The GameDev Lounge 00000011

[Gors]

make vector games instead of pixelart based ones

[puggsoy]

Vector can often be better, or alternatively high-res graphics that still look fine if they're scaled down. Pixel-art can work, as long as you're not too concerned about it looking crisp on all screens. If your graphics are displayed in a more "pixelated" manner (not 1:1) then scaling isn't really an issue either.

When you're working with different aspect ratios, you'll either have to make a version for wider screens, or simply have the user put-up with cropping. There are also often different versions for tablets and phones, many UIs on tablets can be more spacious than those on phones, due to the larger physical size and more PC-like aspect ratio.

In the end, it all comes down to testing. Try get your hands on as many different kinds of devices as possible, early access/beta testing helps greatly with this. Of course if it's not commercial, you'll just have to ask family and friends. Only when you see your game performing on different devices will you see whether scaling and resolution differences are actually a noticeable issue.

[iyenal]

2D or 3D graphics ? For 2D, I use letterbox scaling or normal scaling with wide background and objects extended beyond layout borders so it's impossible to see black borders; and for 3D, I have 2 cameras (16:9 and 4: 3 with different field of view) that are actived depending of the phone screen.
But in general, you have to try on simulated or real devices.

[iyenal]

My first game published on mass-market stores :


What do you think ? And in your opinion, is the game promotion well presented and makes you want to download the game ?
Thank you in advance for your assessments.

[Neweegee]

Can't say I know too much about marketing for online shops like Google Play, but this promotion seems extremely vague, to the point where I can't guess what the game is actually about. I don't mean to sound rude, though.

When it comes to marketing an entirely new game, you gotta make sure the selling point is upfront and explains what makes the game different from others. Look through other games available in stores to see what makes them stand out, and also what you can point out in your game that's different from the rest. You do already get a boost for game being free (but please don't use that as THE selling point)

A more interesting background picture would also help, but I don't know if that's just how the game actually looks so I'm not sure what exactly can you do about that.

Pretty much, just think of how that promotion would look if it were surrounded by dozens of other promotions for games on the same platforms.

[iyenal]

Thanks for your suggestion, I will take it all under advisement.

[iyenal]

So I added a small description, light effects, and small white stars in the background.

What's your toughts ?

[Hiro-sofT]

The titlescreen for my android game, which I will develop with Game Maker Studio. It took some time to do this, but I'm happy with the result .

[Gors]

design suggestion: the screen is too monochromatic, I think the BG would look better if made with a slight greenish hue - this will make the mushrooms, stars and text stand out more.

[Hiro-sofT]

Thanks for the advise Gors ! As soon as I'm back home, I will look into that.


Here is an older video of the project I was working on before I started working on Fungi Cappani. I will properly come back to this sometime, but first I want to finish at least one world in my android game. I just leave this video here...



I also have a whole playlist of all the little things I did before that (which I also didn't finished, sadly  ).

[Raccoon Sam]

i love it
lots of stuff going on, the graphics look awesome and that's great

[Hiro-sofT]

Alright! I changed the colors of the BG to a more greenish yellow and the colors of the stars and spore into a more redish tone. Better? Worse?

[Gors]

much better, a slight change in hue changes everything

[Hiro-sofT]

I think, I haven't shown you anything gameplay related here  ... well, if this is the case, then I will fix that by leaving this gif, which shows my newest progress   (mostly graphicialy and animation wise):

Please ignore the white rectangles, these are test buttons for restarting and exiting the game while played on an android device. Yep, it can be played currently on an android mobile phone.

I already did some work before that, but I asume reposting these old images won't do anything different. For those with interest can look at some older screens here (it's on a german forum however, so the thread is in german of course   ), which show some of the other things (most of which have been already updated or changed). I also first wanted to do a greenish grass field level first but I figured it wouldn't be something special and a boring, stereotypical first level then again  , which was the reason, why I decided to do an autumn grass land instand.

My only problem with this is, that I need to make sure, that players won't lose cute Cappani in those colors. I tried very hard to shift the hues here and there to avoid that from happening. What you guys think   ? I'm okay with these colors, but I'm not sure, if everyone else does okay with these colors too.



Oh yeah, I also did some concept work today about this levels background (because I also want to get parallax backgrounds finally in)... oh man, this BG will be some fun stuff:

Spoiler

Also, you can call me crazy for actually drawing concepts on paper for this game. I never really did that before (besides character art for Dash Dash Dilia). I did one for Cappani, the mid bosses and even the first world boss. What is wrong with me    ?

At least, I'm having a blast making this game .

[Gors]

my main gripe with this is that my eye can't focus on what is foreground and what is background, I thought that those totems on the BG were platforms at first. Try making the colors dimmer on what is not interactable, your eye should be able to immediately see it.

Also another way to avoid the landscape from being only orange is to counter it with another color for the sky, here are some examples.



the different hues in the sky helps distinguishing what is land and what isn't, also I chose some unusuall sky colors purely by aesthetic reasons. The combinations look good.

Also, despite being autumn palette, some trees could have a different leaf palette, some of the most stunning autumn forest photos do have some yellow or green trees for contrast.



the game looks promising, i hope to see a very intrincate level design