Some game I made, AC meets DS

[Py687]

Great expressions

 

Also is that guy trying to stuff the explosion into his mouth

[Fragrant]

@Tofu Thanks, and yes, yes he is.

 

Feral Fury/Beast Mode, haven't really decided on the name of it. It's similar to a BloodKnight's Frenzy, in that it's a powerup rooted in primal rage, and stacks with normal powerups.

http://i.imgur.com/YpvxXed.jpg

 

 

EDIT: More stuff:

 

The organization, V.E.R.M.I.N., composed of various species who are into garbage and filth, have made an alliance with the L.O.G. (League of Greed), allowing them to boost the power of their troops using special pills they tricked unto the debris dwelling denizens that serve under them(pictured as average roaches). There is a pill for each species. But the roach, due to their highest numbers, have become the main unit for the organization, being well balanced and with the ability to fly.

 

http://i.imgur.com/Wm1ebx5.jpg

 

High ranking members, such as those three picture at the top(Rad Rat, Muave Mouse, and Reek Roach.) oversee operations on a planet, and always reside, with their armies, in the places society hides away it's garbage.

 

Previously, despite their numbers and widespread presence in the galaxy, they where a low risk organization, but with these new pills, they have become a significant threat on all planets they reside on.

Edited April 7, 2017 by Fragrant

[Fragrant]

The bird girl that usually appears with an Epee sword. Although she doesn't match the group she is with, so this is a redesign to better match her role in the story. I had this laying around for a few days due to not being able to figure out what weapon to give her, most likely a bracelet or wand that manipulates an element like wind, or something more melee oriented.

 

http://i.imgur.com/yLoRxsZ.jpg

 

EDIT:

 

http://i.imgur.com/kunH2eX.jpg

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/fBqdEL0.jpg

 

 

I have no idea which finished version is better:

http://i.imgur.com/5vUnPPq.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/TJui0ob.jpg

 

EDIT:

 

http://i.imgur.com/VqDrQwu.jpg

Edited April 14, 2017 by Fragrant

[Fragrant]

http://i.imgur.com/GUbjbeJ.png

[Fragrant]

Some sketches explaining their biology and stuff.

http://i.imgur.com/Tz1oxXq.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/LB78idL.jpg

[Fragrant]

3D

 

http://i.imgur.com/uiy19Qd.gif

 

http://i.imgur.com/YPb0PQO.gif

 

http://i.imgur.com/vlm6gha.gif

[Py687]

How did you come up with the animations? The cockroach swagger is boss.

[Fragrant]

Thanks, I used blender and mixamo. Just blender for the knight, since I made his animation from scratch, so it's a bit rougher than the Mixamo supported Roaches.

 

Some more, and it took sometime to learn a good blender/mixamo process, you need at least basic 3D level to do it, so it's not as hard and time consuming, but still a bit of a hurdle.

 

Some more:

http://i.imgur.com/C98HWgb.gif

 

http://i.imgur.com/lHLcE3L.gif

 

http://i.imgur.com/S8UuP3E.gif

 

Roaches with swagger walk are stronger, due to swag.

[Py687]

Keep it up, dude, I'm loving these. Also forgot to mention I liked the image from April 16th.

[KORTOKtheSTRONG]

swag roach

[Fragrant]

@Tofu Thanks, and I'll do more animations once I get time.

 

@Kortok They be hatin his roach swagger eryday

 

Some more power-up info. The initial stage is known as "Default". The next stage is "Deluxe", and the final form is "End Game". If there is something more than that, it would be known as "Beyond", and is super legendary. Aside from these three transformations, there are power-ups that stack at any point in their transformation, such as "Bloodknight", Feral Mode, HALO, or Inner Demon. The last two are illustrated on the page.

 

The multipliers go like this: Default x1, Deluxe x1.5, End game x3. Although, originally those last two where x3 and x5, I might actually go with the latter instead. Power-ups give 20% to 75% more power on top of the transformation already, thus their stack-ability.

 

http://i.imgur.com/9LJqycc.png

 

By the way, in worlds with garbage regions, lots of pest species interbreed, especially mouse x fly or Rat x Roach.

 

 

EDIT:

http://i.imgur.com/I6W8K13.jpg

Edited May 6, 2017 by Fragrant

[Fragrant]

http://i.imgur.com/RcZHLZR.png

[Fragrant]

Finally got a Playable demo of the Knight game up:

 

http://theefenders.fulgryph.xyz/game/index.html

 

Still in a rough state, but I wanted to put it up so you guys could play it.

[Fragrant]

Updated the game demo, now there's dashing and a few other things. I finish setting up a base for the website.

http://theefenders.fulgryph.xyz

 

Here's a gif of the gameplay:

http://i.imgur.com/QsZmuBv.gifv

 

Some new art:

http://i.imgur.com/IQn1SQC.png

Edited May 22, 2017 by Fragrant

[Py687]

Art is fresssshhhhh

[Fragrant]

Thanks, @Tofu.

 

Now that I've got a playable demo, I updated the description of my gofundme:

https://www.gofundme.com/theefenders

 

Forgot to post this painting:

http://i.imgur.com/Kqcu1vt.png

[Fragrant]

Hows this for an updated environment?

Before:

http://i.imgur.com/ivIdRvk.jpg

After:

http://i.imgur.com/BLCyfQM.jpg

[Mom]

It's definitely less of a distraction than the first. First one grabs your attention prior to the characters in the foreground. Second one fights for attention with the characters.

 

I think to go even further, you could play with the depth of field of the rocks in the background by adding atmospheric perspective. Objects in the extreme foreground need to be darker and potentially make them majority shadow with only highlights showing so they can be less of a distraction and won't be on the same visual plane as the characters. The characters could use drop shadows underneath them to ground them into the environment, as well as some more highlight and shadowing work/more contrast to make them stand out a bit more:

 

 

 

Before:

http://i.imgur.com/EWfx9dW.jpg

After:

http://i.imgur.com/uU5fMm0.png

 

 

 

As someone who's spent a lot of hours dealing with tilesets for environments, I can give you a few tippers to make it so they don't have the hard edges around them, for completely smooth transitions.

 

 

 

The tile you used for the ground texture is this 155x155px square I'm assuming:

http://i.imgur.com/0YKNwX5.png

 

 

When repeated in a grid of 5x5, you get these harsh transitions that clearly show the boundary of each tile:

http://i.imgur.com/7dp9TRc.png

 

 

The quick and dirty way of solving this is by taking your original tile, repeating it in a grid of 2x2, and then taking a selection of the same 155x155px, and putting the selection in the middle of the grid, as seen here:

http://i.imgur.com/TebUwGd.png

 

 

Now you can smooth out those harsh boundaries with brushwork etc. The textures you're using here look like you've used photoshop's liquify and smudge filters, so I'll do the same, and here is what I get:

http://i.imgur.com/l5EIHhh.png

 

 

Now if we take that new tile, and grid it out to 5x5, we g et something smooth like this without harsh boundaries:

http://i.imgur.com/f6wost5.png

 

 

That is only the first step to making good tilesets though. Even though we got the harsh edges taken care of, there are still very clear features within the texture that are easily seen as a grid, in the picture below I've circled the prominent feature I see:

http://i.imgur.com/yG9iYrq.png

 

 

To alleviate this, you need to play around with the pattern on your original 155x155px tile so that the prominent features are not gridded, rather diagonal to each other. As humans, we are programmed to see grids easier than we do things that are triangular:

http://i.imgur.com/EGSMGgl.png

 

 

 

There are more resources about this online, and the video game that does the best job at this triangulation of textures is Secret of Mana 2, which is perhaps the pinnacle of pixel and tileses. It's definitely the game you'll want to study if you want to have really good tilesets.

Edited May 26, 2017 by Mom

[Fragrant]

Yo, thanks for the info, really helpful. I didn't know about using that 2x2 method then refining it, as well as using a diagonal method, to get rid of the bad tiling. The method I was using was really unreliable.

 

Secret of Mana! That is actually one of the games I was studying while working on this game. Specifically, Seiken Densetsu 3. I played it for 10 minutes years ago, and I never forgot. The other sprites I'm studying are Advanced Guardian Heroes and Rockman X4. But the animations actually, since I'm using 3D. I haven't studied the tilesets, good call, I should take a look at Seiken's method of tiling. Yeah, I gotta use the atmospheric depth trick on the level's background.

 

Anyways, finished the slash effect on the knight.

http://i.imgur.com/FZlULSN.gif

 

Re-Updated the game again, added bells and whistles, such as slash and hit effects.

http://theefenders.f...game/index.html

Edited May 27, 2017 by Fragrant

[Fragrant]

I still haven't worked on it since then, but here is some footage about the hit effects I was talking about:

 

http://i.imgur.com/S0dBde6.gif

[Fragrant]

New Gameplay footage, with his whole moveset added(Although forgot to use Super Slash), I went a bit crazy with his dash attack.

 

LINK TO GAME: http://theefenders.fulgryph.xyz/game/

 

Give it a shot, and maybe record you're playthrough and show me how you play.

http://i.imgur.com/l1GHCTz.gif

 

Use GIFCAM to record, it's free and simple to use. http://blog.bahraniapps.com/gifcam/

 

Gif of his new hit effects and dash move.

http://i.imgur.com/S0dBde6.gif

 

This is the old dash, you can see the final version in the first gif.

http://i.imgur.com/3HaDQ6L.gif

 

Anyways, thanks @mom for sharing those tiling secrets, still haven't got to it yet, since I was working on the finishing the character, still gotta add some sound and hit effects before he is done. Once I get back on the background graphics, I'll be able to implement this technique.

 

EDIT: Dark Blade Joust.

http://i.imgur.com/OuHyPVL.jpg

Edited June 1, 2017 by Fragrant

[Py687]

You're making headway!

[Fragrant]

@Tofu Thanks, things slowed down a bit, but I'll pick up again soon. I have had some art laying around for the past few weeks, here are some. The other art are rough storyboards for the 1st chapter of the comic that would go with the game. I'm still wondering if I should post that though.

http://i.imgur.com/bJUq9WP.png

http://i.imgur.com/Opc0v2X.jpg

[Py687]

Cute growth of the princess.

[Fragrant]

Thanks, now just gotta put her in a game.

 

Mass Production Vermin Unit, Roach type: LoveBug:

http://i.imgur.com/Ot1ppSS.gif

 

http://i.imgur.com/BNikmLZ.gif

 

http://i.imgur.com/CNhFKBi.gif

 

Trying to finish another, codenamed: Dirtbag, that flings poison globs at the enemy.

Edited June 23, 2017 by Fragrant