Mockup Frenzy #4: Invasion!

[AdamAtomic]

Mockup Frenzy #4: Invasion!

Resolution: 224x144 (or 144x224)
Colors: Arne's 16-color Palette

Theme: Invasion!
Start Day: October 1st, 2007
Deadline: October 15th, 2007
Notes:  Click here to read about the development of Arne's palette, and to see some great little mockups by Arne and Tomas.  224x144 is the resolution used by a little-known portable console called the Wonderswan Color.  However, I have no idea what the specs are for that machine, nor do I care!  As for the theme...you're free to interpret it however you choose...I am looking forward to seeing some creative interpretations this time 'round!!  Ah, .TakaM has just informed us that the screen was frequently used portrait-style, so 144x224 mockups are happily welcomed as well.  Good luck!


Is this your first Mockup Frenzy?  Why not check out the rules & results from Mockup Frenzy #1: Mobility!, Mockup Frenzy #2: Ninjas!, and Mockup Frenzy #3: GB Demakes!


RESULTS:

Souly, ptoing, madsk8tard:


Pixelfish, Skull, arachne:


Adarias, jonkk, helm, kindred, mice:


Great job everybody!  Sorry about the whole "no banner" thing...I will definitely have one for MF5!!

[.TakaM]

It's also worth mentioning a lot of wonderswan/colour games had the screen portrait oriented since the system could also be held that way
so, not strictly widescreen


*watch this space*

[madPXL]

Humm, new interresting challenge and a nice palette too!

invasion = space invader's like?

and Adam, where is the new banner? 

[AdamAtomic]

As for the theme...you're free to interpret it however you choose...I am looking forward to seeing some creative interpretations this time 'round!!

Seriously people why do I even bother putting these notes up there 

I keed, I keed!  But yeah new banner coming soon, didn't have time for it yesterday...

[Souly]

Doubt I'll finish this.
But I thought I'd post it here just in-case I decide to finish it up.
If I have another update it will probably have some aliens in it.

[ptoing]

Woooo! This is done btw. >:0

[Rydin]

That's exactly what I first thought of ptoing.   

[ndchristie]

this palette is so not me, but this topic so is!

posting major WIP here so that i'll force myself to make time to finish it:

update slightly still heavy wip

basic hack'n'slash with RPG elements, it's the Viking Invasion!!

play as vikings, celts, germans, slavs, or amerindians to resettle your people, defend your homeland, or take advantage of the havoc to make a name for yourself

blue guys are yours, drab guys are theirs, right now only 1 unit, a good viking swordsman.  the floating ring indicates he is one of your controllable Thanes (you can have AI helpers as well in your battles).

[Sherman Gill]

That is a thing of beauty, Adarias. Particularly 2x.

Makes me wish you'd use more standard palettes more often.

[Opacus]

Woooo! This is done btw. >:0

Nitro, haha!

[madPXL]

my turn, the giant invasion of tomatoes !!!

you plays with a carot as guest to fight against crazy tomatoes

[Jad]

Carrot is looking way too penile right now.

[Pixelfish]

I've got a pretty rough WIP, placeholding the first page.

[miscdude]

ehehe....ive never entered one of these before...anyways
i present the first portrait style
(alien)invasion mockup(yes i know...no creativity : P)

im not sure how i like it...but oh well >>
if made into a game youd play the alien, if that isnt obvious(dunno...xD)
i cant decide how well things read(because i know what everything is...) so if something is confusing please say so ^^
btw; awesome explosion pixelfish

[jonkk]

WIP



Marco, retired intergalactic bounty hunter, wakes up one day in his cozy summer house finding his home planet under attack by weird aliens in tin cans labelled NASA.  Help Marco defend his planet from the intruders with his GooTastic home appliance, that he got for christmas last year.

It's pretty empty right now, or at least missing a HUD.  Feel free to make any suggestions at all.  I'm pretty new at this, and have just been studying the fine artists of this forum and I love all the critique you guys give.  It's seriously awesome.

Oh, and hi everyone.  My first post here..

Update: A slightly more alien-like colour scheme, and earthlings!

[Sohashu]

http://www.vidgame.net/BANDAI/Bandai/Wonderswan/wsc_sys.jpg

So you can base your mockup on the actual buttons, if you so wish. 

I should definitely get summin in this time.

EDIT: 

Working on some platforming shooter.  obvious WIP. 

[Helm]

CYBER INVASION
(I am terrible at making up names for games)



This would play pretty much like Desktop Tower Defense. It was a challenge to fit all the gameplay information in the small resolution, but I think this would actually work. For those that don't know, this is sort of a Rampart clone, where enemies come from the top and the left, and want to go to the right and bottom (forcefieled doors). You have to arrange a number of defenses to fend off the invasion. When you kill enemies, you get more points to build more defenses. The brilliant part is that you can create paths with the defenses for the enemies to flow through (though the path must always lead to a viable outlet, you can't block it). It's strategic on many levels. Throw in fast enemies, immunes, swarms, flyers, and it gets quite hectic! I've been addicted to it for the past few days, so I thought I'd attempt a similar mockup. I wasn't a fan of the 'lol desktop picture!' theme, so I went with *bzzt* CYBERNETIC IN-TER-FAAACE *hrrrk*

[Kren]

Helm thats really cool I like those types of game, the only thing wrong is that it is hard to read it at x1, at x2 it looks more readable, probably because all the objects are to close together.

[Kindred]

A generic mock-up but I wanted to try the palette out.

[Skull]

It started with just one;


Update3:

This is looking well 'Army of Trolls'

Update4:

[rabidbaboy]

Let's see if I can pull this idea off.

[mice]

Me too!
"Cliché Invasion"



Done?

[Arachne]

Here's my WIP so far.

Hell is being invaded by celestial beings and it's your task to drive them out. They've set up mind control devices of some sort, which you have to destroy, and you can hit mind controlled creatures with your pitchfork to disrupt the effect. Just killing them is easier, but then you won't get any points.

Edit: Angels, a dominion and an ophan.


Edit 2: Ran out of ideas for the background.


Edit 3:

[Pixelfish]

Is it okay if this frenzy gets prolonged a couple days?

[tocky]

As I understand it, the frenzies are open forever. Adam justs collects the entries on the set date, and probably again at some point in the future. But it's not a competition or anything, you can add stuff whenever you like.

[madafacka]

CYBER INVASION

Thats some serious stuff right there, Helm, really loving it so far.

[AdamAtomic]

Great job guys (and gals!!)   Collected all the entries thus far.

Pixelfish - yea you can post to this thread for as long as you want!  Periodically I will collect and archive the entries for posterity.  Theoretically anyways   Haven't actually archived any yet...*needs to get on that*

[Crow]

I will finish mine for sure Like, soonish. Shame its not done yet.

[baccaman21]

I've just noticed... there's no transparency index in that pallette? ('arnes' pallette) - surely color zero should be transparent therefore maknig you color choice only 15?

(oops sorry I meant to post this on the Invasion Frenzy thread... got mixed up with my windows...) :S

[ptoing]

Why do you need a fix transparency colour? The C64 had none, the speccy had none? The NES had none. Still no problem

[baccaman21]

Yeeeees... But we used exclusion masks in those days, and that took up more gfx memory than pallette index masking does AND seeing that this Challenge was supposed to be for the Wonderswan (which I'm pretty sure would have followed the more modern masking convention) then I still stand by what I said...

Hold on a minute... The NES didn't use a mask color...? really? [one of the systems I never worked on directly] - are you sure PT?

[AdamAtomic]

dead sure - it used instanced palettes with a hardcoded alpha index of 0 for sprites, and no alpha for backgrounds.  so you had 64 colors total, but you built max 8 at a time discrete palettes of 3-4 colors.  so no, a good GLOBAL 16 color palette (like the C64) doesn't need a transparency channel OR exclusion masks   Gameboy worked the same though, you should know this!

[ptoing]

Well, on the NES you just give the sprites 1 of 4 set palettes you defined and colour 0 is always trans.
Similar on the C64, 4 colours and one of those is always trans. No masks needed.

Did you need masks on the speccy?

[baccaman21]

it depended on whether or not you had interesting backgrounds... if it was something graphically and technically 'simple' like say

manic miner

-or-
jet set willy

...then no, as it was set against a prodominantly balck b/g and it used pixel collision, but with something like, say...

Renegade  

-or-
knight lore

-or-
head over heels

Then you'd definatley use a pixel mask...

Towards the tail end of game development on the zx we tended to use masks as par for the course regardless...

Incidentally, for those of you that don't know what a pixel mask is its where you'd have a repeated version of the sprite as a silhoetted version kept in memory, sometimes (usually) 1 pixel bigger than your sprite... this version of the sprite is printed to screen first to (effectively) CUT OUT a section of the screen where the actual 'detailed' version of the sprites is then placed. The use of which is obvious when you look at the screens I've shown above... in case it's not obivous, it so that in games like knight lore, head over heels etc, any details in the background don't merge with the sprite creating an ugly mess of merged pixels...

it's not so much of a problem these days as there are more than 'just' two colors... or 1-bit depth... ON or OFF... I look at things like that assassins creed these days and cry at just how far digital visualisation have come...

[Helm]

good god I'll never get over how horrid the speccy is as a game art machine.

[baccaman21]

that may be the case but it was a seminal piece of technology that a great deal of pros cut there teeth on.

[Helm]

of course.