FIGHTING TITANS !!! EXTREME GAMEPLAY !!! SICK GRAPHICS !!! RADULAR CHARACTERS !!!

[Sketchasaurus]

CHARACTER SPRITE UPDATE(Aug. 29, 2014)
I've added physical specials to the player sheet.

Rhinozar's charge attack is pretty straight forward (aha, I made a funny) while Knael's is kind of interesting:
Frame 7 is used when transitioning to and from the actual spin (frame 6) which is continuously flipping back and forth for the duration of the move.

I gave Draking a wing flap animation for his special, which remains the same, but you'll see that Draqueen has a different move. in frame 6, you'll see her hind legs and tail are all that appear, this is because, as Draking flies in the air, draqueen burrows underground. I'm not quite happy with Draqueen's frame 7, but it's something for now. (I might take the draking pose in frame 6 and retool it a little)

On a side note, while still related to Fighting Titans, I was actually fiddling with 3Ds Max, making a model of Draqueen:


Also, I greatly appreciate the help, Deathbringer, the interest you (and everybody) have shown has been a great help in keeping my spirits up enough to keep plugging away at this stuff!
And another special shout-out to Lexou; I'm excited to see the next progress report and see what other questions you come up with, all of them have been very useful and I look forward to hearing any and all input!

[Deathbringer]

[Sketchasaurus]

Groovy, Deathbringer!

CHARACTER SPRITE UPDATE(Sep. 2, 2014)


What's new:
-I noticed that on my past update (at least) that one of Hawkindle's sprites was missing its toes (sprite 4, if you're curious) so I fixed that.
-Added new pose for Tropicaur and Kamekannon at column [A] This pose will be used when a titan is knocked into the air/sent flying.


Since I've added a new pose, I'm going to add to the pose list with an update here:

PLAYER SPRITE POSES:
0/1-Idle
2- Bullet
3- Melee
4/5- Walk (animation order: 4,0,5,0(loop))
6/7- Melee special
8- Dizzy/stunned (flip horizontally loop)
9- Hit
A- Knocked into air (spinning)
B- KO'D
C- ?
D- ?
E- ?
F- Victory (animation: 1,F (loop))

And here are colored versions of the support titans (some of them may also have alternate colors, too):


I'm thinking that the roster will have at least 9 main playables and possibly a 10th, secret-awesome-special-unlockable contender. BUT FIRST!

I need to decide who the last two spots on the roster will go to! I've gone and selected four potential candidates (trying my best not to chose more reptilian/dinosaur titans)

Contestant # 1

Indrigo A reclusive primate with ghostly powers and an icy demeanor.

Contestant # 2

Cactillo a grumpy but inquisitive desert-dweller, its spines sharpen its broad attacks.

Contestant # 3

Monwar an aloof Jellyfish-like creature that throws smaller members of its species at foes. Rather slow on land, but attacks tend to bounce off of it.

contestant # 4

Whipper a ravenous insect with a fierce temper and deadly stinger. (wings not pictured)

[Lexou Duck]

i'd say indrigo and whipper as titans, the other two as assist characters (mostly cause no one wants to play as a jellyfish, and the cactus guy is too much like tropicaur imo)
and also because there are no insects currently and only knael is a mammal

as for that 10th guy, his name is usually "random"

on that note wouldn't you wanna edit draqueen/king more ? face-wise i mean, cause i'm pretty sure players'll think that was lazy on our part...

okay so for me i just did something really cool, which is charging attacks
as physical attacks can be charged and appropriately have more range and damage
as an added bonus there's now a 2 frame cooldown on physical attacks so its useless to spam the button like a maniac whereas before it was an acceptble battle tactic
i'm still working on making the enemy AI charge their attacks properly

what i'd need as a priority now is a charge pose (yes it really would make a big difference don't be lazy boy)
now i dunno if it'd be better to have separate charge poses for physical and bullet attacks, or if it'd best for the opponent not to know what's cooking

second thing i need is for you to complete the default bullet sheet
i changed a few pixels here and there since last time so here ya go


also now i work on the game as a 4 button game (ABXY i mean) like
A - melee attack
B - bullet attack
X - special attack
Y - jump
and i can switch the buttons around and all (potentially also L and R for assist call and something else who knows)
the reason i'm telling you this is because you keep saying "melee special" as if you wanted to also make distance specials ??
those wouldn't really seem necessary to me but whatever

also man more urgent than making new characters is to start thinking of exactly what happens to each bullet type when element modifiers are picked up

just so i know do you try and go for 32-value colors like the GBC and GBA ? (its obviously not the NES palette cause there are no pretty yellows in that)
im not sure i took that in account when i changed draqueen's palette ill check later

yeah i still dont have a gif for you guys but you know what ill try and give you guys an .exe next time so y'all can tell me how you like the playability

um sketchasaurus why dontcha tell me how long the animation frames last, i chose my own durations which work ok but i'd like to know what you had in mind

and one last thing how come bosses only have 2 colors + alpha ?
make full use of the palette on them big sprites why dontcha ?

i think that's about it for now then till next time

[Kosheh]

on that note wouldn't you wanna edit draqueen/king more ? face-wise i mean, cause i'm pretty sure players'll think that was lazy on our part...

It might be kinda lazy, but it's also kind of a throwback to like, the Mortal Kombat games with the ninja recolors.

Palette swap characters are like, a staple of old fighting games lol

[Deathbringer]

Actually Kosh, I see it more like a Ryu/Ken headswap (sort of-ish) since there are differences between them (one has wings and bigger tuft of hair) as opposed to the Mortal Kombat palette swaps (where the only real difference is which method of attacks change).

And by method of attack, I mean like the difference between Scorpion and Sub-Zero's attack for example (Scorpion throws with one hand, Sub-Zero pulls a Hadoken).

[Sketchasaurus]

The thing about Draking and Draqueen is that they're literally members of the same species: one is the male form, and the other is the female form. while there is a large degree of sexual dimorphism at work here (think of Peacocks and Peahens), there could still be more, for the sake of further diversifying the roster/the difference between the two.

I've started to fiddle with the idea of making Draqueen a bit more "robust" than Draking for this reason. (though I won't bore you with any of the biology babble about these fictional creatures) But yes, the head-swap and palette swap principles do apply to the design sensibilities of Fighting Titans in general. I actually have some sub-species/variation designs for some of the titans that appear on the roster, but they won't make an appearance as playables in this.

To answer some of your questions, Lexou:
when it comes to charging, I would think that being able to move while charging up an attack would be there, so it's more of a blinking/flashing effect that would be applied to a player while they're charging their attack.
Also, it's important to note that when you've fully charged your attack, that is when a "special" is pulled off, so charging a melee attack fully would release the "specials" present on the sheet thus far. and Fully charging the bullet attacks would release a stronger bullet/ projectile special. This means that X would be freed from being excluded to specials and could be used as the Support/trap function.

As for element modifiers, now I'm wondering if I should make special armor assets that would be layered on top of the players, which would fall off and disappear when a new one is picked up. (this is actually more true to the initial concept of them wearing equipment to augment their powers) as a result, this could mean that a player's titan wouldn't change color based on elements, and there wouldn't be any conflict with an opposing player being the same color as an opponent if they happen to have the same element modifier.

As for how the elements work, I need to make some mock-ups. I'll use Kamekannon as the example for consistency, but there won't be any special armor/power-up assets added on yet.

I actually use the NES color palette that I've seen around:

I've also modified the boss sprites so they also use 3 colors. (I'm also working on a couple of boss ideas that might prove interesting)

Also, as it pertains to animation, I like what I've seen you do so far with that aspect.
Though I could maybe set up a spreadsheet to lay out specific sequences as I imagine them. Or maybe even a gif might be helpful?

[Sketchasaurus]

To illustrate what I meant in regards to armor:

We have fire, Ice, metal, and a green one shown here.
The armor would be on its own spritesheet and layered on top of each respective player. I might have more than simple palette swaps for some armor types, but as of now, palette swaps are the main way elemental modifiers could be shown.

[Sketchasaurus]

Here's a mock-up of how Kamekannon's default bullet attack works in comparison to the Fire element modifier; sorry it took me so long to upload this.
I've got a lot of effects sprites to make for sure.

[Sketchasaurus]

CHARACTER SPRITE UPDATE(November 27, 2014)


Didn't think this would still be alive? you were wrong!
I've been kind of on a major motivation hiatus for a while, but I'm looking to pick this (and a bunch of other stuff) back up again.

What's new?
Made modifications to all of Draqueen's sprites and added aerial knockback poses for everyone currently on the sheet.

[Sketchasaurus]

It's been a long time since I've touched anything related to this, but I got the urge to do a bit of an upgrade to the arenas.

Starting off, a draft of what a beach level could look like (with the old layout of the bg intact)
Below: a version with the new perspective applied. I figured that since the arenas would be largely static, they could be a bit more tailor-made


The crabs and palmtrees would be present as stage hazards/obstacles. If one comes into contact with one of the crabs (maybe they'll chase after anyone nearby within a radius) the crab will latch on and interrupt movement and other actions with a pinch unless shaken off somehow.
Being knocked into a Palm tree will dislodge coconuts that'll temporarily dizzy the hapless victim. There would also be a chance of the palm tree dropping a random item or even a crab.

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

That new perspective looks immensely better. Looking forward to progress

[Sketchasaurus]

Here's how the blue arena looks with the new perspective and an edit to the color scheme (the colors may be reversed to improve contrast with the characters as more edits are made)


The beginnings of a potential stats screen.
and some bibs and bobs for the icons included in said stats screen:


I've also been kicking around the idea of branching paths for abilities and a gym full of training mini-games, but nothing concrete on either front has been explored in depth yet. Also the thought of a virtual pet feature has crossed my mind, but I'm still unsure how that'd affect the combat(the main focus) of the game.

And lastly, for now: a look at a frozen status.

This would be a temporary effect triggered by freezing traps or ice weapons. it wouldn't deal damage directly, but it'd open the opportunity for the opponent to hit you a few times. it'd be likely to break free by mashing buttons in some fashion. Though, enemy attacks will also break the ice as they hit you while frozen.

[Lexou Duck]

whoaaaa damn

so

am i gonna pick this back up ?
or are u cheating on me with another programmer

cause this all here's pretty motivating

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

Pick it up and make something playable out of this, guys!

I'm not too fond of the frozen sprite, especially not the one on the left. Doesn't work well at that resolution imo. The one on the right is more on track, but the ice sprite isn't icy enough - the edges seem too soft.

Anyway, kutgw!