Progress: Prototype Demo

Sry about the quality, I will try post a better version of this once I've found a decent video capture program. So I'll give you a run down on whats going on in this demo, I thought uploading a prototype would be the best method on showing you some of the mechanics that exist in the game. The platforms are working on collision of the characters jump action and in the parallax background, but gravity is a problem when the character runs off the platforms, in this demo it is clear that the gravity and the triggered animations for the character are not reacting when they should. I need to fix the actioscript that is conflicting with other pieces of code in the game, this is where the actionscript gets sectioned off into variables that only triggered when they are called upon, but there is also the performance problem in Actionscript 3. AS3 emmeory usage and garage collecting is all managed manually, and the graphics are becoming too much to handle. I might end up exporting the game in AS2 because AS2 sorts the garbage collection automatically. At this stage I dont think everything has to look or act perfectly, just has to behave well enough for you to understand the basic game mechanics. The next prototype I will be showing how the health particles setting works in visually showing the character's health in the game, but now I have the chance to tweek the engine before the more complicated code is implemented.

Character's Run Cycle

My first attempt at the character's run cycle, I've opted for a jointed animation done in vector, I found it to be easier to than frame-by-frame in photoshop. I really wanted to do it this way to create some very expressive animations that would fit the game's initial art style, but vectors looks a hell of a lot better in Flash than anything else because the program supports it. Suppose I'm thinking too ambitious in wanting a dynamic and expressive art style that is seamlessly animated in the game, I would need to build it a different engine. Anyways, most of the animations are jointed than frame-by-frame (err, come to think of it jointed is still animated frame-by-frame in Flash) at the limbs character and enemies (but most of the enemies have no joints because they are a sort of drak matter), therefore the rotation points are jointed. The character has lost a lot of detail from his initial concept, but he still has the essential parts that make him the protagonist. Err, what else...I must of said this in my last post, but the Animators Survival Kit is awesome, it has helped me a lot with animating this and other characters (duh, what else), here's a sample of a run cycle with a more cartoon proportions. I had to improvise a bit by including a sword in one of the charcters hands (argh just noticed that I might have put the sword in the wrong hand, it might give me problems when animating sword attacks and specials because teh hand would obstruct the view of attacks unless I move it out of the way, but it will look stupid and unrealistic (unrealistic in creating a possible world with realistic physics way) in moving his hand out of the way every time he needs to attack with his other hand, so it would be better to just swap the arms around the next free chance I've got and to do this before I start animating special attacks. I will be posting the progress of my flash game as a video demo soon, bye.

Enemy Concepts

kay... need to stop with the concept art and get some of the graphics done for the actual game. Im not sure yet if these graphics are going to be vector. There are some problems with using a mix of two extreme art styles in Flash. Im using vector art for the character designs and speed paints of the environments. I think I need to keep the game consistent in one complete art style, vector art would probabily be the best option because of its effiency within Flash. Also I still have things in the game engine to finish, such as the health particle setting and enemy AI (at the moment the placeholder for the enemy is scripted to move on the x-axis at a set number of pixels, it doesn't actually react to the character's coordinates in flash, which I need to do) and RP elements such as a leveling up system and an inventory (need to set up arrays for these). I also need to start experimenting with animation, and start writing up my dissertation, argh dammit, lots to do.

Anyways, some of these concepts for the enemies will be vectorised in Flash. The basic premise for these generic nightmare creatures are that they comprise of small blobs of dark matter that churn and materialize into fears such as the undead, daemons, monstrous beasts etc. They will include different patterns in how they are defeated by the player, and will increase difficulty depending on the type of nightmare and the chances of failure. At the moment the enemies are going down the serious route, but I'd like to throw in some dark humor aspects in the game, it's probabily a good idea to not make it too serious for this type of game, humor is our friend in 2-D platformers. I will also try add some quirky-looking things to break up the seriousness and surprise the player with unusual situations.

Dream and Myth

yep..so another scary character with a huge glowy axe. All these character designs will have some sort of description to why they look like they do, but not right now heh. I still need to give them names too, argh. I think dreams and myths come from the same place, so in order for these characters to have some kind of expression within a symbolic form, their names could probabily be worth thinking about within mythology. I have already started looking at Japanese folklaw and using the whole "Baku" concept of supernatural beings that devour dreams and nightmares, but its not enough, I dont think for the characters to truely stick out, plus the whole Japanese folklaw stuff has been used to hell, and its getting old. How about looking at something Finnish or Vedic Mythology? yeahh, so must watch and read more random stuff for inspiration. Thinking of downloading Castlevania Symphony of the Night on XBLA, just for funs..and maybe research for animation, cos I'm pretty stuck on how thats going to be done in Flash. Do I go frame-by-frame, which might be most likely considering the detail in the protagonist, or jointed animation where characters body parts are animated at the pivot points, at the joints basically, bit like Odin Sphere (but a lot worse than how Vallinaware does it). I have the Animators Survival Kit, I love this book, anyone who is doing some kind of animation needs to own this, if you dont then what the hells, man. Soo, will keep you posted and more concepts to come, but first, dissertation.

Update:The Protagonist

...meh, it will do for now.

Experiments in visual style

Today, I need to sort out some of the conecpt art and character designs, and maybe attempt to colour some of them in Photoshop. Argh, after using 3d programs for a more than a month (damn you client!) I'm still trying to adjust to this one. Anyways, the characters below are not the two main characters I will be using in the game, I was just using them to experiment with, trying out different brushes and styles to see if I could use any of them to represent the character's supranatural qualities in devouring nightmares. The main characters will also have some back story elements that need to be shown within their designs, so I will have them done soon. soo yah. more to come. (p.s. if you are finding this style a bit on the scary side, then you're in luck, its only going to get worse when the nightmares come murhhahaa...so leave now!)

Level Designs

Hey ya'll, long time no post, just finished the client project, so sry about that, anyways these are some of the post-apocalyptic level designs. Argh, I think these might cause a few problems within the background, 1. is that I will be tiling these like backdrops in the level, but I think after a few scrolls it will soon get old. 2. is looking at these again, they look as they might conflict with the particles health setting, the idea was to keep the background simple and the character complex (expressively drawn and animated frame-by-frame so that the particle setting will be clearly presented to the player. I will try sort out these problems and will post more of the concept art, until next time. Surresh Out.