[WIP] Arcade Academy

[robotacon]

I'm greatful for all C&C I can get. Everything is WIP.

IDEA:
Arcade Academy is going to be a game where you play as young students of a video game hero school.

FORM:
All the teachers are former video game characters and classes you attend are in the form of arcade style mini games. The main part of the game however takes place in platform mode as seen by the sprites below. The students parents all are highly respected game protagonists from all kinds of different games which also serve as harder to reach levels. There's also a rival schools that you interact with.

GFX:

[PypeBros]

there seem to be weird things on the arms and something like a flashing green thing when the front leg is about to move forward again ...

That makes it difficult for judging the rest :-/

[robotacon]

Sorry, I fixed the flashing hand.

I'm guessing the weird things on his arms is what I meant to be a chest plate and a back pack.

[robotacon]

Now I removed some gear for clarity.

[ptoing]

It's a decent start, but you have some fundamental flaws going on.

- In the frames 10-1-2 and 5-6-7 the forward foot is making REALLY odd stuff, jumping and snapping around.

- In frames 1-2 and 6-7 the arms stay the same, no reason for that.

- In the same frames the backwards foot/ lower leg shrinks into the knee. It's important in animation to keep the volumes consistant.

- The arms are slightly different on each of the 2 steps, but why did you just put the legs at the same place and make the back one darker. Even if you make it darker which works well in videogames, you should make them a bit different. And if you make the farther leg darker you should do the same with the arm.

not regarding the animation, the antialias on the outside of the helmet does not help.

Keep it up 

[bengoshia]

I'm loving this piece, but it looks a bit odd that the behind leg is darker than the behind arm, would they be the same(I know that was worded horribly but eh, I'm tired)?

[Jad]

Now I removed some gear for clarity.

Good stuff. You should add a little subtle animation to his arms, he'll look a bit too stiff without it, I reckon, your frame count is quite high but it doesn't show, since his arms are so snappy.

Also, being a spaceman, wouldn't he be walking around in a lot of places with low gravity? Just a feeling I have, if so, you don't need all that heaviness. If he's in an area with earth-like gravity, I suppose his gear would weigh him down a bit.

Otherwise it's a good walk, just make sure that the soles of his shoes make a smooth line as they travel, it's one of the keys to a flowing walk. As of now it's snappy and it's one of the only things that doesn't work.

[robotacon]

Thanks for the constructive criticism. It helps a lot!
I've tried to follow your instructions and this is what I have now:



The arms are not as stiff and I've tilted the feet differently than I did before.
I also added a a little hint of the arms appearing when the arms are straight down so that they don't pop out so fast.

Other than that there is some clean up of stray pixels that seemed to blip/blink.

EDIT:
 I removed the AA on the helmet as pointed out by ptoing. It didn't help and I've tried to stay away from AA in the rest of the piece as well so it looks better without.

[Jad]

Thanks for the constructive criticism. It helps a lot!
I've tried to follow your instructions and this is what I have now:



The arms are not as stiff and I've tilted the feet differently than I did before.
I also added a a little hint of the arms appearing when the arms are straight down so that they don't pop out so fast.

Other than that there is some clean up of stray pixels that seemed to blip/blink.

EDIT:
 I removed the AA on the helmet as pointed out by ptoing. It didn't help and I've tried to stay away from AA in the rest of the piece as well so it looks better without.

Just a big thumbs up for you! This is a great improvement, it's flowy and nice, just how I like my walks :]

Good job! He looks really funky in a way, and I'm digging it.

[am_pm]

Now, I think this might be a personal preference, but I suggest you darken the blinding white light of the helmet. It is distracting and takes away from the very nice walk cycle you have going.

[Mighty Pea]

Unless it's going to be shown at a small size (on my 17" at 1024x768, it looks great at 1x), i'd agree with am_pm. At smaller sizes, the white increases readability, but as size increases the white really ends up fighting for your attention. Lovely animation, i must say.

[Xion]

The image isn't showing up for me.
I copied the url and it said page not found.
Iwannaseeit!

[robotacon]

Thanks all for the C+C.

I think it's going to be x2 for the game, most likely. I'll see what Ican do with the helmet, perhaps a darker shade on the lower part would do it?

I'm at my GF and will be off for a few days but when I'm back I'll keep working on more animations for this guy.

[robotacon]

More of the same, this time firing a rocket-launcher and running with a hand gun.





Any comments?

ps. I added some shade to the dome-helmet

[rabidbaboy]

Very nice.
On the cannon, add some rotational/horizontal movement.
And make it a bit slower.

[robotacon]

Thanx rabidbaboy, I'll see if I can add a tilt to the recoil on the rocket launcher.

Here's Player 2:

[LoTekK]

There are actually two schools of thought, so to speak, on rocket launchers. I'm of the belief that rocket launchers shouldn't really display any recoil at all, but you offset that fact by dumping a metric shitload of smoke and flame out the back. Most larger weapons that I've used are built on a recoilless principle, whether it's recoilless rifles, or LAW launchers, whereby you feel no recoil from the shot, since all the propellant is blown out the [open] rear end of the weapon. Personally I think it'd look cooler with maybe a slight rearwards nudge, accompanied by a bucketload of smoke and flame out the rear.

Nice anims so far, btw. The run is nicely animated and cutesy.

[robotacon]

There are actually two schools of thought, so to speak, on rocket launchers. I'm of the belief that rocket launchers shouldn't really display any recoil at all, but you offset that fact by dumping a metric shitload of smoke and flame out the back. Most larger weapons that I've used are built on a recoilless principle, whether it's recoilless rifles, or LAW launchers, whereby you feel no recoil from the shot, since all the propellant is blown out the [open] rear end of the weapon. Personally I think it'd look cooler with maybe a slight rearwards nudge, accompanied by a bucketload of smoke and flame out the rear.

Nice anims so far, btw. The run is nicely animated and cutesy.

That's true, I forgot about that. I actually had that in mind when I did the animation. I'll see what it looks like later on when an actual heat-seeker is fired.

I've had similar thoughts about the hand-gun, to reduce the recoil if possible.

[Xion]

Oooh, I see them now. Awesomeness abounds.
one thing that looks weird to me - the one thing - is that when they run, their near arms snap forward from the rearest position to the side, but everything else is smooth. I dunno if you did that on purpose, but it looks like a mistake among the smoothiness of the rest of the run anim.
That's it. I really really like these.

[robotacon]

Thanks Xion, I appreciate you saying that.

I've tried to update the running anims so that there is less snap in the arms in just that one frame. In the original cycle I wanted sort of a bouncy feel but now with all the feedback it's much better with a smoother animation.



I also started doing some tiles. The inspiration would be from all the mockups I've seen on this board.
I can't say I went for something original. Perhaps you guys can come with some pointer on how to stir it up a bit.



Oh, and I almost forgot, The color schema is my variant of Arnes now famous 16 color palette.

[miascugh]

quick crit: The shoulder-pads need to move in the running animation! And the run probably would need to be faster in-game, or else the gameplay might turn out too slow.

I like the sprites a lot. The old-school black void background not so much, though.

[robotacon]

Initially they did tilt around with the arm but it looked too mechanical, here's a new edit. Was it something like this you had in mind?



Also added some background to the cave.



Better?

[robotacon]

I've added another weapon to the arsenal. The idea is to use a particle system for the acid later on.
It looks like it could be a pretty useful weapon to fire on enemies that are below you on another floor perhaps.



I tried to make it look like the acid jet is heavier than the hand gun. There are so few pixels to work with though so I'm having a hard time with the arms looking too stiff.
Tilting the gun when running is out of the question and finding an elbow is really hard.

Also, wouldn't it be great if you could see approximately how much acid you have left by looking at the canister? 1 px per 8 shots would make 40 shots per canister.

[JonathanOfDrain]

Looks like it would have the same force as a super soaker, not a fire hose. But I think it's fine since things needed to be exaggerated here and there. I hope the "shot" looks different, I guessing that's a fill in.

[robotacon]

Looks like it would have the same force as a super soaker, not a fire hose. But I think it's fine since things needed to be exaggerated here and there. I hope the "shot" looks different, I guessing that's a fill in.

What do you mean? You think it should have a longer range?
Explain what you think is wrong.

I had in mind something stronger than a super soaker, for all we know it's an electrically powered acid-jet.
Perhaps I should have made it fire at least twice as long.

[rabidbaboy]

I think what he means is it looks weak.
A thicker blast perhaps?

Right now it's like piss, you know.

But I guess it's all in the effect; if it makes people melt, then it might be preferrable to a handgun.

I like that background. Are those green things supposed to be stalactites (stalaCtites -> Ceiling, stalaGmites-> Ground )? They look like grass though, maybe you'd want to change the color. The shapes don't seem to be organic, they look like bricks instead of ground tiles. IS this what you had in mind?:O

[JonathanOfDrain]

Sorry for not explaining, I think the gun has too much recoil. Also it's like it stops in mid-air. It should be "falling" the whole time instead of falling once it hits something. Anyone else agree? Do you agree robotacon?

[robotacon]

I see what you mean. Perhaps it shouldn't look like piss but I'm happy to hear it looks like liquid.
Making people melt sounds like a good idea. Would be hell to pixel though.

The green stuff is supposed to be organic like grass or some space fungus thing. The ground tiles are irregular bricks/rocks and everything between is just dirt, mud and stones.
I wanted to get a feeling of something not exactly human but still humanoid.

Here's the latest update, did work mostly on the HUD.

The ammo section should only show the ammo for the current weapon.
It now displays ammo for the stun-gun, dart-gun, acid-jet, rocket-launcher and the grenade-chucker.



I feel that it's not as other-worldly as I had hoped for though, currently it almost looks medieval which wasn't what I was going for.

[Helm]

Complementary color separation between foreground and background. Give it a try.

[Faceless]

Heh, I was reading through the thread, and just about to put in words what Helm so perfectly illustrated.
It seems that I am alone, but I like the acid gun as is... It's very comical, and I like that.

[Feron]

i think it'd be cool if the acid gun could burn tiles too.

awesome work so far!

[Crow]

Together with that acid gun, that guy totally looks like he would fit into a game just like Heart of Darkness <3

[robotacon]

Thanks for the good feed-back guys.

Helm:
I like the cold background on top of the warm foreground. I'm not sure about dropping the 100% black though, was that on purpose?
Currently I think I did something along the lines of just darkening the background by 50%.
I'll see what I can make with complementary colors.

Feron:
I plan on having destroyable tiles so if you splash them with acid I'd think they would melt.

Crow:
I never did play Heart of Darkness but I take that as a complement.

Again, thanks for the help.

[Helm]

robot, yeah it was on purpose but I didn't do it because of some specific reason. Just an idea.

[robotacon]

I've now taken Helms advice, or rather just multiply the foreground tiles with 58,105,139 to get a background palette with a blueish tint.
I suck at picking out colors manually so I'd rather trust automation to pick colors for me.



While going through my files I found the setup file I used for creating the tile grid that I've used. I figured someone might find it useful.



Step 1. I first started drawing the layout of the screen at 1/8 the size before resizing it to 256x192.
Step 2. I then created an area 6 pixels smaller from the edges.
Step 3. After that I created an area 8 pixels even smaller.
Step 4. Finally I applied a 8x8 grid on top of the whole screen.

With this setup I could get a quick start and continue drawing the actual tiles in Pro Motion with the Auto Tile Completion tool.

The plan is to create most of the map using a simple bitmap and have a translator create the final map file.

[Helm]

automation for colors costs you. I handpicked my colors and put in there a green, a red, and a blue of various intensities and values to balance and complement the foreground. You now have a green background. Don't be afraid, try picking colors by hand.

[robotacon]

Updated the tiles so they look more like something an ancient civilization put together.
Anyhow... I've also updated the tile set so that it tiles better when combined in different shapes.



And here's the latest mock-up.



It might seem that I'm moving away form the space theme so I'll make some of the aliens that built these structures to compensate.

[robotacon]

I'm still animating my little space-man and now after lots of tweaking I've got a climb worthy of being posted.
If you see something that doesn't look right, please let me know.



I've also started to experiment with different types of uniforms for different characters.



Still no aliens though... I'm thinking of some mix of man and animal, like a wolf-man or something. Perhaps fish-people?

[Xion]

I don't get the red face of the last one.
What is it?

In the first one in the blue suit, the shooting animation looks like it could use the far arm outstretched behind for balance or something.

[robotacon]

gotcha on balance on the first one.
The "red face" is a ruby inlay on the helmet. If it's weird I'll change it.

[Stefano]

Since it's a partial inlay, one might think (as I did  ) that it's some kind of liquid or jelly filling the inside of the helmet.
Although now I see what you meant to represent, I can totally see a playable alien ally race, native to a red liquid environment, wearing this type of helmet to "breathe".

[nizzate]

looks great but the one thing that bothers me is the acid gun shooting.  It looks like liquid at first but then it looks like its a rope.  You made the liquid all stay together too much the whole way through. There are a few things i noticed that were strange about it.  The last drops of the acid fall behind the gun. Unless there was a strong wind blowing that couldn't happen.  The last drops have almost no thrust at all. and i don't think the stream should fall backwards. it should reach its maximum distance and fall forward constantly to the ground  I think i would make the last of the stream shoot out a little further or make it separate into smaller drips and and fall on the ground. I still think it just needs some randomness in it.  Try to look at every few pixels and clump them in your mind as single drops and think how where they would go. Thats my advice but nobody else seemed to mention anything about it.  Great work keep going!

[robotacon]

I'm still working on my space-man game. I currently have a build that reads maps and I have a couple of token monsters that you can run around and shoot. The protoype looks pretty much like the last mock-up I did.

I'm having trouble with the crawling animation though because it should really be some Z-axis movement in there but I'm trying to "cheat" that by moving the limbs along the X-axis only. Anyone have an idea for a better approach?

I also had to create some aming frames so that I could shoot down all the monsters (not so many) I've created. . The one aiming up needs to lean forward that much so that you can shoot along walls when you stand close to them. I know the back legs look a littte awkward.

I'm also experimenting with vehicles at the moment. I'd really like some C&C on this one. and this one .

Finally, I "had" to create a plug-in for Pro Motion to create map files for the game since I use images at 1/8-size for maps. I'm having no trouble pulling information from Pro Motion and storing the results in a new file. What I would like to do is write the result back to Pro Motion but all I get is an empty gray frame. I think it has to do with the fact that I'm not creating a true 8-bit DIB. If someone has done something like this in C# please let me know.

/Robo

[robotacon]

Here's a screenshot from the latest build. It's not tileing correctly because I have some issues with my map generator plug-in for Pro Motion but since I'm shading the background tiles in real-time it's still playable. The only creatures you can play against are stupid gel-blobs that mimic metroid zoomers by crawling around on the walls.

The reason I'm showing you this screenshot is to get some feedback on the border around the player and creatures. The border is drawn with a slight opacity which might feel blasphemous for some pixelators.



I'd also like some feedback on this climbing animation:

[BlueCheer]

hmm would you have to jump up to the top to climb it and the items should be more then just 1 color with a darker outline (talking bout those green things.)

[ndchristie]

i don't know about other people, but when i jump a fence I jump(/climb if it's a high one) to grab the top then pull with my arms and shoot up to get one foot on (then I turn around, dangle off, and let go when im close to the ground...but that's specifically fences).  this guy almost looks like he's got a fishing line in his mouth and is being dragged up and over.

[Arachne]

What happened to the darker blue background? It made everything much easier to see.

Your power-ups are difficult to spot, even with a darker background. I suggest making them bigger or adding a bright outline or both.

I like the first vehicle, but the second seems awkward to me. I've seen people ride bicycles like that, and it makes me shudder. I don't know what the idea behind a design like that is, but I think you'll have a lot more control with the balance point placed higher up.

Your space man is not jumping quite high enough to be able to grab onto the ledge. He should also start reaching before he grabs on. Next, while he kicks off with his leg, he should use his arms to push his torso up from the platform so that he can get his knee onto it. Then he can push himself up to get on his feet.

[Bouzolf]

This might help for the climb: http://youtube.com/watch?v=OcOyjr2ahGI.

[robotacon]

BlueCheer:
You don't have to jump up on things to climb them I guess. I've already got a thing implemented so that you'll automatically do a little jump/skip when you run against things that are one block/tile high. This would work for things that are two tiles high or eight tiles if you jump for it. I'm sorry for the green and yellow blobs, they are placeholders that most likely won't be in the game in their current for because they are too hard to hit. You have to lay down on the ground to aim at them.

Adarias, Arachne, Bouzolf:
I've tried to summarize all your different feedback and made this new climb.
.

Arachne:
The motorcycle looks a little dull. It would need to be a sports bike but perhaps I could sci-fi-ify it somehow.

[Souly]

I think you should still have the jump to the wall.
I don't like the feel of him stopping at the bottom and then climbing it.