Crocodingus in Cube Island

[madPXL]

The return of the Croco

It's a little dream to remake Crocodingus with pure pixel art... maybe if I find a coder and if I have time too...

so, this time I changed the style, it's a sort of 3D cube-shaped pixel.

some references : Sonic, iLKke, Zoo Keeper...and Crocodingus In Crocoland of course




current

PS : You can find the demo of Crocodingus In Crocoland here

[PypeBros]

maybe the palmtrees would be more interesting to watch if you had leaves perpendicular to each others rather than having all of them in the same plane ?

It's also a bit surprising to see that much "depth" for trees and croco, and so little for the ground. You may want to enlarge that "border" area of your wall, and maybe even relief to the ground itself... Otherwise ... well... funny 

[tocky]

I think the trees look cool as is, but pypebros is probably right about the ground. If the crocodile's going to be moving parallel to the ground, it needs to be at least as wide across as he is.

[zeid]

you have the link to your game wrong, it should be www.madpxl.com/games.htm right now its linking to a pool site

[Mike]

The return of the Croco

It's a little dream to remake Crocodingus with pure pixel art... maybe if I find a coder and if I have time too...

so, this time I changed the style, it's a sort of 3D cube-shaped pixel.

some references : Sonic, iLKke, Zoo Keeper...and Crocodingus In Crocoland of course



PS : You can find the demo of Crocodingus In Crocoland here

This is quite simply adorable.  I'm gonna download the demo now.

[madPXL]

@zeid : edited, thanks

@pypepros & tocky : I will see for the palm tree.
For the ground, if I extend it, I will get a problem of visibility of the "falling" point. So that's why i used this size.
In fact the character is not exactly parallel to the ground. It's rotated on its right for better see its head

[ptoing]

I don't think it would affect the falling point visibility. Look at flashback for example. That had quite deep platforms and it was pretty clear either way.

[ot]What's it with people quoting the original post, or the post directly above for that matter?[/ot]

[MrMister]

battletoads also had deep platforms and it was perfectly clear.

[madPXL]

I took all of yours remarks

so many changes but...

I'm in trouble with colors :

VS

I prefer the blue version, but the character is not clearly visible with this background.
the pink version is better for the visibility...

And you

[Xion]

Hmm, I, too prefer the blue. The red is like...apocalyptic or something. I don't see a visibility problem.

[KittenMaster]

If you change the saturation of the blue background to around 150 or so (that's what I set it to, you can tweak the value), it won't 'glow' as much and it'll help with the "visibility" issue (not really a visibility issue so much the background standing out a lot).

[Souly]

Perhaps try making the grass a bit darker?
I like the red one, dunno why just easier on the eyes.

Probably should have just left the checker pattern alone.

[PypeBros]

I'm giving a couple of ideas a try on an edit ...
1. the grass could be more interesting if leaving a bigger shadow on the "dirt"
2. the initial colour for the background did a nice job. It doesn't need changes imho
3. whatever the colour of the background, blue water seems nicer and definitely more "island" than greyish
4. having the grass going a bit further than the dirt might be nice too
5. "stroking" the edge of the "dirt" couldn't be bad (especially it would help thinking that the water is constraint between the two parts), but i'm not sure i did it right...

imho, the palmtrees are much more interesting this newer way, though i wonder if you could make all the leaves attached to the center of the trunk

I'd love to see a coconut with that style ... and imho the clouds have not found their definitive look .

Anyway, great job. I love it.

[Tobe]

I loves the colors here...and the style pretty much reminds me of FEZ, I don't know why.

Anyway, here's some of my thoughts...
-I'd try avoiding having the top of the monkey's head being on equal level of the background.
-maybe change the clouds or remove them.
-I understand that you're going for a very "cube" styling here, but I'd be working on something that looks more like a low polygon 3D if I were you. In that case, it gives you the freedom to be more expressive on whatever you want to build on in the future.

Maybe it's a matter of preference, so it's really up to what you're looking for.
Then again, I really do enjoy the wonderful styling.

[Anything!]

Uhh... a little bit of everything?

[Godslayer]

Clouds seem a little too close to pillowshading for my comfort.

[wah_wah_69]

Just made a little edit:



Added some coconuts and gave a bit of depth to the clouds, but I think I've ruined it.

[madPXL]

thanks again for C&C

so, I think that I'm done with it.

many changes : HUD added, coconuts, corrections, details...
for the clouds, I hope that with this version everybody will be ok !

the mockup :




I want to play it now 

[brod]

The Palm Tree's leaves look really weird, the top one kinda looks like it's about to fall off it. Maybe you should move it more towards the center of the wood?

[Kren]

hmm the fruits don't fit the style, they have a black outline and everything else doesn't. The palm is really cool but as brod said, the upper one looks like moved more to the left.. probably just some persective issue.

[Atnas]

The pineapples are outlined to accentuate their presence.

Lookin' good, madPXL. Nothing really pops out as off to me. 

[Xion]

The pineapples look way way way out of place. They may accentuate their presence but at the cost of the presence of all other things. Important things like the characters and enemies fall into the background. Their outline plus like, the darkest color in the image makes them pop way too far out. Also they're more organic than anything else in the mockup.

I sorta liked the old Crocodingus' eyes. He looks so bored now.

I like the new clouds.

[Talos]

if keeping the pineapples give outline and more contrast to character and enemies. otherwise reduce the contrast and outline of the pineapples, so style stays consistent.

[PypeBros]

outlines on pineapples would be fine to me (can they be used as hand grenades ?). They could even be blinking (maybe not in black, though) : i've seen this in early platformer and it did a nice trick ... but they break with the "cubism" of everything else (oh, you may want cuboconuts rather than coconuts, too).

One last thing that seems a bit inconsistent is the slope on the left of crocodingus. You only have 45° slopes in the background and here you suddenly bring in a 22.5° thing in a world of cubes. :-/

+1 on croco's eyes that target the next bonus, but i wonder why you did not keep 2-pixels wide eyedots.
+1 on clouds too, and it would be very fun (though an horror to code) to have two crossing clouds to "merge" into the outline of a more complex figure 

[Larwick]

I would suggest drawing the pineapples in a similar way to the coconuts. They need to be further simplified in terms of the detail (don't shadow the light-dots, make them larger aswel). Get rid of the outlines, as other people have said. Also the leaves following the palm tree look is not working - pineapples have leaves that go upwards like () sortof.

I also love the new clouds! Especially if the centre is transparent. I agree with Xion on the new croc eyes.

[PypeBros]

a small edit. It's not working perfectly yet, but it gives me the feeling that continueing your trunk 'till the second set of leaves might bring a solution. Maybe trying to center the 'v' of the leaves on the trunk's center will do it ?

[madPXL]

well...

I made severals tests for the palm tree, If I want to keep the style of 45° lines, move the top of leaves is not very nice for me...it's just a question of perspectives...

if anybody have a good solution, please just make a try

For the pineapples, I chose the black outlines for a visibility's question. In fact, just try to remove the outline and you will see that the fruit is not visible when it is next to the palm tree ...



Maybe put a black outlines on characters too?

For the eyes of Crocodingus, it's a character very bored.
In its first adventure, Crocodingus is not very fan of what he is doing. It is just here to collects bananas because an old mad monkey wants help from it to solve the nuclear invasion of the island...

thanks again for comments and critics, it's very interesting

[edit] a try :

[edit2]

[Conceit]

Had a little fun with your mockup!

-Pineapples: I felt the leaves were too strict even for a cubey aesthetic, took outlines away and made them more notorious trough better use of their pallete....I dare you to tell me they dont stand out now!

-Trees: a different take on the leafs...you can have more variation than you think...just the cubey theme doesnt mean they have to be so predictable

-clouds: You should do these trough code, have them overlap on eachother like this...gives a little flashback of Mario clouds.

-water: a slight fading effect

-dirt: Some fun with tile variation

-Croc: I played with his proportions according to the boring mood you talked about in your last post....dont you give up and outline everything!

-Background: Your problem with clarity is using the same tones for EVERYTHING, dont use the stock green just because what you're drawing is supposed to be green! croc got all the neon-ish greens, I made the foreground yellows into green so they dont blend with croc's. Made the BG layer all light blue tones

[madPXL]

thanks for your great edit conceit, it's more crazy than mine now

- I see what you want for the pineapples,

- I prefer the new leaves, it's better !

- the new lines on water are good too

- more variation on dirt it's a good idea

- for the clouds, it's maybe a little too crazy but why not?

- ok for colors on the croco, but I prefer the old head

- for the background, still again a problem of visibility with the croco for me...

so ... I will redo it.

[Conceit]

OK, glad it was of so much use to you 

I am crazy perfectionist though, I was probably still editing my post and my mockup while you were posting...check to make sure u got the last versions of both :p

[madPXL]

Edit !


With my background colors :

[ptoing]

Hah, now I remember what this reminds me of! Zookeeper on the DS.

[MrMister]

the characters look similar to boom blox

[Feron]

try and play around with the black drop-shadows on the icons.

you could also shift the whole screen up and put them at the bottom, might look better i think.

[brod]

What are the bar things in the middle of the monkeys supposed to be? 

BTW, I'd like to help you make this game, I have 3 years of Game Making experiance, and can make this pretty easily.
So if you're interested, send me a PM/E-Mail.

[wah_wah_69]

What are the bar things in the middle of the monkeys supposed to be? 

BTW, I'd like to help you make this game, I have 3 years of Game Making experiance, and can make this pretty easily.
So if you're interested, send me a PM/E-Mail.

I think it's the neck.

[Atnas]

Isn't it the mouth?

[brod]

Yeah, it's pretty ambiguous. I thought those little dashes at the bottom were mouths.

[PypeBros]

CrocoDingus do not have this problem because of his proeminent mouth. By comparison, it seems clear to me that the line closest to the nostrils is the mouth and that the group of lines just below is the neck. Maybe "embossing" the mouth of the monkeys slightly would help reading them better.

[wah_wah_69]

Edit:
Accentuated both neck and mouth, the mouth is ok, as it does ok with the blocky look, the neck on the other hand ruins it.

[Alex Hanson-White]

the monkeys' mouths might look better if they too bulged out a little. monkeys usually have mouths/jaws which kinda jut outwards anyways.
you could also increase the forehead space to emphasize monkeys' strong brow ridge. might be worth a try.

[wah_wah_69]

You mean something like this? I haven't tried increasing the forehead.



Anyway I feel bad making edits, as much fun as it is, its madpixel's creation not mine.

[megane]

Hmm.  I don't really see the need to mess with the mouths, they were perfectly clear to me.  Certainly don't make them stick out like that; it ruins the blocky effect and makes them look sort of silly -- horselike.

[Kyo]

That looks awesome! The backgrounds remind me of the genesis version of sonic the hedgehog. I love it!

I'll download the demo right away.