@chasersgaming: Cool! That green is actually a really good choice, it gives the set a slighlty off, slightly creepy vibe that is really cool an unique. Gives the set just the right hint of personality. You can see the diffence with my SMS versions that use a more traditional color choice there. It still looks great, but it's a bit more vanilla compared to your stellar orignal.
Just wanted to let folks know that this project isn't dead!
Still no proper index palette support or color editing, but based on some nice feedback from Chasersgaming, I've gone ahead and rolled up a new version with a few small changes:
Added option to change background color (default is black). Separate initial paths maintained for save/load image/palette/project file browsers. (Previously, all save/load file browsers used same initial path variable) Added a small selection of useful palettes to project distribution, these can be found in the 'palettes' subfolder of the install folder. Load palette dialog defaults to starting in '[INSTALL_PATH]/palettes'. Colors with alpha values less than 255 removed from palettes. Only unique colors loaded from images/palettes (roll back of previous and broken support for indexed images/palettes). Support added for reverse color selection (clicking swap color and then match color.)
On the long term front, I have put some time into wrangling GTK so there is still hope for a version with a proper GUI down the road, just have to clear some other stuff off my plate first.
> I've tried the visual novel idea and it wasn't great
Well you tried anyways, at least now you know you're stuck with game making and not just story telling! :)
> , but I still have no ideas about what to actually put in the game O_o especially level design,
I've definitley been here. Actually if you ever wonder why Yulpers has such a well developed level editor, it's because I spent a lot of time working on that as a way to put off making the actual levels because I felt like when I closed my eyes I drew a complete blank for what I wanted the levels to look like. That said, once I got going I found the levels came pretty quick. It was really just a matter of establishing some of the base rules and then playing around with all the toys I'd built for the game (eg. different enemies, crates, power ups, etc). So don't worry, even if you feel lost at first, once you start pencilling some things in, I'm sure the creative juices will start flowing and before long you'll find you have more level ideas than you can fit in the game.
One of the things I did to get started on the Yulpers was just to spend some time staring at the original Super Mario levels:
I didn't want to copy those maps exactly, but just like we all do with pixel art, I spent some time studying them, looking at the tricks they use and trying to think about how to apply similar tricks in my levels.
I'll add that as far as 2D platformers go, one of the big take aways I got from looking at those classic SMB levels is how stretched out they are. Each level has just a few sub-sections to it each with it's own 'idea' behind it. I found I had a tendency to try and cram too many ideas into one level, eg. 'a few crates and baddies, then a sequence of jumps, then a staircase, then some pits with baddies over them, then some more crates, etc. etc' After looking at the SMB levels I realized I needed to user fewer ideas per level and stretch those ideas out further, making platforms longer, spacing out jumps and baddies more, etc. The result is a win-win: you don't need to come up with so many unique ideas to fill a single level and areas/ideas have more weight and are more memoriable to the player because they don't zip by as quickly.
Well, I don't know if that bit helps at all, but I'm sure studying the SMB can help. :)
> it's actually easy to be too critical of your own work, rather than the other way around?
Yeah, I know what you mean, on the otherhand, you certainly don't have to look too far these days to find folks who are clearly not nearly critical enough of their own work (eg. steam) ;)
@Xom Adept: Look forward to hearing where your engine search takes you!
@theidiotmachine: Wow! thanks for the recommendation. that Love2D does indeed look like a really good! I love how the home page itself has three line tutorials for drawing text, loading and drawing an image, and loading and playing a sound. If they added one for reading the joystick/keyboard they'd have everything you need to get started in less than 20 lines. Very simple and to the point without a lot of structure and/or orginizational theory to learn before you get started. I'm sure the bigger engines get you better pipelines and such, but for some one starting out, this looks golden! Been looking for something to use to introduce my boys to the magic of game programming and I think this could well be it.
Color question for you, I notice the clouds, waterfall highlight and mountain highlight use a kind of bright slightly sickly green. Any special reason you went with that instead of one of the bright blues? I chose a bright blue on the SMS conversion there but only really because SMS only has one bright green like that and I'd already used it for the ground/grass highlight.
btw, in case it wasn't obvious, that's a re-color to the Sega Master System palette. Two variants because I couldn't decide if the lighter or darker brown looked better. Well, I thought the brighter brown looked better since all the other colors also got a bit brighter in the conversion, but the dark brown is closer to the orginal.
Really great NES set! Although, I think it looks even better on SMS! ;)
Seriously though, your sets keep getting better and better. Really like the use of black as a both dark and shadow on the rocks in this set. It's a common trick I know, but you did a great job with it here and it gives the set a very authentic NES look. :)
@Spring: I just want to say thanks for opening this thread and being so honest about your development struggles. I don't think the topic is too personal, making games is hard and we've all had similar struggles. I think it's actually very instructive for others to hear about the problems you've had and the ways you've tried to combat them. I also commend you for taking such a critical look at your own work. I know that's not an easy thing to do but I'm sure it's a process that will serve you well over time.
Outside of that, I don't have too much to say that VinnNo.0 didn't already cover. The visual novel idea is certainly an interesting one. You could maybe try doing a story that way just to see if you find it satisfying.
@VinnNo.0: I hate to be a hater, but I can't resist offering a counter point, I love the look of Child of Light, but I seriously played it right up until the first battle and never touched it again. I found the switch from real time action running and jumping about to turn based combat stifling and frustrating. So I am in the camp that the game is not a great example of mixing platforming and RPG gameplay very well. But then again, you can check Metacritic to see I am clealry in the minority on this, so maybe it just shows what I know. ;)
@Xom Adept: Not much to add, I would just say start with what's free. Honestly, if you've already done bare C and SDL any of these engines should feel like a cake-walk.
I'd be happy to run an Art Challenge for this. I guess it would be a bit different than other challenges, in that submissions would just be screenshots or links to demo pages. We wouldn't require anything to be functional, so even just PNG mock-ups done in PS, GIMP, etc. would be accepted. That way even folks with no web programming background or access to hosting for a demo page could contribute.
@chasersgaming: I had an idea about how to handle running the art challenges but when I wrote it up, it seemed like it was getting kind of off topic for this thread, so I started a new thread to discuss ideas on that. Here's the link for that discussion:
@MedicineStorm: I do hear a lot of voices in here saying they like the current layout, but I think you can always safely read that as a suggestion to replicate/imitate the current layout with whatever new code/layout you come up with. I don't think anyone is saying you should try and use the exact same layout/code from the current page since as you've already made it clear that that isn't technically feasible. I don't think anybody particularly cares what goes on behind the scenes, we are all just giving suggestions for how the final page should look.
@TheOuterLinux: Just to confirm you are not seeing things, that is the same way the page at http://199.180.155.219 renders on my laptop (Window 10 Firefox) and my desktop (Windows 10 Chrome) and my tablet (IOS 12 safari), so it's definitely not an issue with your choice of browser or platform, the page layout is just borked of it's own accord. To be honest, I don't remember it looking this insane when I first discovered this thread a few weeks back, so maybe we are just catching it in a malformed state due to someone being in the middle of working on it. On the otherhand, it's possible it was always like this and I am just confusing that page with the many other alternatives that have been presented.
@MedicineStorm: I agree folks should strive to provide constructive feedback, but I don't think TheOuterLinux was intending to pile on or be overly negative. The page at http://199.180.155.219 really does look a mess right now. Also, TheOuterLinux did express a preference for mirroring the current page and a rationale for doing so (not forcing users to learn a new interface), so the comments were not without any suggestion of an alternate solution.
Is there no interest in having an art challenge for 'Re-Design The OGA Homepage'? This thread almost seems to have become an art challenge itself and I think it might be cool to see what the broader OGA communitity might come up with.
Can anyone whose run an art challenge let me know if those steps seem about right or if I'm missing something?
@chasersgaming: Cool! That green is actually a really good choice, it gives the set a slighlty off, slightly creepy vibe that is really cool an unique. Gives the set just the right hint of personality. You can see the diffence with my SMS versions that use a more traditional color choice there. It still looks great, but it's a bit more vanilla compared to your stellar orignal.
Hi all!
Just wanted to let folks know that this project isn't dead!
Still no proper index palette support or color editing, but based on some nice feedback from Chasersgaming, I've gone ahead and rolled up a new version with a few small changes:
Added option to change background color (default is black).
Separate initial paths maintained for save/load image/palette/project file browsers.
(Previously, all save/load file browsers used same initial path variable)
Added a small selection of useful palettes to project distribution,
these can be found in the 'palettes' subfolder of the install folder.
Load palette dialog defaults to starting in '[INSTALL_PATH]/palettes'.
Colors with alpha values less than 255 removed from palettes.
Only unique colors loaded from images/palettes (roll back of previous and broken support for indexed images/palettes).
Support added for reverse color selection (clicking swap color and then match color.)
Download at:
https://withthelove.itch.io/pixelpalettetool
On the long term front, I have put some time into wrangling GTK so there is still hope for a version with a proper GUI down the road, just have to clear some other stuff off my plate first.
@Spring:
> I've tried the visual novel idea and it wasn't great
Well you tried anyways, at least now you know you're stuck with game making and not just story telling! :)
> , but I still have no ideas about what to actually put in the game O_o especially level design,
I've definitley been here. Actually if you ever wonder why Yulpers has such a well developed level editor, it's because I spent a lot of time working on that as a way to put off making the actual levels because I felt like when I closed my eyes I drew a complete blank for what I wanted the levels to look like. That said, once I got going I found the levels came pretty quick. It was really just a matter of establishing some of the base rules and then playing around with all the toys I'd built for the game (eg. different enemies, crates, power ups, etc). So don't worry, even if you feel lost at first, once you start pencilling some things in, I'm sure the creative juices will start flowing and before long you'll find you have more level ideas than you can fit in the game.
One of the things I did to get started on the Yulpers was just to spend some time staring at the original Super Mario levels:
http://ian-albert.com/games/super_mario_bros_maps/
I didn't want to copy those maps exactly, but just like we all do with pixel art, I spent some time studying them, looking at the tricks they use and trying to think about how to apply similar tricks in my levels.
I'll add that as far as 2D platformers go, one of the big take aways I got from looking at those classic SMB levels is how stretched out they are. Each level has just a few sub-sections to it each with it's own 'idea' behind it. I found I had a tendency to try and cram too many ideas into one level, eg. 'a few crates and baddies, then a sequence of jumps, then a staircase, then some pits with baddies over them, then some more crates, etc. etc' After looking at the SMB levels I realized I needed to user fewer ideas per level and stretch those ideas out further, making platforms longer, spacing out jumps and baddies more, etc. The result is a win-win: you don't need to come up with so many unique ideas to fill a single level and areas/ideas have more weight and are more memoriable to the player because they don't zip by as quickly.
Well, I don't know if that bit helps at all, but I'm sure studying the SMB can help. :)
> it's actually easy to be too critical of your own work, rather than the other way around?
Yeah, I know what you mean, on the otherhand, you certainly don't have to look too far these days to find folks who are clearly not nearly critical enough of their own work (eg. steam) ;)
@Xom Adept: Look forward to hearing where your engine search takes you!
@theidiotmachine: Wow! thanks for the recommendation. that Love2D does indeed look like a really good! I love how the home page itself has three line tutorials for drawing text, loading and drawing an image, and loading and playing a sound. If they added one for reading the joystick/keyboard they'd have everything you need to get started in less than 20 lines. Very simple and to the point without a lot of structure and/or orginizational theory to learn before you get started. I'm sure the bigger engines get you better pipelines and such, but for some one starting out, this looks golden! Been looking for something to use to introduce my boys to the magic of game programming and I think this could well be it.
btw: for those interested url is https://love2d.org/
Color question for you, I notice the clouds, waterfall highlight and mountain highlight use a kind of bright slightly sickly green. Any special reason you went with that instead of one of the bright blues? I chose a bright blue on the SMS conversion there but only really because SMS only has one bright green like that and I'd already used it for the ground/grass highlight.
btw, in case it wasn't obvious, that's a re-color to the Sega Master System palette. Two variants because I couldn't decide if the lighter or darker brown looked better. Well, I thought the brighter brown looked better since all the other colors also got a bit brighter in the conversion, but the dark brown is closer to the orginal.
FANTASTIC!
Really great NES set! Although, I think it looks even better on SMS! ;)
Seriously though, your sets keep getting better and better. Really like the use of black as a both dark and shadow on the rocks in this set. It's a common trick I know, but you did a great job with it here and it gives the set a very authentic NES look. :)
@Spring: I just want to say thanks for opening this thread and being so honest about your development struggles. I don't think the topic is too personal, making games is hard and we've all had similar struggles. I think it's actually very instructive for others to hear about the problems you've had and the ways you've tried to combat them. I also commend you for taking such a critical look at your own work. I know that's not an easy thing to do but I'm sure it's a process that will serve you well over time.
Outside of that, I don't have too much to say that VinnNo.0 didn't already cover. The visual novel idea is certainly an interesting one. You could maybe try doing a story that way just to see if you find it satisfying.
@VinnNo.0: I hate to be a hater, but I can't resist offering a counter point, I love the look of Child of Light, but I seriously played it right up until the first battle and never touched it again. I found the switch from real time action running and jumping about to turn based combat stifling and frustrating. So I am in the camp that the game is not a great example of mixing platforming and RPG gameplay very well. But then again, you can check Metacritic to see I am clealry in the minority on this, so maybe it just shows what I know. ;)
@Xom Adept: Not much to add, I would just say start with what's free. Honestly, if you've already done bare C and SDL any of these engines should feel like a cake-walk.
I'd be happy to run an Art Challenge for this. I guess it would be a bit different than other challenges, in that submissions would just be screenshots or links to demo pages. We wouldn't require anything to be functional, so even just PNG mock-ups done in PS, GIMP, etc. would be accepted. That way even folks with no web programming background or access to hosting for a demo page could contribute.
@chasersgaming: I had an idea about how to handle running the art challenges but when I wrote it up, it seemed like it was getting kind of off topic for this thread, so I started a new thread to discuss ideas on that. Here's the link for that discussion:
https://opengameart.org/forumtopic/sharing-art-challenge-duties
@MedicineStorm: I do hear a lot of voices in here saying they like the current layout, but I think you can always safely read that as a suggestion to replicate/imitate the current layout with whatever new code/layout you come up with. I don't think anyone is saying you should try and use the exact same layout/code from the current page since as you've already made it clear that that isn't technically feasible. I don't think anybody particularly cares what goes on behind the scenes, we are all just giving suggestions for how the final page should look.
@TheOuterLinux: Just to confirm you are not seeing things, that is the same way the page at http://199.180.155.219 renders on my laptop (Window 10 Firefox) and my desktop (Windows 10 Chrome) and my tablet (IOS 12 safari), so it's definitely not an issue with your choice of browser or platform, the page layout is just borked of it's own accord. To be honest, I don't remember it looking this insane when I first discovered this thread a few weeks back, so maybe we are just catching it in a malformed state due to someone being in the middle of working on it. On the otherhand, it's possible it was always like this and I am just confusing that page with the many other alternatives that have been presented.
@MedicineStorm: I agree folks should strive to provide constructive feedback, but I don't think TheOuterLinux was intending to pile on or be overly negative. The page at http://199.180.155.219 really does look a mess right now. Also, TheOuterLinux did express a preference for mirroring the current page and a rationale for doing so (not forcing users to learn a new interface), so the comments were not without any suggestion of an alternate solution.
Is there no interest in having an art challenge for 'Re-Design The OGA Homepage'? This thread almost seems to have become an art challenge itself and I think it might be cool to see what the broader OGA communitity might come up with.
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