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AppGameKit Classic Chat / The Simplest Art That Is Still Expressive & Interesting

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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 03:47 Edited at: 19th Jul 2018 03:54
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Hello forum folks.

A lot of people are interested in achieving maximum graphics quality... or rather fidelity. With the ultimate goal often being to achieve so called "realistic" graphics that look like... well real life or actually better than real life. Like stylized realism with reality kind of enhanced.

For many years now I have been far more interested in the exact opposite... achieving the most simplistic graphics that are still expressive and visually interesting.

Tonight I played around again with this mocking up the basic visual elements of a single screen 1280x720 platformer game. Thinking in terms of simplistic I chose the humble rectangle as the basic shape. Then simply added eyes and a mouth. Something was missing and I realized eye brows add a lot of readability to express happiness, anger, good, bad, etc so added those. Still something missing so I added the sort of 3D appearance to the characters to help with readability of knowing if they are facing left or right. I also put some focus on the overall palette to help make things cohesive and hopefully somewhat pleasing to look at.



Full-size...


Of course, later on if brought to life as a full game everything would be animated and particles and color cycles and so forth (all of the polish phase) that would add a lot of visual interest. But the goal is to make it visually interesting with the most simplistic of art style as possible in a static screenshot / mockup.

I'd be very interested to see what the rest of you come up with. With the goal being to create the most basic... most simplistic graphics you can that allow characters to be very expressive (eyes, mouths, etc) and overall when the game is fully completed and brought to life would be visually interesting.
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blink0k
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 04:00 Edited at: 19th Jul 2018 04:01
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I think the easiest way to produce art is to combine black or dark solid colours with gradients (As a general rule). Very basic curvy shapes. some examples;




More important than anything else i find that if i am constantly thinking about communicating with the player, then the imagery takes care of itself;
Does the player pop out from the background?
Am i communicating the players purpose/character?
Do the backgrounds convey the location?
Are the NPC's, pickups, obstacles instantly recognizable?
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 04:09 Edited at: 19th Jul 2018 04:33
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Thanks @blink0k that first image looks very good. Simplistic yet still interesting. The other ones especially the last one are way more involved than I am thinking of. In fact it actually looks quite complex. But the first one is an interesting stage/environment done in a simplistic manner. I wish it had a couple of different characters in it so we could check the readability of those. That is the main thing I am focused on is the most simplistic yet highly readable expressive characters.
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blink0k
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 05:02 Edited at: 19th Jul 2018 05:06
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I don't believe the last one is too complex. If you remove the background and just look at the foreground shapes they are very simple. The background could easily be a simple gradient (and probably should be)

As for a character i would choose a contrasting colour, green i think. So using your simple square shape maybe something like this;


I think you could imbue him with character fairly easily with anime type expressions.
Note that the character has a dark outline to separate it from the background
I think you could have a lot of fun animating him with a jaunty walk cycle

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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 05:25 Edited at: 19th Jul 2018 14:32
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That looks good. A nice simple design. Stands out well and through animating the eyes and body with simple animation could be expressive as well.

On that last one I mean the stalagmites and stalactites look like detailed hand painted art and the whole scene looks very detailed and complex to me. The gradient part is simple of course as are the silhouettes in the foreground.

I might continue with this mock-up and see how it ends up as a playable game with polish added.

Most interested in seeing what people here come up with for such things.

Simplistic yet interesting visuals in actual game releases to me are things like these...

Thomas Was Alone


Seek Etyliv


Bit Blaster XL


3ANGLEZ



And on the "high end" side would be things like Echoes+


Basically think of minimalism only with the "characters" being more expressive.
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blink0k
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 07:53 Edited at: 19th Jul 2018 10:21
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Yes. Interestingly with the first one;
If you take away the glow and shadows it's boring

And with the last one;
If you take away the glow it's boring

Good examples of using shaders (I think) to add appeal.

If it were me i'd stay away from pixel stuff. Way too much time to create and you generally need to hand paint all the rotations

Check it out, two colours;
https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/469352
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Phaelax
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 14:52
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The last pic with the detailed background, what was that game called? I remember playing the heck out of it when it came out, it was quite fun.
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 15:35 Edited at: 19th Jul 2018 16:32
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Something like this could be cool with the characters being more expressive.



This visual style relies more on color / particle fx than anything it seems. Characters themselves are not expressive directly but narrative and motion gives them "character"

This looks interesting...


And this...


This too...
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 16:38
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Actually.... after checking out games with minimalist visuals again and posting here which allows for a better comparison I think my characters might be too detailed. Maybe in trying to make them expressive I added unnecessary complexity. I think is workable though. Just need to focus more on the level imagery to bring it to the same style / detail as the characters to make it more cohesive I think. And hopefully that doesn't end up completely failing at keeping everything very simplistic.

The characters above are actually my second attempt. The first try were more detailed with teeth on the enemies and hair on player and enemies. I knew that was "too much" so started over from scratch and simplified. Maybe I could do that again as well. Maybe try both ways. Bringing level up to characters and bringing characters down to level.
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kaband
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 17:01
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I don't have anything to contribute visually. But very good points. Need not be super complex to be attractive. A simple clean design goes a long way. However, it certainly take skill to create a simple design that is expressive and conveys something to the player. It's simple, but not necessarily easy to pull off. Describing something with as few words as possible, but still being able to get great detail out of that means you have to make wise choices.

I think its when it gets to that in-between stage that it starts to look "cheesy". No longer clean and simple, but not good enough to compete with the complex imagery.

At any rate, I always like your posts Garbenjamin. They are always interesting and good discussion material. Keep em coming!
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 17:43 Edited at: 19th Jul 2018 18:17
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Thanks @kaband and I agree with you. It's not that creating truly detailed complex high fidelity art is simple but the past years I see that kind of like "of course it looks great... the art is detailed/realistic/stylized/looks like a huge amount of effort went into it" so in such a case it should look excellent. And I think everyone knows you can approach game visuals that way the AAA way.

I am fascinated by these other visual styles at the complete opposite end of AAA how some people can make a screen with a dozen cubes or rectangles look very interesting and pleasing to look at. And I agree it is not as easy to accomplish as the simplistic look of any one object might make a person think. There is an overall cohesiveness or something going on that makes it so taken as a whole it creates a visually interesting display.

Choice of colors I think has a lot to do with it. An overall pleasing palette. I spend a lot of time on the palette. Usually a small number of colors. Of course that can lend itself well to creating that cohesive look. Particularly things like monochrome but there are many sites out there with color wheels and ready made palettes for websites and games that I experiment with a lot.

I think this does a great job of illustrating how important the color scheme is. With traditional programmer colors (pure red, pure green, pure blue, pure yellow, pure cyan, etc) this would not look nearly as good.
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 19:36 Edited at: 19th Jul 2018 19:41
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By using some simple rectangle texturing it goes from this this...


to this... which is probably "too much" detail but I think it seems more cohesive. Probably needs to be done in a more subtle manner. BUT... I think as a fully working game might work quite well as it is.
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smallg
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 19:58
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i'd be tempted to keep the platforms clean and clear so they don't blur with the background so much (not helped by the similar colouring).
it mostly just needs some depth, add some shadows for the platforms and characters and some layered scenery (maybe something like rain or leaves could work) and then it will look a lot better already
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 20:17 Edited at: 19th Jul 2018 20:19
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Thanks @smallg I will experiment with that tonight. Basically I am experimenting with just using very simple stuff and seeing how it looks. I think I agree about the platforms. At the least I think making them a bit brighter would be good. This stuff even for simplistic style still takes a mass of experimentation at least for me. So I am showing those iterations of experimentation and we will see where it ends up. Drop shadows would definitely add depth and make it all seem more 3Dish. I considered showing the sides of the platforms.

If you or others want to knock out a mock-up screen that would be awesome. It would be interesting just to see how different people approach it from the beginning with character designs and platforms and backdrop etc and their own iterations of improvement. Probably be helpful to others as well.
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puzzler2018
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 20:28
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I feel there is tuns of scope of 2D games - even though bigger priced games are all 3D - I think it maybe worth investing time to develop 3D ones.

Check out my Maze Generator - 2D to 3D


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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 21:04
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@puzzler2018 I'm not sure what those have to with exploring the most simplistic visuals? Lol

Of course the AAA games are all in 3D and very large teams so are bigger and higher priced. For Indies, whether 2D or 3D the prices vary greatly. There are many 2D Indie games priced from $15 to $30. But this a whole different topic.
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puzzler2018
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 22:15
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Atari Ping Pong is ace lol - those blooming Cartridges was ace
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JLMoondog
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 22:16 Edited at: 19th Jul 2018 22:17
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I still think Prince of Persia looks amazing today, because of it's use of rotoscoping animation. Than Delphi's follow up, Another World and eventually Flashback, stepped it up and is in my top 5 games of all time easily.







These games are in the cinematic platformer genre, my all time favorite.

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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 22:46
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@JLMoondog I agree both Prince of Persia and Another World have a reasonably simplistic excellent visual style and both are great games too. They have a "clean" look to them.

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fubarpk
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 23:12
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I particularly like JLMoondogs second piccy it shows a good combination of simplicity
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puzzler2018
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 23:39 Edited at: 19th Jul 2018 23:40
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Wow - thats amiga similar to Another World

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JLMoondog
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Posted: 19th Jul 2018 23:56
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All three games were designed and made by the same person. He pioneered the Rotoscoping Animation technique used and created the Cinematic Plateformer Genre, Prince of Persia being the first.

What makes the three games and their graphics pop and look so good is the use of shading, along with simple edge lighting in order to give depth to the levels and characters. GarBenjamin, I suggest adding some kind of shadow or shaded variation with the backdrop of your game and your characters, then add a nice edge light to one side, you'll be amazed how much it pops out without sacrificing the 'simple graphics' look.
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blink0k
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Posted: 20th Jul 2018 00:27 Edited at: 20th Jul 2018 00:28
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If you think functionality and communication then that will direct you. For example your mockup has an orange, highly saturated, background and yellow platforms. Those colours are very close on the colour wheel and will tend to blend.
So if you have a desaturated background and contrasting characters/platforms then those things will pop.
Based on the concept you liked maybe something like this;

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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 20th Jul 2018 00:44 Edited at: 20th Jul 2018 00:47
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A few more color changes. A slight change of hue on the backdrop, brightening the platforms a bit and adding a very subtle drop shadow beneath the platforms.

These changes take it from this...


to this...


I think this would work well in a game. And wasn't much work at all really. Several iterations of experiments but not that time consuming.

I kind of want to bring it to life just to see what it would look like with some animation and motion.
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Alex_Peres
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Posted: 20th Jul 2018 14:25
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GarBenjamin,
It is just my opinion.
Not perfect colors choice. Orange color hurts your eyes.
You can try to make your foreground darker and your background lighter. I mean to swap them.
And that red borders look cheap.
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 20th Jul 2018 14:58 Edited at: 20th Jul 2018 15:12
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Thanks @Alex_Peres! I actually like the colors only because they are very different than I would normally use. Yet I know what you mean... I don't like the colors at the same time. Lol Usually I would use blues and grays for something like this and that does look good imo. Same for darker background that is a normal thing I do as well that I tried to get away from here. Just for something different. I generally tweak colors iteratively as I work on stuff sometimes they end up very different than they started.

My main focus here is how to keep things simple yet interesting. However, seeing it with fresh eyes this morning it actually doesn't look very simple and clean. I may need to throw this out and atart from scratch. Or I might knock out a simple demo with it and see how it is brought to life.

I hope some of you post your own attempts at making very simplistic visuals with characters and level environments.
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 20th Jul 2018 15:23 Edited at: 20th Jul 2018 18:33
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I think the main issue is the textured backdrop. If that was a solid color it would go a long ways to make the scene look simpler and cleaner. I think focusing on cohesiveness I went overboard and broke it completely. Lol Texturing on the platforms is enough.

I will make that update many hours from now when finally off work again.

EDIT: Alex_Peres ... oh!! I see what you are saying. Honestly I don't even know how I ended up with this because that was exactly the original idea to have a lighter background and darker foreground including characters. So why I made foreground platforms brighter than backdrop I have no clue. LOL

I never even noticed that and all this time was thinking I made them darker. Never noticed it. Heck I even brightened them more in one update. LOL

Anyway I will fix that later too.
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 21st Jul 2018 02:59 Edited at: 21st Jul 2018 06:20
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Two more iterations... and I think both of these are fine for platformer game art.

Basically this is just the kind of thing I normally do. Starting out with "something" and then through iterations improving them.

I think they are definitely usable. I have seen worst art in games at web game portals and on Steam for example... but...





...I also think they completely miss the mark on being simplistic minimalist art (examples below)!! HA HA! Ah well it was a fun experiment anyway and my goal was to make more expressive characters than the majority of minimalist simple visual styles have...





For me, I think the best way to approach ultra simplistic visuals is what I have been doing before this experiment... using ultra low res pixel art. It is much easier to make minimalist art that looks good in ultra low res imo.
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 21st Jul 2018 15:33 Edited at: 21st Jul 2018 16:04
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The thing with working on the visuals is you can play with the colors (qnd everything else) basically forever I think. At least it's that way for me. I might have an idea of how I'd like something to look but experimenting always seems to arrive at something a little better through trial and error. And majority of it is always on colors the palette. Sometimes at the very start I spend a lot of time just going through various color wheel palettes and pre-made palettes and usually through iterations as a project proceeds.

Since I failed at making simplistic minimalist art I changed the goal and just decided to tweak colors to try to make it interesting period.



I guess I will start bringing this to life tonight.
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 21st Jul 2018 17:50 Edited at: 21st Jul 2018 19:32
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Okay I came home from breakfast and decided to make a few more iterations on the visuals toward the new goal of just making it look "good" instead of simplistic.

Now, I am done. Like I said, a person could literally spend all of their game dev time doing this. And each iteration does make a tiny bit of improvement and it is very enjoyable & even kind of relaxing but can't do this "forever"... so...

.... from this point on the next time I do anything with this it will be using these visuals to produce something playable. The last image (final iteration) or 3rd below (or maybe both) is what I will most likely go with.

It was a lot of fun though!







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fubarpk
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Posted: 22nd Jul 2018 00:20
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I think the darker backgrounds look better
Its nice to see comparisons tho my favourite would be the dark blue at top of last post
A simple RGB look can be quite appealing

Ive never been an artist so i have gone back to coding with primitives and then adding better
models later. The problem is sometimes i have an idea that will never get of drawing block
because of lack of art skills so i went for the approach to find art that inspired and was achievable
both artistically and programmatically. This didnt help the code and was a backward approach.
The approach i am using now is more solving a problem with code when i have enough solutions
to solve something i create a template then add decent artwork then finally the game
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 22nd Jul 2018 01:30 Edited at: 22nd Jul 2018 01:46
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@fubarpk Thanks for posting! I get it. I ran into that kind of thing a lot too. I actually have put a lot of time into improving at art but for me personally I absolute hate spending time on art. Not that I don't like very nice art but I feel that it is kind of a "black hole" that I (and many others from what I have seen on game dev forums) become almost obsessed with and are kind of stuck there forever iterating, So I basically do it like here in this thread, Make "something". Then iterate maybe 5 to 10 times on the collective whole. Call it done. Also I like ultra low resolution pixel art because I think it is a way a person can produce a good amount of reasonable quality content in a reasonable amount of time.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I just finished a development session and seeing it come to life even in this very basic form... I like it. And I was thinking it is still quite simplistic. Like I don't need to be concerned with making animations for the characters to walk, jump, hit and so forth.
I implemented motion animation for them. Defining animation tables as I always do but instead of references to images they have position offsets for the characters walking.

So far the player can only move left & right, jump up and jump down to a platform below.
I suppose this is workable considering many games are avoidance without any way to attack just like this but I generally prefer some combat so I will probably add an attack.
For this character it would need to be either projectile-based some motion-based melee attack animation. I think a short high-speed dash would work well for that.
Of course, player needs to be able to collect the apples and any other collectibles added and take damage from the enemies as well.
Some kind of hud created. Collectible sprites need depth set to be behind the player, etc. etc.

Default is low quality so of course I'd recommend watching it in HD 720.


One thing interesting (for me at least) is that for this project I decided to not use tile maps. Instead the stage is a single image and I defined collision zones in code then used the SpriteInBox collision checking method for the player and enemies to examine the platforms. This is how the enemies know when they reach the edge as well as the player falling off the edge of a platform and landing on the top of a platform.

So that was fun and overall I like this approach even though it is not my norm. In some ways I guess it is like the programmer way of doing what many people do through the GUI in things like Unity.
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 22nd Jul 2018 15:21 Edited at: 22nd Jul 2018 15:23
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I will have to make another thread at some point to explore ultra simplistic minimalist visuals once again.
Only way to succeed is to try, fail, learn/improve and try again. And I will take another crack at it sooner or later.

For now here is another update using the visuals that came out of this attempt to create a single screen platform game.

Collectibles are now active and can be collected. Also their depth has changed to be behind the player.
Updated the enemy's eyes to look in the direction facing.
Added the Dash for the player although collisions haven't been implemented yet.

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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 22nd Jul 2018 21:18 Edited at: 22nd Jul 2018 21:19
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Another update and probably the last I will do. At least for a while.
Basically I just wanted to bring the art to life and make something with some gameplay out of it.
Mainly just because in my opinion you can't really judge graphics intended for a game in isolation... needs to actually be used in a game context to properly view it.

The next time I am in a game dev mode I am not sure if I will continue with this and finish it off or have another go at creating ultra simplistic graphics.
Guess I will play it by ear and see what I want to do the next time I feel like messing around on the computer.
It has been a lot of fun doing this micro project though.

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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 23rd Jul 2018 01:16 Edited at: 23rd Jul 2018 01:20
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Alright I got back home and for whatever reason had the urge to do a little more work on this thing.

I think it's at a good place to leave it alone now.

Basic HUD is working.
Enemies can be obliterated.

It's actually kind of fun. The dashing move / attack makes things interesting.

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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 24th Jul 2018 17:31 Edited at: 24th Jul 2018 17:32
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Here is a fantastic example of what the original goal for visuals (as far as simplicity) was...


Incredibly simplistic visuals so the focus can be on everything else. When done "right" it makes for something very unique and cool.
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fubarpk
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Posted: 24th Jul 2018 21:09
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Very simplistic and very cool
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 24th Jul 2018 21:31 Edited at: 24th Jul 2018 22:11
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Here is another one I always liked. Doesn't get much simpler for visuals than this but the emphasis on audio and story create something quite cool to experience.



I think what I like most about this kind of thing is generally I see and hear game devs (and games) so focused on awesome graphics... like very high quality high fidelity graphics it is just... refreshing... to check out games done with a completely different focus. To me these games stand out even more like this than if they had HD highly detailed superbly animated graphics.

I think the lack of those kind of visuals removes a distraction in a sense allowing the player to focus more on and become immersed into the game. Or something. Kind of like long ago when imagination played a bigger part.
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Cliff Mellangard 3DEGS
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Posted: 24th Jul 2018 21:56
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Loved that last one

Iam very much for large pixels....
But thats also very hard to get right...

Iam experimenting with very siimplistic charachter design now with some designs from a tgc art pack...

When i know more how it works together will i draw my own…

More cleaner pixel art....


My current progress of that prototype…

My space on goggle play ... https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Play8Bitar+Osterlen
Play8Bitars channel ... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_TbzZmDzj0axBZsbfRnDCQ
Think i know it channel ... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEJY7tJ5_HBQxi06BGsnoQg
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Posted: 25th Jul 2018 02:57 Edited at: 25th Jul 2018 03:27
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That's some very detailed nice art Cliff. It looks very good! The game itself looks quite interesting as well. Really like the way the enemies appear in cut-outs / cards higher up the game window.
I guess if player waits too long the "cards" change to show the enemies pointing their weapons at the player and player takes damage?
Seems like a brilliant design for mobile. Nice work!

-------------------------------------

I worked a bit more on this platformer just a bit ago because I wanted to add an FX on the player's dash...


Also tested with that previous blue gray stage...
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 25th Jul 2018 03:31 Edited at: 25th Jul 2018 03:42
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I also like low res pixel... ultra low res... both in games I play and when it comes to actually making graphics for my own projects.
It is easy to create a lot of nice content in a short amount of time which is a huge benefit when making a larger game I think.

This is something I was working on a couple of months ago. It uses 128x90 resolution. I kind of worked my way down over the years.
At one time I was at 640x480. Then switched to wide screen 256x144. That was still too high so I dropped down to 128x90 and this is perfect for me.


I think the only game project i have done that is truly in a more minimalist style was that shmup template I created a few months back.
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Richard_6
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Posted: 26th Jul 2018 11:47
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I think I haven't seen your ultra-res game, Gar. Good job! Looks fun to play!
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 26th Jul 2018 14:30 Edited at: 26th Jul 2018 14:55
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Thanks @Richard. That was the experiment I started messing around with right after I finished the shmup template. Back when I made the other thread on this subject only that one was more focused on choosing a visual style that looks good while reducing the scope of work to make a game.

I don't often do much game dev in the summer months but have been into it more lately.

Anyway in my spare time I work on various things most of which I don't share publicly or even at all for that matter. Just experiments. So the stuff I post is just a tiny % of the games or at least game experiments and tools I have sitting on my hard drive and / or in a bitbucket repo.

There is only the one stage in that work. Just a test of whether 128x90 was a good resolution for me. I found it excellent to work in such an ultra low resolution. It relies heavily on the Tiled platformer engine and related code from the platformer action adventure in the videos I put on YouTube.

Often dabbling I guess you could say. Kind of thinking of dabbling in shaders next to style truly minimalist 2D visuals of rectangles, squares and triangles. Might do that this weekend.

OH! I guess I should make a very simple platformer project and release it since I said I would do that at some point. Maybe I can combine shader experiments with a simple platformer.... basically make a simple platformer with rectangles, circles, triangles, etc first and release that. Then can use that as the test bed for shaders to jazz it up.

I did make one update to the platformer that came out of the graphics experiment in this thread. Just updating the visual fx on the trail when player dashes.

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Cliff Mellangard 3DEGS
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Posted: 26th Jul 2018 18:33
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Like that ultra lowres game you made
Iam a bit stuck now when i started to draw my own art for my latest Project ..
Is it a bit to pixelated
My space on goggle play ... https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Play8Bitar+Osterlen
Play8Bitars channel ... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_TbzZmDzj0axBZsbfRnDCQ
Think i know it channel ... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEJY7tJ5_HBQxi06BGsnoQg
SlideDb space ... http://www.slidedb.com/members/play8bitars-osterlen

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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 27th Jul 2018 03:35 Edited at: 27th Jul 2018 12:58
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Hey Cliff. I think it is well drawn. True it does look chunky but I think maybe that is more to do with the colors and contrast than anything else (well other than it being low res / scaled up).

I'm not an artist but I guess you could adjust the colors slightly to "smooth" it a bit. Something like this maybe which is just a subtle change but doesn't look quite as pixelated / chunky to me anyway.


This is what I come up with for a simple stage for an example platformer project.... ha ha... just can't quite get this minimalist / abstract stuff down but it will work anyway.
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Richard_6
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Posted: 27th Jul 2018 11:24 Edited at: 27th Jul 2018 11:28
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I really like your last stage, Gar. I'd leave all foreground black includung the player and I'd add tiny details in color.
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 27th Jul 2018 15:19 Edited at: 27th Jul 2018 15:21
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Thanks Richard. I originally had it all black and thought it seemed too flat or something so went with the bit of blue two shades to style the platforms from the support beams.

Definitely plan on going with either black or very dark shades of color for all foreground stuff. That is exactly the aesthetic I'm going for. Basically silhouettes in foreground. Although probably just rectangles, circles, triangles etc.

The interesting thing is this simple scene we see it as a platformer only because of the context here in these posts. It could just as easily be something like a lunar lander / space taxi style game. Much of a game especially with minimalism is completely in our minds at this point. Of course adding some sprites and gameplay makes it concrete.
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Cliff Mellangard 3DEGS
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Posted: 27th Jul 2018 17:22
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benjy i more or less ended up with this so far but not satisfied …
Have to work on the battle system now and its enemies
My space on goggle play ... https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Play8Bitar+Osterlen
Play8Bitars channel ... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_TbzZmDzj0axBZsbfRnDCQ
Think i know it channel ... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEJY7tJ5_HBQxi06BGsnoQg
SlideDb space ... http://www.slidedb.com/members/play8bitars-osterlen
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 27th Jul 2018 17:50 Edited at: 27th Jul 2018 18:00
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Looks much better Cliff! Not as extreme of a contrast between walls and floor & ceiling. And the walls themselves look "softened" a bit as well. Looks good!

I think if you zoomed the camera back a bit and not have the player standing so close (when directly in front of walls it seems like character's nose is almost touching) it would look better overall. Not an extreme adjustment just maybe 1 foot back or half a foot back from current positioning.

And I think overall the game looks llke it would be fun and interesting. I think it is a very interesting brilliant design for mobile. Be very cool to have the enemies raise their guns aiming at player and then a simple muzzle flash fx on them when firing.

I know you may already have these things on your list. Often we show things and people give input on things we already plan on doing just haven't had time to get to them yet. But anyway that is my feedback based on what I see!
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 28th Jul 2018 01:26 Edited at: 28th Jul 2018 01:33
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Well I darkened the backdrop and solid black works fine for all of the foreground now.
I was originally going for a kind of "soft" lighter background but didn't like it too much. This works pretty good I think.
Certainly fine for an example platformer project.



And here is the collision mask for the platforms. In the earlier project in this thread I manually defined the platform collision zones in code but would prefer having this automated so now a stage will have the actual stage scenery in one image and a collision mask in the other image. I'll just write some code to scan the mask image and find the platforms and create the collision zones automatically from that.



I very rarely think in terms of a single large image for a stage... nearly always I use a tilemap... but for simple stuff a single full screen image seems reasonable and I want to explore game dev this way just to see what the limits are and so forth.
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