[Galladin]

A (quality) level designer needed.

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

[Dr Lancer-X]

man that looks great

[Lachesis]

daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmn

Those are real gameplay screenshots, right?

I'll make a level for this.

[Risu2112]

I would make a level for this but I smell mock ups >

[Galladin]

Risu2112, on 19 July 2011 - 05:26 AM, said:

I would make a level for this but I smell mock ups >

Sorry, no mock ups - all the screenshots are from a playable test board. The player can already crawl, jump, hang on to edges/ropes and other similar objects, shoot, punch and kick. Oh and run, of course.

[Quasar84]

This is interesting looking. My gut reaction was to want to critique stuff, but that's not really the point of this thread and it's not like I know how you have your character space / palette divided between gameplay and background elements. (Question: How do you have your character set and palette divided between background and gameplay elements?)

Oh and not completely sure, but are all the lighter green plants part of the overlay?

[Revvy]

Man, you make me want to touch MZX again. That's dangerous.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Revvy, on 19 July 2011 - 05:05 PM, said:

Man, you make me want to touch MZX again. That's dangerous.

go on, do it, I dare you

[Galladin]

Quasar84, on 19 July 2011 - 07:56 AM, said:

This is interesting looking. My gut reaction was to want to critique stuff, but that's not really the point of this thread and it's not like I know how you have your character space / palette divided between gameplay and background elements. (Question: How do you have your character set and palette divided between background and gameplay elements?)

Oh and not completely sure, but are all the lighter green plants part of the overlay?

Critique is good.

I am not entirely sure what you mean by dividing the character set and the palette - any tips or pieces of advice that I might take advantage of? The character set is getting quite crowded with the environment, the enemy graphics and other stuff, but that was expected. For now it is only this one board and a short cinema screen.

The lighter green plants are indeed overlay objects, the darker plants then obviously being the background.

[Quasar84]

What I mean is, did you set up some scheme where you said something like, "OK, characters 0 through 31 and also 128 through 159 will be dedicated to player, enemy and projectile graphics. Characters 32 through 127 are already text, and and the remaining char set will be for background...and I'll scrap a few characters like { and } and # that I don't really need, also for background." Same with colors (something like saying color 1-12 are background colors and 13-15 are reserved for sprites, perhaps.)

[Galladin]

Quasar84, on 20 July 2011 - 03:15 AM, said:

What I mean is, did you set up some scheme where you said something like, "OK, characters 0 through 31 and also 128 through 159 will be dedicated to player, enemy and projectile graphics. Characters 32 through 127 are already text, and and the remaining char set will be for background...and I'll scrap a few characters like { and } and # that I don't really need, also for background." Same with colors (something like saying color 1-12 are background colors and 13-15 are reserved for sprites, perhaps.)

I did not, but now that you mentioned this, I do understand the benefit when having other people creating content too.

[Kuddy]

looks like contra

[Galladin]

Kuddy, on 20 July 2011 - 07:53 AM, said:

looks like contra

Oh no, I hope that is a good thing. Had to google for that one though, I haven't played it.

[Lachesis]

I'd say it's a good thing... it's what I initially thought of, too. Will it be a fast-paced action-packed bullet hell platformer?

[Quasar84]

Galladin, on 20 July 2011 - 11:09 AM, said:

Oh no, I hope that is a good thing. Had to google for that one though, I haven't played it.

Good ol' Contra. Didn't they call it Probotector or something in your neck of the woods?

The reason I asked about the character/palette thing is because you can't really critique somebody until you know how much room they have to work in.

Assuming you do have some char set to spare for the task, I was going to say the ground could probably use a little more attention. The trees and vines and plants are all very nice and I commend you on actually capturing the shapes of leaves; but for the ground you've got basically got three wide, flat stripes - the lighter and darker greens, and the deep brown. The dirt's so dark and close to the border it can slide, but for the grass, that's a lot of unbroken space, in my opinion. Might be nice to break it up a little, especially the darker green strip.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Quasar84, on 21 July 2011 - 10:16 AM, said:

The reason I asked about the character/palette thing is because you can't really critique somebody until you know how much room they have to work in.

I'm using 64 characters for the display on the left and 192 characters for the textbox on the right, what do you think?

[Kuddy]

that doesn't look anywhere near the amount you specified for either side

is there moonspeak or something in there later that i don't know about

[Dr Lancer-X]

I'm not using all the chars on the left display and the right display scrolls.

[Galladin]

Wow. Another good while has passed since the last update. I eventually never passed on the files to the people who were to create some boards for this one, I was insanely busy with work, studies and personal life. Sorry about that.

So the past week I was on a sick leave after a head injury & concussion, which proved to be productive MZX-wise. Here's some new material. I've decided to keep the game very short, probably 3 chapters and some 3-5 boards per chapter.

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 
• 
• 

[Spectere]

Holy gosh, that looks nice. How far along are you so far?

Galladin, on 29 January 2012 - 03:10 PM, said:

So the past week I was on a sick leave after a head injury & concussion

Yikes, are you all right?

[djtiesto]

This may be the best looking MZX game I have ever seen...

[vsevolod]

I noticed the player character's back arm is just slightly out of proportion (big). Dunno if this is a priority for you, or maybe even supposed to look that way, but I hope it's helpful to point out.

JEEZ this game is gorgeous. Seems like a fun game concept too.

Lachesis, on 20 July 2011 - 04:02 PM, said:

I'd say it's a good thing... it's what I initially thought of, too. Will it be a fast-paced action-packed bullet hell platformer?

Me three.

[T-Bone]

Its looking good so far. I do have to agree with Quasar84, its good to know how much char-space a designer can work with.

I miss doing MZX designs.

[Galladin]

Spectere, on 29 January 2012 - 11:47 PM, said:

Holy gosh, that looks nice. How far along are you so far?

Yikes, are you all right?

Not very far as of yet.

Finished:
-Intro
-Player engines (enabling jumping, crawling, hanging on to edges/ivy/etc, shooting, kicking and punching)
-Some 5 different enemy types (swimming, flying, crawling and jumping ones)
-Animations (all player and various enemy animations, background animations for the beach and jungle themes)
-Plot/storyline (yes yes, there will not be much of a plot, but it's done and same goes for the whole planning on how the game will advance)
-2 playable boards

To be done:
-More boards
-Bosses + boss animations
-Title screen
-Game over screen

As for the injury, got the stitches taken out this morning and returned to work - all good.

vsevolod, on 30 January 2012 - 04:21 AM, said:

I noticed the player character's back arm is just slightly out of proportion (big). Dunno if this is a priority for you, or maybe even supposed to look that way, but I hope it's helpful to point out.

It is intentionally exaggerated in an attempt to pay homage to all the fancy 80's macho action heroes.

[Galladin]

I've been working on the title screen and reprogramming the enemies for the beach theme. Oh and I need to remove the crawling option when in deep water.

[Galladin]

Not happy with this one yet. This is actually my first try ever at creating a full-size title screen using the "blocky" half-chars and stuff. Need more practise.

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

[KKairos]

I think that title screen is just fine for a first attempt. I'll leave it to others to get out constructive criticism.

[NoahSoft]

I'd love to make a level or some songs for it!

[CJA]

honestly, something like that title screen is exactly what i'm looking for when I open up a mzx game and get ready to play it

No, really. I wish every title screen just popped in, bright, cheerful, and simple like that, no logos, just a funky title screen right there

[Baby Bonnie Hood]

But logos are a great way to show that you can code something so amazingly pointless.

Like Draconis Creations' dragon.

Or imoutoSOFT's bird