Contributions for a remake of fish fillets 1 (GNU General Public License v3 (GPL-3)
Hello, I'm working on a remake of an open source game called fish fillets. If you don't know the game yet you can find the original port here: http://fillets.sourceforge.net/index.php
The remake I'm working on is not a direct port to another language because everything is done from scratch (with the exception of the level models and dialogs which are ported from the original game) and there are many different and new features in the game: touch controls, arm support and much more. The framework and engine are also different (lua, love, 3dreamengine).
I will support higher resolutions than the original and I also support a 3d mode. The game has 2 graphic modes that can be switched on and off at any time (2d and 3d) and therefore I'm looking for at least 2 sets of assets: 1 2d and the other 3d.
State of development: The game is currently fully playable till level 13 (out of 80 levels from the last port). There are a pair of game rules and functions that are not yet implemented (the game does not detect when you finish the level but you can select the levels manually instead).
The game features several color schemes and modes and one of them that may be very handy to create the assets: A grid mode combined with the debug mode. This is a concept art I uploaded with 9 screenshots to show what I'm talking about (the grid mode is shown on the screenshot at the bottom):
Oh I forgot to say, I'm looking for music and sounds aswel, the game supports mp3, ogg, wav and most tracker forms. I also added a library called "moonvox" (https://github.com/9912/moonvox) which is esentially a sunvox player and bindings for luajit to play sunvox files on the game, so the options to create and submit music are very wide. The main track that you currently hear when you start the game is from that library. A complete detail of audio format supported can be found here: https://love2d.org/wiki/Audio_Formats
I may have forgotten something but I'm happy to answer any questions regarding this project and I'm looking forward not only for final assets but ideas, concept arts, sketched and any advise on how to accomplish this work which is quite big (at least for one single developer who is not a graphic artist).
I hope I get the attention of talented artists and creative minds of any field and hope to get in touch and work together soon to make this remake the homage it deserves and the best it can get!
The link to the remake is here: https://glitchapp.codeberg.page/
Hope to hear from you soon and thanks for reading!
I think it's cool that it can be 2D and 3D. I'm assumming the remake you're doing is going to be commercial?
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No mind to think;
No will to break;
No voice to cry suffering.
Hello, I have not considered that, I think it's very possible with the current license, the game have a few external libraries and I need to check them one by one to make sure that something like that is possible... so why not? but I'm little lost with the jungle of licenses, I think GPL 3 allows commercial use of the content as long as the source is provided. if I do so there are already other people involved (you can see them in the credits) so you must take into account that there would be a few people involved that would have to get their part and that the source needs to be provided so that anyone can get the game for free anyway, so it would be almost like a donation or funds and an anknowldgement to the artist and developers than sells as I see it, correct me if I'm wrong.
The code is released as GPL 3. In order to sell a derivative of the open source game to fund and reward the artists involved, the solution would be to create the assets with a different license and distribute them separately while the source code of the game remains open. Here there is a discussion over that topic in reddit:
"If you're just planning on making the code open source, you can keep copyright on your art assets. That way someone would have to come up with completely new art assets to make their own product out of it.
That is answering a question regarding selling an open source on google market, the link is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/2rejt8/is_it_viable_to_sell_an_open_source_game_on_the/
Another answer in the same direction : "Open source the code, make all media (images, sounds, textures, etc.) proprietary. That way people can use your code, but you'll be protected if someone tries to reupload your entire game somewhere else"
I'm opened to keep discussing this topic if anyone else is interested and I'm opened of all kind of collaborations format, I would even be happty to get involved in doing the two things: open source assets and commercial assets.
Just let me know how you would like to collaborate and I'm opened to any format, I just want to make the project move forward and get quality assets whether there's monetary reward or not.
That makes sense. Sadly, I am not professional at music or art, so I don't think I can help you, but I hope you do find someone for your project.
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No mind to think;
No will to break;
No voice to cry suffering.
What sort of music did you want anyway? Or maybe I should say, what style? Orchestral? Electronic? Some people may want to know that if they want to help.
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No mind to think;
No will to break;
No voice to cry suffering.
I tried to be flexible and added several schemes and mode to the game. However, this is a relaxing game in an underwater setting, therefore the kind of music that pass to it should be evocative of the setting and a little hypnotic like the caustic effects underwater... I can get inspired by many underwater tracks I know like the famous from donkey kong country which has those hypnotic repetitive elements, but it can also be more ambient like a soundscape... It doesn't need to be the same as the original although the original game and assets are released as GPL... I'm opened, and I'm not 100% sure of the perfect kind of music for it... I would like to know what people think it is better for the game and I'm opened for experimentation till we get to the right mood for the game...
How's this?
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No mind to think;
No will to break;
No voice to cry suffering.
I like it! it is very close to what I think it pass, the only thing that I think does not pass to most of the game is that it sounds too sci-fi... I have to read again the whole story of the game because there are ufos and other weird things on it but mostly the settings are natural underwater places... Anyway ambient music is the right one for it... maybe some slight modifications to make it sound more aligned to natural underwater settings than space and scifi would be needed...
This one sounds less sci fi I think. I don't know if it's as good though.
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No mind to think;
No will to break;
No voice to cry suffering.
Yes I'm not sure, I like the other one more ... maybe... by just changing some instruments...would provide the sources of the songs to let me make modifications? maybe I can find the way to make them fit more to the game? just an idea... I need to think... I like the style it just miss to me something evocative of water and maybe... some slight melody over it so that is not too extreme ambient...and less sci-fi... maybe not so extreme synthesizers and more natural instruments... I think I need to experiment and change it to get to something that pass to the game. I'm opened to discuss it privately if you want. After hearing more times I know what needs to be changed, there is a synth that sounds perfect for a space settings but needs to be changed to something less sharp... extreme sharp sounds evoque space,starships, metal and artificial materials, we need to change the sound to make it more rounded and warm...
I'll modify it. By tomorrow I'll put it on here.
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No mind to think;
No will to break;
No voice to cry suffering.
Do you want me to replace that first synth?
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No mind to think;
No will to break;
No voice to cry suffering.
Actually, I am busy tomorrow, so maybe Monday.
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No mind to think;
No will to break;
No voice to cry suffering.
yes thank you, take it easy, there's no hurry at all, this is an open source project, take your time and thanks for contributing!
I may open a channel on a chat server to show sketched and ideas and receive feedback.
I would like to share the way I try to create the illusion of a handmade grid with pencil strokes by inverting the colors of my grid and slightly changing the contrast and saturation.
I attached an example I created. The process is yet semiautomated because I'm still testing the right saturation and contrast to achieve the most realistic possible results. The grids in the middle of the attached files are made with gimp by inverting the colors and reducing the contrast and saturation, but there's no reason why it can not be fully automated withing the game and I will probably implement it in my game.
The good part of automating the process is that the size of the grid is perfect, you can copy one cell and check that the size of the tiles correspond to the given information above.
I think this is very useful to see the proportions of the levels in order to draw sketches over it. I would like to receive feedback about the colors I used to simulate the pencil strokes and if it you find this technique useful.
If you plan to use this example please be aware that I reduced the colors on purpose to keep the file small, so please change the mode to RGB before drawing.
@glitchart: "I would like to share the way I try to create the illusion of a handmade grid with pencil strokes"
This doesn't work. Your lines are way too precise to provide the illusion of a handmade grid.
What you'd need is
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
bzt
Thank you! I'm going to try that and see how it looks like. I want to say that those grids won't be final art but a tool to draw sketches and / or assets... I will see if making it more realistic helps in the creative process or if it's better to have those precise lines... I'm experimenting and very happy to receive feedback, I want to create the best possible materials to start creating sketches and assets... Once I create the more realistic handmade grids I will post them for everyone to compare and ask for feedback again. Thanks!
Wow! this was a lot of work... I don't know if I did it right, I drew a slight irregular bezier curve and filled slightly with a pencil brush on gimp, I did it with a graphic tablet so it's almost like real painting with a pencil...
It looks a lot more realistic... now the question is, does this help to create something over it? if it does I don't have any problem creating more... it will of course take me a lot of time...
I'm happy to receive feedback again!
I don't know if it is achievable, but I ask myself if there's a way to achieve something like that with artificial inteligence. I tried to do it passing the sketch to another map and with a few gimp filters... the result is interesting but far away from what I try.
@glitchart: "It looks a lot more realistic..."
Absolutely! It looks pretty good and has that handmade illusion if you ask me. Well done!
"now the question is, does this help to create something over it?"
I'm not sure I understand your question here. You can use this as you would use the original grid. Probably as a background layer in your game, on which you place and move the sprites.
"I don't know if it is achievable, but I ask myself if there's a way to achieve something like that with artificial inteligence."
Not likely. What you'd need is a small script which reads in the lines (grid) coordinates from an input file, draws them as curves with brush on a canvas and saves that canvas as a raster image file (should be simple in python with cairo or with any other scripting language that you like and supports cairo).
Just a thought, I haven't tested this: to avoid scripting, you might be able to create the map input as an SVG file, where each line is a curve path with the coordinates (it's a plain text file with some xml tags and the coordinates after all). Then you can use Inkscape, GIMP or ImageMacik to convert that SVG into a raster image like PNG.
Alternatively if you want to be hardcore, then you can implement curves and brushes right into your game. Disadvantages: your game will be more complex, advantages: your map files could be easily modifiable text files with coordinates.
"I tried to do it passing the sketch to another map and with a few gimp filters... the result is interesting but far away from what I try."
I don't think that will work (there could be a 3rd party filter for that, but I can't recall any). I think the best to draw each map from the aforementioned input file (either SVG or coordinates with a script or in game run-time).
Or, simplest approach, draw each map with GIMP, more work for you, but does not need scripting skills nor complex in-game renderer.
Cheers,
bzt
Thank you!, yes I think I will get the simplest approach, the game is getting overcomplicated and I'm running out of keys for the many options I'm adding. I think those grids would eventually help me (and someone else too) keeping rights proportions as I'm not very good drawing. Now it looks a lot more realistic and that is good to create sketches. Thanks for the ideas to create realistic pencil strokes, now I have a new skill :)
Here is the song, hope it's what you were looking for!
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No mind to think;
No will to break;
No voice to cry suffering.
Would you like me to actually post it for the rest of the website to use, or leave it on this forum?
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No mind to think;
No will to break;
No voice to cry suffering.
Hei thanks, that sounds less sci-fi now it pass better now. Of course it's your song! you can post it wherever you want. I'm not sure how I am going to use the assets yet, I'm collecting them by now .There are 80 levels and I will be assigning the available assets as I receive them by trying to make them fit to the story, the background etc... I'm not sure yet to which level pass your song better... I will also probably distribute the assets separately as they are going to be heavy. I will keep you inform! Thanks for the contribution!
My first sketch, just a concept art based on the original but with higher resolution. Mixed techniques used:
Grid traced with bezier curves and pencil brush on gimp
Kelp made with krita and Ink-7 brush rough 25 px
The windows and the roof are just vectors (lines and circles)
I'm not a graphic artist, I'm experimenting and learning, any feedback is very welcome.
I can provide the krita file if anyone wants to work on it.
I created the grids for the first 13 levels, I will be adding more as I create them. Just in case anyone wants to test any style or test creating tiles.
I can provide a gimp file which have the layers separated (grid, objects and map)
I would like to know what style of graphics do you think would pass better for the 2d assets... vectorial, stylized, pixel art / retro... I would also like to know how do you choose a palette... I guess the palette would be bigger or smaller depending on the style.
Thanks in advance!
This may be a little generic, the assets are generic textures but it looks good to me, I used textures from gimp. There's a lot of room for improvement, what do you think?
Maybe you could have a normal mode and a retro mode. And is that an underwater house, or a sunken submarine?
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No mind to think;
No will to break;
No voice to cry suffering.
an underwater house. Yes I'm going to experiment with different styles... This would be kind of realistic as it uses textures. It looks good to me, just a little generic maybe, but at least is the first time that level has a full hd background which is a milestone. I will keep experimenting, maybe if I do not decide I will have several sets...
And the goal of this game is to get from Spot A to Spot B?
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No mind to think;
No will to break;
No voice to cry suffering.
To escape the maze, is like a labyrinth full of objects that blocks the path to the exit
Nice. Will the big fish fit through the top though?
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No mind to think;
No will to break;
No voice to cry suffering.
Or do they go through there at all?
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No mind to think;
No will to break;
No voice to cry suffering.
no through the chimney falls a block, they escape on the right side by moving the blocks :) a chimney under the water is kind of surreal isn't it?
Hehehe yeah.
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No mind to think;
No will to break;
No voice to cry suffering.
Not bad at all!
But if you take an advice, use darker pastel colors for the background wall and the windows. The foreground texture is ok IMHO, but the background and the foreground are too similar.
Take for example these ancient games, good examples of that:
As you can see, the background is operating with darker, but also less contrast colors, while the foreground is bright and vibrant, so that players can see at once where they can go, and where will their movement be blocked. In your map that's no so obvious, because the background and the foreground are way too similar. (Yes, I've picked some screenshots where the background and foreground differs not only in tone but also in colors. IMHO you can safely use similar colors as long as the background is darker and less vibrant.)
Hope this helps,
bzt
oh thanks... good idea... I did my best to follow your advise... I can always try to keep getting better, I hope there is more contrast now...
I added some free assets for the furniture, I think it starts looking like a real game now...
Just in case anyone has ideas to improve any assets or want to submit them, I created a repository only for the assets. The game and assets are now distributed separately
The assets are here: https://codeberg.org/glitchapp/fishfillets-remake-assets
As a proof of concept, the code to have different sets of assets is already implemented (only on level 1), but extending it to every level if there's demand and assets for it would be very easy.
By pressing the key "g" on any level the color schemes changes to 7 different modes changing the colors and patterns of every level, but on level 1 the assets will also change. I added 4 screenshots with different versions of the backgrounds changing the palettes and resolution.
The assets shown here should be just considered dummy assets to test the code (as any assets that anyone is able to improve).
One important thing I need to mention is that a new set of assets does not need to be in a retro style, that is just something I found cool to add but it does not need to be. The most important thing when adding a set of assets is that the assets are coherent in style and complete enough to be worth of having an own set.
Another thing about the 3d and 2d assets that I forgot to mention is that they are not mutually exclusive: The 3d assets do not need to disable the 2d automatically if it is not wanted so that an hybrid set of assets combining both 2d and 3d assets is very possible ( see screenshot showing it below).
My main task on this project is to create a stable software structure without bugs and full of options to which the assets can be easilly added. I will be trying to assist anyone willing to create assets, create them bymyself and select them from open graphic libraries and sites like this, but as soon as anyone provides a better one I will be very happy to substitute them.
I hope this triggers imagination and creativity! this project is open and alive and contributions are very welcome!
interesting idea... Combination of 2D and 3D.
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No mind to think;
No will to break;
No voice to cry suffering.
Thank you! The idea is to give as much options as possible and I need to explain the options because they are mostly hidden and many people may not find them.
Hi, I did not posted anything since more than a year in this forum and the project as progressed a lot since, so I'm leaving here a summary of what's been added to the project recently just in case anyone is interested:
As this is a FOSS project you can contribute in any field you are interested which includes: giving feedback, betatesting, submiting custom levels( which you can create with the level editor) or you can simply enjoy the game.
The level editor has been released as a standalone app and the repository can be found here
It is not added to the standalone yet but you can actually create pixel art with the editor and for now you can take screenshots within it. I will probably add a function to export to png or jpg (there's some work in progress). This would allow you in future iterations to be able to design both the puzzle and graphics as you could draw with it tiles or elements by toggling some option.
If anyone is interested to contribute on the art of the game I'm specially looking for 3d artist to add assets to the Vr game. There is a plan to fuse both projects into a godot project so that the future game would contain only 3d assets, you can however still contribute to 2d assets if you want.
Developers can also contribute by helping solve issues or providing feedback. If you have your vision of the game you can also fork it and take over (I'll be happy to know so let me know if you decide that).
To see some screenshots of the progress done use this link
I hope you like the progress done.
FISH FILLETS REMAKE
DIRECTED BY GLITCHART
STARRING
SMALL FISH and BIG FISH (as themselves)
Lol cool; looks great so far!
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No mind to think;
No will to break;
No voice to cry suffering.
Thanks, glad you like it, I added your tracks to the game and the music player Umplix, I guess you know it already but just in case.
Thanks for your contributions!
Since there has been some progress with the Vr project and I never shared a screenshot here, here there are a few ones.
As you can see on each of them, there are almost no 3d assets excepting the main characters (which need a lot of work yet). All the flat colored tetris like objects you see need to be textured and sculpted, since I'm not skilled with 3d art I'm also showing them here just in case anyone wants to contribute. The shapes are mostly not very complicated but texturing them may be a bigger challenge...
The game is fully playable now and unless there is any bug I'm not aware of you can complete the whole game. There's no saving mechanism yet but you can select the level where you want to start by simply tweaking the code.
I also added a level editor recently which works with both the 2d and the 3d project, you can create your own levels with it and export them to both projects, if you are curious please check the repository here: https://codeberg.org/glitchapp/Grid-Level-Editor
Feel free to give feedback and I hope you like the progress done!
I think this is very relevant for anyone interested on contributing as the work may be intimidating for some, but as you can see, not all the models are very complex and some have indeed simple shapes and textures.
By the way, those models are part of the open models collected from this site, so you can also contribute by suggesting some already done models that fits with the tetris like shapes the game has.