I second dannorder's comments about the walk cycles, they look really nice but the arms could be a bit longer in the south version.
The breathing is nice but the forearms and hands have a strange 'pixel stretching' thing going on. I don't know what else your supposed to do, but the way the the arms contract and expand seems a little off to my eyes. Particularly the hands snap up on the last frame of the breath in (chest moves up). Maybe try having the hands move up a frame or two sooner, so it's more part of the overall movement (so less noticeable).
overall, I'd say the sprite and the animations look quite good especially for someone who doesn't count themselves as an artist, you definitely got me fooled ;)
All the other ships, etc. were moving at a pretty good clip, so I don't think I was having any technical issues with running the game. As a specific reference point, the player ship seemed to be moving at about 1/2 the speed of the wingman's ship.
movement is kinda slow, even with shift held. Is the idea that you'll upgrade or try out different ships w/ different speeds as the game progresses? Feels like where it is now is ok for a starting point but I don't know if I would want to play the entire game at that speed.
I thought the bullets where a touch small for the genre. I could see them fine so it wasn't an issue.
Enemey bullets and player bullets look fairly similar, I would use the same blue ones used for your wing man for the player.
Red bullets 'blend' in a little with the red star field background.
Just my 2 cents, I would use different colors for the player bullets versus the enemy bullets. Maybe even use distinct shapes for them too. I would also make them nice and bright so they popped off the space background very clearly. Finally, I would make them slightly oversized for the ships. The goal would be to make sure the player could easily see all the bullets on screen, identify gaps, etc. etc.
Player ship should flash or something when it gets hit. Some kind of 'you got hit' feedback.
I don't know how refined the dispatch is supposed to be at this point, but it felt like it ramped up pretty quickly to me. I would start with a few more simple passes that introduce the different enemies and their flight/shooting mechanics. But then, I am not exactly a vetern of the genre, so maybe more hardcore players would like the action to ramp up faster.
art notes:
I like the font w/ the vertical lines cut through it, pretty cool!
Main ship looks cool. It does look like a bigger/slower ship, so that at least matches the feel of it.
Enemy ships look good, they do all look like they come from the same 'fleet' which is nice.
I don't know if this is true or not, but it did feel like there was some resolution mis-match going on. Specifically, the font and UI elements felt much sharper/higher res than the game art. This is especially noticeable on the title page, where the background image is notably lower res than the GUI.
Music is good.
some minor notes:
controller support would be great!
The intro text appears painfully slowly, I would speed it up or give the option to skip or scroll 4x faster by holding a button or something like that.
The pilot who speaks at the beginning of the level looks more like an alien than a human, think it's the coloring that gives him this look.
The game didn't end or restart when I got shot down, it just kept scrolling w/ the enemies flying and shooting.
The game didn't exit when I hit the close button on the game window (X) but it did stop when I hit close on the console window that started up with it. However, while this did quit the game, it caused a 'Program stopped working...' dialog to come up (meaning something in the game's exit code crashed).
I would distribute as ZIP instead of RAR but that's just me.
The 2nd starge of the title menu is a bit confusing. I figured out to click on 'Intro' because there really wasn't much else to do, but I didn't really understand what the menu was for. Is it a level select screen? Try giving it a label maybe? Also the font was kind of small on this menu.
Thursday, April 23, 2015 - 00:16
no, I think it's being written in Windows Batch script. Bash would be a big step up, but Tozan likes a challenge ;)
Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - 00:15
Sorry, yeah before I'd moved this thread over to this forum, I'd posted the following caveat:
@bart:
if you are on vacay or just sick of talking about license stuff, I understand and sorry in advance for being a pest, but do I have warn you I plan to keep pinging here until I get a reply ;)
So yeah, I know I'm being a pest here, and it's ok with me if bart takes his time replying, I know he's a busy guy. I just think this is an important topic for I don't want to let it die.
As for how I would change just the CC-BY section of the current FAQ, I guess I would change it to read:
This license requires you to attribute the author of the content in the way that they specify. It also prohibits the use of additional legal or technological measures that may restrict the redistribution of the work (eg. DRM). Provided the author is properly credited and it is distributed only on DRM-free platforms, it is generally safe to use this content in a commercial work.
It's pretty cool and a neat play on the same kind of light vs. dark theme that underscores Instant Dungeon!
Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - 03:56
not to throw it back at you, but you don't need to use Illustrator for this.
If all you need are PNGs, there are plenty of freeware programs out there that could work just as well.
GIMP and Paint.NET come to mind.
Just decide how many frames you want and literally create the animation frame by frame by moving the pixels about and saving each frame out as a new PNG.
To make it easier for yourself, start with just one wave moving up and down over a few frames (3-4).
Shouldn't be too hard and you'll be learning a skill to last a lifetime ;)
Saturday, April 18, 2015 - 03:25
just my 2 cents. You have 3 layers, a back, a middle and a front.
I would move the front to the right, the middle to the left and the back to the right at about 1/2 speed of the others.
Are you asking for someone to actually produce an animated GIF (or something like that) for you?
Love it!
Lots of nice touches, like the winding staircase seen through the door!
Also, that Minataur is totally boss!
I second dannorder's comments about the walk cycles, they look really nice but the arms could be a bit longer in the south version.
The breathing is nice but the forearms and hands have a strange 'pixel stretching' thing going on. I don't know what else your supposed to do, but the way the the arms contract and expand seems a little off to my eyes. Particularly the hands snap up on the last frame of the breath in (chest moves up). Maybe try having the hands move up a frame or two sooner, so it's more part of the overall movement (so less noticeable).
overall, I'd say the sprite and the animations look quite good especially for someone who doesn't count themselves as an artist, you definitely got me fooled ;)
ps
All the other ships, etc. were moving at a pretty good clip, so I don't think I was having any technical issues with running the game. As a specific reference point, the player ship seemed to be moving at about 1/2 the speed of the wingman's ship.
My thoughts after a couple of quick plays:
gameplay notes:
movement is kinda slow, even with shift held. Is the idea that you'll upgrade or try out different ships w/ different speeds as the game progresses? Feels like where it is now is ok for a starting point but I don't know if I would want to play the entire game at that speed.
I thought the bullets where a touch small for the genre. I could see them fine so it wasn't an issue.
Enemey bullets and player bullets look fairly similar, I would use the same blue ones used for your wing man for the player.
Red bullets 'blend' in a little with the red star field background.
Just my 2 cents, I would use different colors for the player bullets versus the enemy bullets. Maybe even use distinct shapes for them too. I would also make them nice and bright so they popped off the space background very clearly. Finally, I would make them slightly oversized for the ships. The goal would be to make sure the player could easily see all the bullets on screen, identify gaps, etc. etc.
Player ship should flash or something when it gets hit. Some kind of 'you got hit' feedback.
I don't know how refined the dispatch is supposed to be at this point, but it felt like it ramped up pretty quickly to me. I would start with a few more simple passes that introduce the different enemies and their flight/shooting mechanics. But then, I am not exactly a vetern of the genre, so maybe more hardcore players would like the action to ramp up faster.
art notes:
I like the font w/ the vertical lines cut through it, pretty cool!
Main ship looks cool. It does look like a bigger/slower ship, so that at least matches the feel of it.
Enemy ships look good, they do all look like they come from the same 'fleet' which is nice.
I don't know if this is true or not, but it did feel like there was some resolution mis-match going on. Specifically, the font and UI elements felt much sharper/higher res than the game art. This is especially noticeable on the title page, where the background image is notably lower res than the GUI.
Music is good.
some minor notes:
controller support would be great!
The intro text appears painfully slowly, I would speed it up or give the option to skip or scroll 4x faster by holding a button or something like that.
The pilot who speaks at the beginning of the level looks more like an alien than a human, think it's the coloring that gives him this look.
The game didn't end or restart when I got shot down, it just kept scrolling w/ the enemies flying and shooting.
The game didn't exit when I hit the close button on the game window (X) but it did stop when I hit close on the console window that started up with it. However, while this did quit the game, it caused a 'Program stopped working...' dialog to come up (meaning something in the game's exit code crashed).
I would distribute as ZIP instead of RAR but that's just me.
The 2nd starge of the title menu is a bit confusing. I figured out to click on 'Intro' because there really wasn't much else to do, but I didn't really understand what the menu was for. Is it a level select screen? Try giving it a label maybe? Also the font was kind of small on this menu.
no, I think it's being written in Windows Batch script. Bash would be a big step up, but Tozan likes a challenge ;)
Sorry, yeah before I'd moved this thread over to this forum, I'd posted the following caveat:
@bart:
if you are on vacay or just sick of talking about license stuff, I understand and sorry in advance for being a pest, but do I have warn you I plan to keep pinging here until I get a reply ;)
So yeah, I know I'm being a pest here, and it's ok with me if bart takes his time replying, I know he's a busy guy. I just think this is an important topic for I don't want to let it die.
As for how I would change just the CC-BY section of the current FAQ, I guess I would change it to read:
This license requires you to attribute the author of the content in the way that they specify. It also prohibits the use of additional legal or technological measures that may restrict the redistribution of the work (eg. DRM). Provided the author is properly credited and it is distributed only on DRM-free platforms, it is generally safe to use this content in a commercial work.
Well that's a first stab anyway.
Just pinging to keep this one alive:
bart, no interest in this?
Hi all, just wanted to pass this along:
brokenecho recently used this art pack for his Lundum Dare #37 entry 'Safer in the Dark'
You can check it out at:
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=45690
and
http://broknecho.itch.io/safer-in-the-dark
It's pretty cool and a neat play on the same kind of light vs. dark theme that underscores Instant Dungeon!
not to throw it back at you, but you don't need to use Illustrator for this.
If all you need are PNGs, there are plenty of freeware programs out there that could work just as well.
GIMP and Paint.NET come to mind.
Just decide how many frames you want and literally create the animation frame by frame by moving the pixels about and saving each frame out as a new PNG.
To make it easier for yourself, start with just one wave moving up and down over a few frames (3-4).
Shouldn't be too hard and you'll be learning a skill to last a lifetime ;)
just my 2 cents. You have 3 layers, a back, a middle and a front.
I would move the front to the right, the middle to the left and the back to the right at about 1/2 speed of the others.
Are you asking for someone to actually produce an animated GIF (or something like that) for you?
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