General Sprite Experimentation (previously colour experimentation)

[Bombshell93]

bit of a clean up, mostly in the colours which were a bit harsher than they needed to be.

as you can see I've also been fiddling with shapes for the person,
To fill in, the game was initially going to be a story about the person the game was for, after falling out I obviously wanted to redesign the character and the story, now with more head room I thought up a world and beings to inhabit it,
long story short, a human serving the moon becomes a darkling, a living shadow, able to change their form to things they have seen (hence the megaman-esque boss abilities gimmick)

my engine done and ready to be played with this could make a good side project, I love myself a gimmicky platformer, I've even been considering asking if anyone on here would be interested in a TSR project (having bosses in the shapes of those involved) I'm making a platformer at the moment for my P2PG Arcade with my team of friends, I could reuse a lot of the code so working on either project will help the other (meaning I can work on both without a worry of one being left behind)

[Cytric Acid]

I feel like the character blends into the foreground and background too much. Try using a different color for him that's not used in the foreground/background?

[Bombshell93]

the sky line will always be higher than the character and animation will stop it from blending in with the background, that said I still think his head, chest feet and fists should glow slightly, it'll still be easy to animate and it'll help to distinguish it from everything else.

[Bombshell93]

not much progress, but my platformer for P2PG Arcade is working (mostly) all I need is the sprites for the enemies and water, as well as a better designed HUD and background.

That said if anyone is interested in a TSR game based around silhouettes, pop-culture horror monsters (vampires that dont sparkle, werewolves, scarecrows, etc.) and all the joys of platforming let me know and I'll see if I can get a beta going.

[Kami]

That seems like a good idea.

Also, I think the bottom background clouds should look like they're more farther back(Size-wise, not contrast wise, as the current contrast seems good)

[Bombshell93]

just playing around with pixels inbetween coding the vertical space shooter for P2PG arcade, I thought I'd try some mining stuff and eventually got into trying out my luck with human proportions again.

as per every piece of sprite work I do I have a story behind it and an idea behind it (at this point its just in case I get carried away with the spriting and end up with enough sprites to not want to waste.
Copperland, a powerful and rich mining state strike the barrier between hell and earth, demons start infesting the mines but something else came with them, magics and curses bled through the rocks giving birth to powerful artefacts, incredibly rare minerals and enchanted gems. Looking to further increase the power of the state miners are made considerable offers by the state leading to the best of the best shaping up for a half-miner / half-demon slayer life style.
a mining RPG, the characters goal is to slay the biggest, mine the shiniest, get the richest and survive to enjoy it!

ofc I stick by these are just doodles, I'm already working on 4 projects (the P2P Arcades 3 games and Thank the Moon the TSR project still in design stage, check my previous threads if your interested in taking part) so it'd be silly of me to take on another, so this won't be a game any time soon, I just like thinking up worlds and usually if I think up a world I imagine how I could play around in it.

[Gors]

i love making these random ideas too, they're fun to make and something nice might come out of them!

as for the man sprites, it could use more definition between his further arm and shirt, as they're blending. I don't know if you want to keep the shading simple or go for a castlevania-detailed look.

also, his head should be placed more to our right.

[Bombshell93]

playing with colours again, I really want to get better at picking my pallet, so I've been fiddling to make a 16 or under pallet for general purpose use.[/b]


also an update ont he copperlands slightly,

[Bombshell93]

I liked the looks of the overworld type sprites so I gave it a bit of fleshing out

[Bombshell93]

Just playing around with a character I've been doodling for a while but never actually sprited

[Bombshell93]

felt like playing with NES stuff again,


EDIT: I notice I derped putting 2 goblins using the same pallet but different colours in the same image, what would actually happen in-game is different areas would have different coloured goblins, their colour would reflect their states, be they fast but weak or strong but slow, or immune to a certain type of magic, etc.
so only 1 set of colours would be used per area and for the sake of avoiding them randomly changing colour they would be unable to leave their area even if chasing you.

[Thanatos-Zero]

I have been checking your supposed NES styled sprites.
While your background tiles will work as intended, your sprites will not, as they will flicker on your screen like hell with your player character on the same line.



See, if there are more then 8 sprites on a line, they will start to flicker and we as a game designer want to avoid this at any cost, as flickering will make our graphics unappealing. Minor flickering is still acceptable though, when it rarely occurs.

We also have to take account the lifebars for your PC and the Boss, as they are also sprites, including the weapons our PC and our enemies use.

Fortunately we can make use of background tiles, as pseudo sprites, but this will require a room without or has minimally normal background tiles.

See Fortress Bosses of Megaman for examples.

My suggestion for you is to shrink your sprites down to a reasonable size and to reduce the colours, where the PC and 3 enemies in a line will have 8 sprites as a total. If you do not mind some minor flickering with weapons used, you can make use of this. In any case it is less likely that the enemies will always stand in the same line with your PC.

If you have questions about NES limitations, just ask.^^

[Bombshell93]

DAMN THE NES AND ITS AWKWARDNESS! XD
funnily enough these sprites only ended up NES sprites because I was already making the knight but I had a boring pallet so I just threw NES colours on it to see what it'd be like.
I'll probably be posting a modern version of the sprites soon along with a game plan, as it started off as a game sketch (I've been trying to think up a small but re-playable game to give me a challenge of rapid prototyping, which I've never actually tried, I've always figured slow and steady wins the race but I can only do that so much before I start getting behind on work.... a bit tangential but yeah)

[Thanatos-Zero]

*Above*

When you mean modern like the SNES, then you do not have to battle yourself with the possibility of sprite flickering, but rather a slowdown of the game itself, when you exceed a certain number of sprites on the screen. I have never seen sprite flickering on the SNES, but to be on the safe side take THIS, as it dangerous to go alone!

[Bombshell93]

by modern I meant current PC spec, no immediate limitation, make them to the best of my ability.
Love the zelda reference though XD
I'm actually unsure what style to go for, it being a rapid prototyping excercise I want something that looks nice but isn't time consuming, so simple shading if any, probably aim for bright striking colours (can't help but have castle crashers hit the mind), I want smooth animation but dont want to slave over each frame so something silly / dollish will probably be the aim.
I'd consider it another experimentation so its likely to go in this thread.
Here is the concept sketch

Heart based health, LoZ style gameplay (except with stats), you can have 3 things equipped a weapon, a shield, a magic.
each weapon and shield have a damage and defend stat respectively as well as an ability, for weapons you hold attack to activate, for shield it activates when hit.
magics come as elements Fire, Ice, Lightning, Earth and type shot, AOE, boost
Fire shot & AOE damage over time, Fire boost extra weapon damage,
Ice shot & AOE freezes target for a short time, Ice boost freezes anyone who hits your shield,
Lightning shot & AOE hits enemies in chains for extra damage, Lightning boost increases speed and makes any enemy you run into flinch
Earth shot & AOE high damage, Earth boost double defence on shield
And finally there will be dungeons with bosses and loot.

a quick plan but that doesn't mean a quick game so when I get to work on it I best be thorough.