Indie Game Development |OT 2018| Come, help, learn, show and tell!

Weltall Zero · Nov 10, 2018

Mike Armbrust said:
I wonder how many of us are in the same boat with projects that are just taking years and years. It's so easy to just get caught up with other things and stop posting progress online. At this point I've moved away from open development. My next game could fit perfectly with weekly updates but right now I'm also just working in silence.

Your game continues to look great. How much outside the vertical slice do you have worked out?

This reminds me it's saturday and I have pretty much nothing to show, given I've been refactoring pretty much all week. >_<

Eh, I guess I can show the new button icons, which is super exciting. :P

Pehesse said:
I have also stopped drawing for fun as I feel I always need to be productive on Pacha or something else, not sure if picking it back up again would help, but not sure I'll find the mental space to see anytime soon, either.

This is heartbreaking to read but so relatable. The one thing that mades me question if I'd dedicate the rest of my life to indie development is the pressure that "I should be working on Divinoids" pretty much at any time I have any energy.

Pehesse said:
On the plus side, here's some light progress on the parallel front of Magikilo that I had mentioned (way) earlier in the thread:

These look great! I love your style so much, it's so characteristic and pleasant to the eye.

DNAbro · Nov 10, 2018

10 day streak of actually working on my game so that's great

Worked on this sprite quite a bit today, though the side profile still kind of looks weird to me and I can't really figure out how to fix it. Cleaned it up and made it look nicer cause I was planning to do a a bit more invovled animation for a cutscene, not in that exact position but still.

Pixels · Nov 10, 2018

Getting a winter seasonal zone ready.
https://www.facebook.com/832526933561276/posts/1172288346251798/

ZodR_ARG · Nov 10, 2018

Anyone here going to casual connect in Shenzhen?

Jintor · Nov 11, 2018

kind of fell off gamedev for the last month or two but i've been dreaming about some kind of CSD/visual novel about a travelling restaurant

Weltall Zero · Nov 11, 2018

So Panzermoon has a pixel art thread where people are encouraged to post stuff they like or that they've made themselves. Very graciously, he also holds a monthly themed contest where a randomly selected entrant gets gifted a game of their choice. I was the only entrant last month, so I won by default, and on top of that he also gifted me a game the month before; if you talented people could also enter the contest so that I don't feel I'm gaming the system, it would be appreciated. :)

Feel also free to post pixel art from your games, which is always good for cross-promotion!

DNAbro · Nov 11, 2018

Been seeing some real progress as of late, art is honestly the biggest time sink for me at the moment. I feel like I did okay with the motion on this though. At this pace I think I might be able to have the first area done in about a week, though not polished in the slightest, some things feel and look a bit janky.

TI92 · Nov 11, 2018

Just got first in games category at my Universities hackathon with a game we made in 48 hours ahhhhhhh feels so good

I'll post it later for people interested, I'd like to host it on my GitHub with the webgl export does anyone have experience with that?

Mihai_ · Nov 12, 2018

Keep Away said:
Anyone here going to casual connect in Shenzhen?

When is it? If it's during the weekend I msy be able to go

TI92 · Nov 12, 2018

just figured it out, UI got weird when exporting but whatever.

Downhill Pizza Jam: https://camology.github.io/DownhillPizzaJam-WebGL/index.html (playable webGL build)

Github repo:
https://github.com/Camology/DownhillPizzaJam

Made this all in unity, made everything except the skateboard model in the 48 hours allotted. We did take the chicken model from freemodels, it was only a placeholder until the player was done but people loved it so we kept it too. Song is "Better" by Saint Pepsi, and we also used the retro3D Pipeline from Keijiro which was linked here on this thread. https://github.com/keijiro/Retro3DPipeline

Mike Armbrust · Nov 12, 2018

Hey does anyone here speak Canadian French or Portuguese? If you are willing to help with a very short translation, please send me a PM.

I was able to figure out all the single word translations for my game so I only have one paragraph that I need help with.

DNAbro · Nov 12, 2018

TI92 said:
just figured it out, UI got weird when exporting but whatever.

Downhill Pizza Jam: https://camology.github.io/DownhillPizzaJam-WebGL/index.html (playable webGL build)

Github repo:
https://github.com/Camology/DownhillPizzaJam

Made this all in unity, made everything except the skateboard model in the 48 hours allotted. We did take the chicken model from freemodels, it was only a placeholder until the player was done but people loved it so we kept it too. Song is "Better" by Saint Pepsi, and we also used the retro3D Pipeline from Keijiro which was linked here on this thread. https://github.com/keijiro/Retro3DPipeline

neat, for whatever reason it wasn't loading on Firefox so I had to switch to Chrome. Also the first thing I did was jump on a car and I got launched up way in the air and I'm guessing that wasn't supposed to happen lol.

TI92 · Nov 12, 2018

DNAbro said:
neat, for whatever reason it wasn't loading on Firefox so I had to switch to Chrome. Also the first thing I did was jump on a car and I got launched up way in the air and I'm guessing that wasn't supposed to happen lol.

Well it's an unintended feature that cars can launch you higher into the air :p and since the cars just spawn based off your position you can then car jump to the end !

Lot of weird bugs like that, like if you "lose" the game you can just press escape twice and keep playing. Definitely hacked together haha

Soundchaser · Nov 14, 2018

Doing game jams with randos is a terrible idea... especially when the randos never used a version control system before.

Deleted member 6056 · Nov 14, 2018

Looks like Pixel Game Maker MV will stay early access awhile longer.
http://www.siliconera.com/2018/11/14/pixel-game-maker-mvs-full-release-delayed-to-summer-2019/

Reason given is to improve quality. Always a reason I support. Good lil engine. Got a lot of potential.

Weltall Zero · Nov 14, 2018

Soundchaser said:
Doing game jams with randos is a terrible idea... especially when the randos never used a version control system before.

Why do you hate yourself. Whatever sins you comitted, this penance is far too excessive. :D

Deleted member 5167 · Nov 15, 2018

https://www.humblebundle.com/software/rpg-game-dev-bundle

All the assets seem to use the same non-exclusive licence, (usually these rpg maker oriented asset bundles have an RPG Maker only restriction) and the bundle has some useful stuff like Icons, UI elements and Sound Effects even if you make all your own regular game art.

4. LICENCE

4.1. A "Licence" means that the Seller grants to GDN (purely for the purpose of sub-licensing to the Purchaser) and GDN grants (by way of sub-licence thereof) to the Purchaser a non-exclusive perpetual licence to;

(a) use the Licensed Asset to create Derivative Works; and

(b) use the Licensed Asset and any Derivative Works as part of either one (1) Non-Monetized Media Product or one (1) Monetized Media Product which, in either case, is:

i) used for the Purchaser's own personal use; and/or

ii) used for the Purchaser's commercial use in which case it may be distributed, sold and supplied by the Purchaser for any fee that the Purchaser may determine.

4.2. A Licence does not allow the Purchaser to:

(a) Use the Licensed Asset or Derivative Works in a logo, trademark or service mark;

(b) Use, sell, share, transfer, give away, sublicense or redistribute the Licensed Asset or Derivate Works other than as part of the relevant Non-Monetized Media Product or Monetized Media Product; or

(c) Allow the user of the Non-Monetized Media Product or Monetized Media Product to extract the Licensed Asset or Derivative Works and use them outside of the relevant Non-Monetized Media Product or Monetized Media Product.

4.3. In the case of a Licence in respect of multiple Licensed Assets in a bundle or pack, the Purchaser may use the Licensed Assets within the bundle or pack in respect of multiple Non-Monetized Media Products and/or Monetized Media Products provided that no one individual Licensed Asset within that bundle or pack is used more than once or in more than one Non-Monetized Media Product or Monetized Media Product.

4.4. A sequel to a Non-Monetized Media Products or Monetized Media Product is considered a separate Media Product in its own right and the use of any Licensed Assets howsoever in or in respect of such sequel requires and is conditional upon the purchase of a separate Licence in respect thereof.

So perpetual, royalty free, for commercial use, derivative permissible

Sean Noonan · Nov 15, 2018

Still plodding away with my World War 1 walking sim...

Started adding a couple of smaller props to the more finished areas...

I also rebalanced some of the materials in the trenches after some feedback...

I really need to start work getting the characters in and investigating how hard animation is...

Weltall Zero · Nov 15, 2018

Sean Noonan said:
Still plodding away with my World War 1 walking sim...

Started adding a couple of smaller props to the more finished areas...

I also rebalanced some of the materials in the trenches after some feedback...

I really need to start work getting the characters in and investigating how hard animation is...

You are a one-man game factory! I hope when you said you'd rest when you died it was a figure of speech...

WishyWaters · Nov 16, 2018

Dr Wily said:
https://www.humblebundle.com/software/rpg-game-dev-bundle

All the assets seem to use the same non-exclusive licence, (usually these rpg maker oriented asset bundles have an RPG Maker only restriction) and the bundle has some useful stuff like Icons, UI elements and Sound Effects even if you make all your own regular game art.

4. LICENCE

4.1. A "Licence" means that the Seller grants to GDN (purely for the purpose of sub-licensing to the Purchaser) and GDN grants (by way of sub-licence thereof) to the Purchaser a non-exclusive perpetual licence to;

(a) use the Licensed Asset to create Derivative Works; and

(b) use the Licensed Asset and any Derivative Works as part of either one (1) Non-Monetized Media Product or one (1) Monetized Media Product which, in either case, is:

i) used for the Purchaser's own personal use; and/or

ii) used for the Purchaser's commercial use in which case it may be distributed, sold and supplied by the Purchaser for any fee that the Purchaser may determine.

4.2. A Licence does not allow the Purchaser to:

(a) Use the Licensed Asset or Derivative Works in a logo, trademark or service mark;

(b) Use, sell, share, transfer, give away, sublicense or redistribute the Licensed Asset or Derivate Works other than as part of the relevant Non-Monetized Media Product or Monetized Media Product; or

(c) Allow the user of the Non-Monetized Media Product or Monetized Media Product to extract the Licensed Asset or Derivative Works and use them outside of the relevant Non-Monetized Media Product or Monetized Media Product.

4.3. In the case of a Licence in respect of multiple Licensed Assets in a bundle or pack, the Purchaser may use the Licensed Assets within the bundle or pack in respect of multiple Non-Monetized Media Products and/or Monetized Media Products provided that no one individual Licensed Asset within that bundle or pack is used more than once or in more than one Non-Monetized Media Product or Monetized Media Product.

4.4. A sequel to a Non-Monetized Media Products or Monetized Media Product is considered a separate Media Product in its own right and the use of any Licensed Assets howsoever in or in respect of such sequel requires and is conditional upon the purchase of a separate Licence in respect thereof.

So perpetual, royalty free, for commercial use, derivative permissible

Quick question about this license for anyone that is familiar with parsing them.

I have a team of 2 working on a single game. Should we each buy a package or can we buy a single package and share the assets. This question is mostly concerning line 4.2(b). I'm pretty sure it's specifically saying we can share them, but only if it's as part of working on the same project.

Anyone willing to clarify would be appreciated.

Deleted member 5167 · Nov 16, 2018

embalm said:
Quick question about this license for anyone that is familiar with parsing them.

I have a team of 2 working on a single game. Should we each buy a package or can we buy a single package and share the assets. This question is mostly concerning line 4.2(b). I'm pretty sure it's specifically saying we can share them, but only if it's as part of working on the same project.

Anyone willing to clarify would be appreciated.

IANAL, and even if I was it would vary from jurisprudence to jurisprudence, but rule of thumb if you don't exactly follow a licencing agreement is what would a reasonable group of people (ie a jury) conclude is the intention of the agreement.

That clause is specifically intended to stop people doing shit like buying this bundle, zipping it all up into one archive and burning it to a disk as "101 GREAT RPG Game Assets!" to sell on Amazon, or reselling as an RPG starter pack on the Unity store, or whatever.
It also covers things like a company buying the pack for use in making a game, but then going bankrupt - any debtors would not get that pack to resell themselves to recoup losses, the rights would return to the original creators.
It also covers things like people buying this and then using the sprites to make T-shirts to sell on Etsy or whatever, or taking the assets you want and then trading the ones you don't for steam keys (which a lot of people do with humble bundles, despite being against TOS)

I don't know your setup, but if you're a 2 man company and you buy it as a company asset, if the company disbands, neither of you get to keep them as assets, the licence returns to the licensor.
If you're not a company and one of you is buying out of your own pocket, then if you later disband you don't each get a copy, the person who bought them keeps them.
If you're working together on the same project, these assets are licenced on a per asset licence, so its entirely reasonable that - say - the art guy takes the art assets and uses them as is, or tweaks them to fit purpose, while the sound guy does the same for the audio side of things.

If you're really worried, just buy 2 packs, one each.

Mike Armbrust · Nov 17, 2018

I still have a while to go, but is distribute() popular enough to be worth it?

Jump_Button · Nov 17, 2018

Been making cuteness

Weltall Zero · Nov 17, 2018

Jump_Button said:
Been making cuteness

Oh wow, this is precisely what your game needed to set itself apart from others. Excellent call, and super cute sprites!

Weltall Zero · Nov 17, 2018

Thread's kind of quiet for a ScreenshotSaturday, hmmm.

DNAbro · Nov 17, 2018

Get in the screenshot or uhh vid at the last second, been working on items for the last two days. Also enjoy my inspector cause UI is broken in full screen and I'm too lazy to edit it lol

_Rob_ · Nov 18, 2018

I am terrible for losing track of this topic, and even worse for not contributing often! Anywho, here's a trailer from this week; I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, and how much of the game I'm able to show in a relatively short time!

DNAbro · Nov 18, 2018

I would like some opinions please. Trying to get a more final design for my main character. For context the game is about super heroes and villains, and you can effectively be one or the other so I want a design that kind of fits both. Also wanted purple as the main color. I'm personally partial to 1 and 10 the most but I just want to hear someone else's opinions. If they all suck that's fine too lol.

Weltall Zero · Nov 18, 2018

I like 6, 7 and 9, but for the latter two I'd put a short sleeve that's inbetween these and 8/10. Also, for 9 / 10 I'd try to make the mask smaller and more similar to a TW101 one (see my avatar, heh); having a domino mask cover the mouth is a bit too much (you ca, of course, also rework it so that its more of a full mask).

I would also like to give some recommendation that was given to me a year ago, I took to heart, and have since been recommending myself to others with great success: rather than creating your own palette as you go, try to pick a standarized palette that's been tried and tested to provide great visual results. The one thing that gives away that one is creating their palette as they go is that there are too many colors that are too similar. This breaks down the feeling of retro authenticity.

These days I wholeheartedly recommend Endesga32, a carefully crafted palette that resuls in lovely, vibrant sprites:
https://lospec.com/palette-list/endesga-32

edg32-palette-example-palette-usage-examples-by-endesga.png

I would also recommend you investigated into a handful of simple techniques that can improve one's sprite work immensely, like antialiasing and sel-out. This tutorial in particular is extremely comprehensive with all the dos and don'ts of spritemaking, and very entertaining to boot:
http://makegames.tumblr.com/post/42648699708/pixel-art-tutorial

DNAbro · Nov 18, 2018

Weltall Zero said:
I like 6, 7 and 9, but for the latter two I'd put a short sleeve that's inbetween these and 8/10. Also, for 9 / 10 I'd try to make the mask smaller and more similar to a TW101 one (see my avatar, heh); having a domino mask cover the mouth is a bit too much (you ca, of course, also rework it so that its more of a full mask).

I would also like to give some recommendation that was given to me a year ago, I took to heart, and have since been recommending myself to others with great success: rather than creating your own palette as you go, try to pick a standarized palette that's been tried and tested to provide great visual results. The one thing that gives away that one is creating their palette as they go is that there are too many colors that are too similar. This breaks down the feeling of retro authenticity.

These days I wholeheartedly recommend Endesga32, a carefully crafted palette that resuls in lovely, vibrant sprites:
https://lospec.com/palette-list/endesga-32

I would also recommend you investigated into a handful of simple techniques that can improve one's sprite work immensely, like antialiasing and sel-out. This tutorial in particular is extremely comprehensive with all the dos and don'ts of spritemaking, and very entertaining to boot:
http://makegames.tumblr.com/post/42648699708/pixel-art-tutorial

thanks for the advice. Also I realize I made a real dumb mistake and colored all this while I had F.lux on so the colors look different on my phone than my laptop. They are off from what I thought they were lol.

edit: I tried redoing the sprite but with on the of the color palettes I liked on the site. Not the exact one you recommended though cause their wasn't any purple that I liked on it lol.

Improved?

Burt · Nov 18, 2018

DNAbro said:
*snip*

Weltall Zero said:
*snip*

This is all extremely good, extremely important advice from Weltall. It's always acceptable to go outside the palette if you really need to because what the game needs comes first, but having a robust, dense palette to rely on in the vast majority of cases will help you in ways that you won't be able to appreciate until it's too late and your brain is burning in agony from 1) the thought of all the art and colors you have to go back and tweak and 2) the alternative idea of going forward with a bunch of art you know is poodoo. Find a palette that resonates with you, and take it.

Another general piece of unsolicited advice that I feel compelled to put out there, because looking back at my own experience provokes nothing but horror and regret: reduce your sprite sizes and/or resolution. It'll make your art both significantly faster to produce and significantly better as an end product, in the quality of the individual frames themselves and the overall animation. It helps tight palettes go further, it makes revisions/updates quicker and easier, and it absolutely, absolutely, absolutely will make the development process a million times easier. You're asking for a nightmare with sprites that big. Excessively large sprites aren't a useful crutch that help non-professionals get by, they're a ball and chain attached to every limb as you're trying to work.

You might be thinking something along the lines of "Yeah, but..." or "Yeah, except...", and I get it, because it's exactly what I did when I read up on all that stuff way back. But trust me, as someone who's making a pixel art game that renders at 640x360, this is some "Don't put your hand on the red hot stove"-type shit. There's only one thing that's gonna happen if you put your bare hand on that stove, and you don't want to learn the hard way.

Some of the games with the best pixel art of all time have released in the last year or so, and none of them use sprites nearly that big. The Mummy Demastered, Chasm, Owlboy, Tower 57, CrossCode, anything by DYA games, Shadows of Adam has some fantastically tight artwork, the list is huge. I strongly, strongly recommend that (like with the palette) you find something that is both manageable and fits your fancy, then aim to mimic that style.

Jump_Button said:
Been making cuteness

This stuff looks great. I really liked this one from a while back too, although I missed the boat on saying so

DNAbro · Nov 18, 2018

Burt said:
This is all extremely good, extremely important advice from Weltall. It's always acceptable to go outside the palette if you really need to because what the game needs comes first, but having a robust, dense palette to rely on in the vast majority of cases will help you in ways that you won't be able to appreciate until it's too late and your brain is burning in agony from 1) the thought of all the art and colors you have to go back and tweak and 2) the alternative idea of going forward with a bunch of art you know is poodoo. Find a palette that resonates with you, and take it.

Another general piece of unsolicited advice that I feel compelled to put out there, because looking back at my own experience provokes nothing but horror and regret: reduce your sprite sizes and/or resolution. It'll make your art both significantly faster to produce and significantly better as an end product, in the quality of the individual frames themselves and the overall animation. It helps tight palettes go further, it makes revisions/updates quicker and easier, and it absolutely, absolutely, absolutely will make the development process a million times easier. You're asking for a nightmare with sprites that big. Excessively large sprites aren't a useful crutch that help non-professionals get by, they're a ball and chain attached to every limb as you're trying to work.

You might be thinking something along the lines of "Yeah, but..." or "Yeah, except...", and I get it, because it's exactly what I did when I read up on all that stuff way back. But trust me, as someone who's making a pixel art game that renders at 640x360, this is some "Don't put your hand on the red hot stove"-type shit. There's only one thing that's gonna happen if you put your bare hand on that stove, and you don't want to learn the hard way.

Some of the games with the best pixel art of all time have released in the last year or so, and none of them use sprites nearly that big. The Mummy Demastered, Chasm, Owlboy, Tower 57, CrossCode, anything by DYA games, Shadows of Adam has some fantastically tight artwork, the list is huge. I strongly, strongly recommend that (like with the palette) you find something that is both manageable and fits your fancy, then aim to mimic that style.

This stuff looks great. I really liked this one from a while back too, although I missed the boat on saying so

The sprite is 20x50 which doesn't seem too crazy? I just made it bigger so you don't have to look at tiny ass sprite lol. Downloaded some Owlboy sprites to compare and a lot of them are definitely bigger. The one that is just the main character standing is like 25x40.

RiamuFG · Nov 18, 2018

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to tell you all about a new project I have been working on called, Flitspire. It's a tower-climbing action-platformer that someone described as "Downwell x Castlevania x Flappy Bird" lol.
I released a demo of it on itch.io over the weekend and it's received a really nice response. I'd love if you could check it out, it's free to download and play. I hope you have some fun with it. Here;s a trailer of it I posted on Twitter:

Burt · Nov 18, 2018

DNAbro said:
The sprite is 20x50 which doesn't seem to crazy? I just made it bigger so you don't have to look at tiny ass sprite lol. Downloaded some Owlboy sprites to compare and a lot of them are definitely bigger. The one that is just the main character standing is like 25x40.

Yeah, Owlboy was one I was hesitant to put in the list because its sprites are on the larger side, but I didn't know their measurements off the top of my head and the art's so good I included it. The Mummy, too. So, scratch those if you want, but bear in mind that those games took dedicated artists - literally some of the best pixel artists ever - enormous amounts of time and effort.

Your base idle/standing sprite is 20x50, but when you include the full range of motion in the limbs, the character is about a 50x50 sprite. Compared to the ~30x30 sprites that you generally see, multiplied by every single frame of animation, you're looking at a huge amount of extra work for arguably a lesser finished product, because more pixels means more decisions you have to make and more pixels you have to get right. If you're spending even just a moderate amount of time on your art, you're going to see improvement very quickly, and you're going to want to go back and update your stuff, and that'll be a pain in the ass too.

I'm just speaking from my own migraine-experience here, but if you feel otherwise, of course you can do whatever works best for you. If nothing else though, with the Fall Sale coming up I would recommend picking up a few of the DYA Games games and taking Gifcam to them to get a frame-by-frame close up of the art. They routinely drop to $0.99 and have fantastic, tight, colorful, extremely well animated art. At least try making a mock up and some animations with that as a reference and see how it feels to work with that resolution and style.

DNAbro · Nov 18, 2018

Burt said:
Yeah, Owlboy was one I was hesitant to put in the list because its sprites are on the larger side, but I didn't know their measurements off the top of my head and the art's so good I included it. The Mummy, too. So, scratch those if you want, but bear in mind that those games took dedicated artists - literally some of the best pixel artists ever - enormous amounts of time and effort.

Your base idle/standing sprite is 20x50, but when you include the full range of motion in the limbs, the character is about a 50x50 sprite. Compared to the ~30x30 sprites that you generally see, multiplied by every single frame of animation, you're looking at a huge amount of extra work for arguably a lesser finished product, because more pixels means more decisions you have to make and more pixels you have to get right. If you're spending even just a moderate amount of time on your art, you're going to see improvement very quickly, and you're going to want to go back and update your stuff, and that'll be a pain in the ass too.

I'm just speaking from my own migraine-experience here, but if you feel otherwise, of course you can do whatever works best for you. If nothing else though, with the Fall Sale coming up I would recommend picking up a few of the DYA Games games and taking Gifcam to them to get a frame-by-frame close up of the art. They routinely drop to $0.99 and have fantastic, tight, colorful, extremely well animated art. At least try making a mock up and some animations with that as a reference and see how it feels to work with that resolution and style.

All right I get it, now let me go cry in a corner at the thought of redoing any art.

RiamuFG said:
Hi everyone,

I just wanted to tell you all about a new project I have been working on called, Flitspire. It's a tower-climbing action-platformer that someone described as "Downwell x Castlevania x Flappy Bird" lol.
I released a demo of it on itch.io over the weekend and it's received a really nice response. I'd love if you could check it out, it's free to download and play. I hope you have some fun with it. Here;s a trailer of it I posted on Twitter:

before even reading the tweet my thought was "oh it's like Downwell going up with vampires", looks really neat.

Weltall Zero · Nov 18, 2018

DNAbro said:
thanks for the advice. Also I realize I made a real dumb mistake and colored all this while I had F.lux on so the colors look different on my phone than my laptop. They are off from what I thought they were lol.

edit: I tried redoing the sprite but with on the of the color palettes I liked on the site. Not the exact one you recommended though cause their wasn't any purple that I liked on it lol.

Improved?

Uuhm... Personally, I don't like that palette at all. Far too many similar brown shades. Besides, in the PNG it seems to be composed exclusively of blues, grays, purples and flesh tones? No greens or reds or yellows? What a weird and unbalanced palette.

When we say you should choose a palette, we don't mean for your main character, we mean for your entire game. You cannot make a game with that palette above (unless you're content with the entire game looking purple and gray), and you can't use a different palette for each sprite because the color clash would be epic.

For fun, I edited your sprite with Endesga32 + the two purples in your image, and added a bit of cleanup, antialias, selout and plain old changes for the hell of changes. :D

Burt said:
This is all extremely good, extremely important advice from Weltall. It's always acceptable to go outside the palette if you really need to because what the game needs comes first, but having a robust, dense palette to rely on in the vast majority of cases will help you in ways that you won't be able to appreciate until it's too late and your brain is burning in agony from 1) the thought of all the art and colors you have to go back and tweak and 2) the alternative idea of going forward with a bunch of art you know is poodoo. Find a palette that resonates with you, and take it.

Another general piece of unsolicited advice that I feel compelled to put out there, because looking back at my own experience provokes nothing but horror and regret: reduce your sprite sizes and/or resolution. It'll make your art both significantly faster to produce and significantly better as an end product, in the quality of the individual frames themselves and the overall animation. It helps tight palettes go further, it makes revisions/updates quicker and easier, and it absolutely, absolutely, absolutely will make the development process a million times easier. You're asking for a nightmare with sprites that big. Excessively large sprites aren't a useful crutch that help non-professionals get by, they're a ball and chain attached to every limb as you're trying to work.

Excellent point; with resolution, less is more. More pixels = more work for nearly no gain, lost of "purity" and authenticity, etc. I may have most people beat, with my pilot player character :)

For one's first game, the smaller the better. I agree DNBro might be best served by a simpler, smaller style, especially depending on the genre of the game.

Weltall Zero · Nov 18, 2018

RiamuFG said:
Hi everyone,

I just wanted to tell you all about a new project I have been working on called, Flitspire. It's a tower-climbing action-platformer that someone described as "Downwell x Castlevania x Flappy Bird" lol.
I released a demo of it on itch.io over the weekend and it's received a really nice response. I'd love if you could check it out, it's free to download and play. I hope you have some fun with it. Here;s a trailer of it I posted on Twitter:

Downwell 2: Upwell. What Comes Down Must Come Up.
It seems really, really fun. Bookmarking for tomorrow because it's 4 AM and I can barely keep awake. :)

DNAbro · Nov 18, 2018

Weltall Zero said:
Uuhm... Personally, I don't like that palette at all. Far too many similar brown shades. Besides, in the PNG it seems to be composed exclusively of blues, grays, purples and flesh tones? No greens or reds or yellows? What a weird and unbalanced palette.

When we say you should choose a palette, we don't mean for your main character, we mean for your entire game. You cannot make a game with that palette above (unless you're content with the entire game looking purple and gray), and you can't use a different palette for each sprite because the color clash would be epic.

For fun, I edited your sprite with Endesga32 + the two purples in your image, and added a bit of cleanup, antialias, selout and plain old changes for the hell of changes. :D

Excellent point; with resolution, less is more. More pixels = more work for nearly no gain, lost of "purity" and authenticity, etc. I may have most people beat, with my pilot player character :)

For one's first game, the smaller the better. I agree DNABro might be best served by a simpler, smaller style, especially depending on the genre of the game.

this was the full palette

I was using a portion of it, I understand I would use the rest of it elsewhere lol.

Also yeah i do like your edit better. As far as genre it's an RPG about super heroes, heavily influenced by Undertale.

fuck art is hard, coding is easy.

RiamuFG · Nov 18, 2018

DNAbro said:
before even reading the tweet my thought was "oh it's like Downwell going up with vampires", looks really neat.

Thanks! :D

Weltall Zero said:
Downwell 2: Upwell. What Comes Down Must Come Up.
It seems really, really fun. Bookmarking for tomorrow because it's 4 AM and I can barely keep awake. :)

Haha, I did message Moppin to make sure I was cramping on him if ever there was as sequel :P

Weltall Zero · Nov 18, 2018

DNAbro said:
this was the full palette

I was using a portion of it, I understand I would use the rest of it elsewhere lol.

Ah, I see, a 64 color palette. I think you shouldn't use one for the exact same reasons mentioned above for resolution: more colors = more work (more individual color zones on each sprite, more colors you have to manually pick, harder to remember all of them like I know the 32 colors in DB32 pretty much by heart).

DNAbro said:
Also yeah i do like your edit better. As far as genre it's an RPG about super heroes, heavily influenced by Undertale.

Thanks! For an RPG your character may be too big indeed. The thing is with bigger characters work becomes quadratic: you need more frames (because otherwise they move too many pixels each frame and it doesn't look fluid), AND each frame takes more work itself. Definitely not the way to go unless you have a dedicated, talented artist that can handle it.

DNAbro said:
fuck art is hard, coding is easy.

As a software engineer / developer that had two decades of experience before starting to make games (and who couldn't drawn anything to save his life), this was my exact situation two years ago. Take confort in the face that you will learn ridiculously fast and be able to produce at least decent art in no time. That said, you may want to assume most of what you're making now will end up replaced once your skills progress enough.

DNAbro · Nov 18, 2018

Genuine thanks for all the advice and ideas tonight. Seriously appreciate it and you wonderful people.

Now if only I could get advice on how to make my music not suck lol.

Weltall Zero · Nov 19, 2018

DNAbro said:
Genuine thanks for all the advice and ideas tonight. Seriously appreciate it and you wonderful people.

Now if only I could get advice on how to make my music not suck lol.

You're very welcome! Not everyone is so open to advice, hahah.

Can't help you with music, I have no clue myself. :D

SweetSark · Nov 19, 2018

DNAbro said:
I would like some opinions please. Trying to get a more final design for my main character. For context the game is about super heroes and villains, and you can effectively be one or the other so I want a design that kind of fits both. Also wanted purple as the main color. I'm personally partial to 1 and 10 the most but I just want to hear someone else's opinions. If they all suck that's fine too lol.

I prefer 9 myself so if you ever hire an artist for a cover or just for illustration to be able to see his strong muscle.....if he have of course.
Also I always love these kind of mask. Something like this one below:

Sean Noonan · Nov 19, 2018

Weltall Zero said:
You are a one-man game factory! I hope when you said you'd rest when you died it was a figure of speech...

I mean, I hope I'll rest when I'm dead :D?

A little more to show - working on the interaction system. Not perfect yet, but getting somewhere:

Weltall Zero · Nov 19, 2018

RiamuFG said:
Hi everyone,

I just wanted to tell you all about a new project I have been working on called, Flitspire. It's a tower-climbing action-platformer that someone described as "Downwell x Castlevania x Flappy Bird" lol.
I released a demo of it on itch.io over the weekend and it's received a really nice response. I'd love if you could check it out, it's free to download and play. I hope you have some fun with it. Here;s a trailer of it I posted on Twitter:

I just gave this a try. My criticism style is to focus on the negative (as it's the most useful knowledge to improve), so keep that in mind.
+ The game is quite fun and has a lot of potential. It reminded me a bit of an old arcade game called Bomb Jack; I'm wondering if it's a partial inspiration?
+ Visuals are mostly great, and the music is a pretty good fit that doesn't get tiring.
+ Controls are spot on. The main character is snappy and responsive.
- Pretty much every time I was hurt, it felt like a cheap shot. When you're ascending, there's too little reaction time to stop before you hit a candelabra or arrow. It never felt like it was my fault, just that I was unlucky that an enemy happened to be there without any way to know beforehand. There's several ways this could be fixed, like adding a red (!) sign with an arrow at the part of the edge of the screen where there's an enemy in the vertical proximity.
- I only ever got two weapons at the start, the short sword and the crossbow. At first I got the sword so many times in a row I thought it was the only weapon available and wondered what was the point of the gacha machine.
- I ran into what seems to be a locking bug: I reached the top of the first part with a crossbow, but wasn't able to kill one of the minibosses: the one with the shield. I mean, I'm obviously meant to hit him from behind, but he didn't react to shots no matter where they hit, and after 30-40 shots in the back I have to assume it's a bug.
- Try to reduce downtime as much as possible. In particular, when you die and are kicked to the main menu, and have to select Play, and have to walk to the gacha, and press X to activate it, and wait for the gacha animation, and walk to the door and press X, and then fall down the first unavoidable pit, and then jump back up... this is a serious flow killer. Try to add a quick restart button that picks a random weapon and starts you at the tower. Also remove that first pit, it doesn't seem to serve any purpose.
- Hitboxes seem a bit off. The short sword often visible clipped through enemies without dealing damage, especially at the tip. A good rule of thumb is making player attack hitboxes and enemy hurboxes larger than their sprites, and enemy hitboxes and player hurtboxes the opposite, so that the player never feels cheated (bullet hell shooters take this to the logical conclusion and your hurtbox is a single pixel).
- Irregular pixel size is a very strong pet peeve of mine. The art for the game elements is good, but lacks cohesion; e.g. spikes have a lot of resolution, while other elements are much lower. This is particularly baffling in the case of (non-enemy) candelabra, which seem to have large and small pixels in the same sprite (?).

The game has a ton of potential and all of the negatives above are quite easy to fix, so hopefully any of this helps!

DNAbro · Nov 19, 2018

So after taking some advice I tried reducing the size of my sprite

First one was the one from yesterday 18x50, second one is 16x40, third is 12x30.

Not a fan of how I did the smallest one, but the second one could be worked with. The first one is still my fav though.

SweetSark · Nov 19, 2018

DNAbro said:
So after taking some advice I tried reducing the size of my sprite

First one was the one from yesterday 18x50, second one is 16x40, third is 12x30.

Not a fan of how I did the smallest one, but the second one could be worked with. The first one is still my fav though.

Question please.
What is this grey object near the leg?

DNAbro · Nov 19, 2018

SweetSark said:
Question please.
What is this grey object near the leg?

A holster for blaster.

Weltall Zero · Nov 19, 2018

DNAbro said:
So after taking some advice I tried reducing the size of my sprite

First one was the one from yesterday 18x50, second one is 16x40, third is 12x30.

Not a fan of how I did the smallest one, but the second one could be worked with. The first one is still my fav though.

Great job! I actually like all of them, and in fact the smallest one is my favorite of the three. You might probably want to move the eyes a pixel higher? I don't know how that'd look. Also, I think you should put an outline pixel on the top of the holster. Even though it's "open" above, it's still a flat surface that should have an outline. In fact you could even add a black pixel above as if it was the "hole" for the gun. It's quite distracting to see the overal outline broken like that, it seems like a pixel is literally missing.

DNAbro · Nov 19, 2018

Weltall Zero said:
Great job! I actually like all of them, and in fact the smallest one is my favorite of the three. You might probably want to move the eyes a pixel higher? I don't know how that'd look. Also, I think you should put an outline pixel on the top of the holster. Even though it's "open" above, it's still a flat surface that should have an outline. In fact you could even add a black pixel above as if it was the "hole" for the gun. It's quite distracting to see the overal outline broken like that, it seems like a pixel is literally missing.

yeah good point, also tried moving the eyes up a pixel and it looked more off imo. Still not decided on which I'm going to use. Will probably do a test animation with all 3 to see the effort/time/result for each. The sprite during battle will also be different so I need to test some other things too but will most likely be on the smaller side. Though now I just thought a way to abstract it story and gameplay wise. Ugh so much I want to do and test now visually lol.

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