nemezes

Whoa that was WEIRD! But I have to admit, like many of us, I have long dreamed of becoming a rooster-man and giving the smack down to giant mosquitoes.

I had fun with it!

I guess I need to make something and post it here sometime too.

NotionGames

That right there! I would love to see more games with that visual style making it big in places like Steam! It's pretty, it's smooth, there's just nothing that isn't appealing about it. I hope it's something that catches on more.

MelVin

Yes, being determined enough can get you through most set backs. My previous desktop computer had a large jar of Ragu holding the CPU cooling fan down to the CPU because some things went terribly wrong when me and a friend thought we could fix my computer on our own... Won't be making that mistake again.

Also, that deformation tool is included in Spriter Pro, but it is still bugged to all hell and is not ready for proper use. The guys at Brash Monkey were saying they'll have it included out of the box when they release Spriter 2. Apparently it's gonna be a free upgrade for anyone who currently owns Spriter Pro. I really wish Spine's UI was as smooth as Spriter's because they already have all their parts working.

The method i'm using right now isn't the most graceful, but it seems to be working out so far. I'm drawing my characters on paper, outlining them in black ink and then taking a picture of it with my phone. From there i import the image into my computer, open Gimp and pull up the image. I use the color select tool to select the black ink and then delete the surrounding area that was the paper. Then i have a hand drawn image to color and shade as i need! It's an odd way of doing things probably, but when you lack good tech you gotta improvise! You don't even wanna know all the crazy crap i go through for my pre rendered games.

MelVin

I am quickly noticing how much more fluid Spriter's animations are than traditional frame animation. That deformation tool is really something too!

Hey everyone! I just wanted to toss out some development notes and fun facts that compare and contrast GP: Redux and City of Amber today.

To start, Grave Prosperity was never presented with a story. It was meant to slowly unravel as the game progressed through its episodic play. Unfortunately that meant that nothing was known about the Protagonist either. It made it difficult to really care about Amber and what she was doing. With City of Amber I decided to make it in the exact opposite way.

This time you will know your character's past, her feelings on that past, and where she plans to take her future- all right out of the gate. Even her body is a representation of her history and character. From the battle scars that cover her back, to the large wings tattooed under them which represent her desire for freedom from her current life. Everything tells a story in this game. And the rather thickly laid on theme in the intro will have heavy influence over the creatures and horrors Lilly will encounter in Prosperity. There aren't just unexplainable nastys crawling around in the dark anymore. Now many of the monsters (and sometimes locations) will be a product of Lilly's own personal demons and faltering sanity.

There is a lot going into this on all fronts, and I am very excited about its completion!

It's taken some time, but the opening to City of Amber is finally complete! This game contains more sensitive subjects than its predecessor, GP. There is extreme violence, mild (but tasteful) nudity, and controversial political views. Enjoy!

As a note: The political views presented in this game are not meant to be taken to heart, just used as a tool to better define our heroine...

I'm sure the answer to that will vary from person to person. In my opinion, if you draw it by hand yourself then it counts.

nemezes

A tag like "no pixel art used" does seem like something that could almost be seen as a draw in the market right now.

Not saying that I have any issues with pixel art in games. It's something I grew up with, so I can definitely appreciate it for its classical feel.

But there is a very very high volume of these types of games being made now too. It would be a breath of fresh air to see some more variety in our games' aesthetics. I mean I love the look of my pre-rendered graphics I use in my current project, but if all games were being developed like that it wouldn't really be all that special anymore. We should try stepping out of our comfort zones, whether it's pixel art or 3D graphics, and make something different from time to time. That's the only way we'll get better in our art as devs.

That's very interesting! So basically by using Spriter, C2 will save overall space by loading movement data from the Spriter files instead of image data?

hobibit

That is very cool! I've never seen anything made that way. I like it!

MelVin

I've been curious about the file size differences between exporting an animation in .png frames or exporting in a Spriter animation file. Is one more efficient for keeping a game's file size smaller than the other?

That's a good looking game there! It looks like something like I would want to make. Did you use Spriter or any tools like that?

Has anybody made an entirely hand- drawn game with C2? I don't mean a game made with pixel graphics, but one that was actually drawn on paper or tablet and imported into C2. I'm thinking about doing this as a secondary project, and I was wondering if this is a common practice?

I'll probably end up using a tool like Spriter to help animate the sprites and give a dynamic feel to things like hair and clothing. What do you all think?

I'm a huge fan of using FMV's in my games. I never have any issues with a playback delay either. But they are VERY taxing on the game's file size. If you do decide to use them, I would wait til the end to start importing them and testing them. Otherwise game testing is gonna be a grueling task because loading up the game will take forever thanks to its overall size.