graphicy, you choose a pixel resolution and you stick with it. Here are three examples:
• The first is the worst because the fish breaks the pixel resolution. Just like your cog.
• The second, although it might seem counter-intuitive, is better. Sure it looks ugly, but it sticks with the resolution. Think about the flowers in Yoshi's Island; they rotated too and sticked with the pixel resolution. Homework: play Yoshi's Island and find out why the rotation looks great there, but bad in this example.
• The third is hands-down the best, but only because it was drawn pixel-by-pixel from scratch. It takes more time, but it's worth it. You might want to look into RotSprite. It rotates pixel art but with a custom algorithm, so it's bound to look better than simply rotating a sprite in Photoshop.
Keep it up! You'll know when the cog looks right. You just will.
EDIT: i re-read my post. i didn't mean to sound offensive or picky. it might seem like i'm making a way too big of a deal out of this but in my opinion it's the many little things that make the one huge difference