updates

just post an updated walk cylce.. i just smoothed out the kinks in the arms and legs.


http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j200/scott_higg/El_Nudeo_COMPLETE.gif

Blazing Goblin's

made this for 8-bit, they could fall from the sky.

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(Animated Version)
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j200/scott_higg/FireGoblin.gif

Triple Head Sprite

i've been having heaps of trouble with this one, he doesn't translate into a sprite all that well but i made a few up.

tell me which one you prefer.

matt if you could tell me what sort of role you want him to play in the game.

and any ideas on what sort of movements he should have ie. walking, jumping, shooting, pooing, running, etc..

thanks

feeling pretty inspired

made up an enemy for the 16 bit from the original concept images i did,
he's a tiny bit strange but i think thats a part of his charm,
tell me what you think.

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j200/scott_higg/El_Nudeo_FINAL.gif
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j200/scott_higg/march1.jpg

think we need to start mapping out the terrain now that we have a good idea of what it looks like aswell.
i've got in mind for the 16 bit that it should be very platform oriented, more risks involving falling of the level n such.

1 Bit And 8 Bit Art

Just a bunch of art I did over the weekend. I think I need to work on the 8 Bit colors a little, but they are intentionally gaudy.

I'm also using a weird art style to make everything look blocky, reducing the file size down a quarter from that required (so I actually made the 64 x 64 px character sprite in a 16 x 16 px file) to get the kind of Atari look I wanted.

I also took Bens 1 - Bit enemy Bit and reduced the pixel count on it to see what it might look like with that sort of sytle.

They're all on the repository now along with sprites, mockup poses and such.

Comments? Thoughts?

Thoughts

So I did some more math and thinking about how exactly the game is going to play out. I think our best bet to keep gameplay flowing is to have transitioning from one phase into another at a specific time. Split evenly, that would mean that there would be a transition into a new look every 100 seconds (or 1 minute 40 seconds).

This way we can make the difficulty curve scale pretty well, too.
If 1-Bit lasts for 100 seconds and you have to collect 8 bits, that's 1 bit you have to collect every 12.5 seconds.
If 8 bit lasts for 100 seconds and you have to collect 16 bits, that's 1 bit you have to collect every 6.25 seconds.
If 16 bit lasts for 100 seconds and you have to collect 32 bits, that's 1 bit you have to collect every 3.125 seconds.

It also gives us some room for mistakes and the ability to really play with the "story" that gets told. We could put 10 bits into the 1 bit phase (or 8 bits and 1 bit cluster) so that the player could end out lagging behind in 8 bit or being ahead. In 8 bit, the bits might be easier to come by, but require a bit more jumping/enemy dodging in order to get them. In 16 bit we could have much more than 32 bits in there so that if players lagged behind they could catch up. I'm thinking that we can safely put in a LOT of bits into the 16 bit phase, as we want the end result to be a game that you play to try and beat your previous score in 5 minutes. We don't want it to be impossible to finish. So the sense of being rushed becomes more and more prominent the further through the game you get, and you face more and more enemies as you try to collect more and more bits.

I was also considering how we can make the transitions work, and I think with this layout we can make it happen really quite easily. At 100 seconds into the game, the background, platforms and enemies transition into 8 bit. At 200 seconds into the game, the background, platforms and enemies transition into 16 bit. At 300 seconds into the game, the game ends. This way we can create a play area that takes a little over 5 minutes to cross (based on the players movement speed) and simply load in different textures every time the timer hits a certain point.

The Player character would develop separate from the timer however, and would load in new textures based upon their bit count (so at 8 bits in the 1 bit phase, the character loads in a new sprite - whether or not the game has reached the 8 bit phase). If we wanted to we could easily reward the player for pulling this off with extra points (I was even thinking a little text popup saying "Ahead of its Time!" or the like, since this is a game based on games).

Just getting my thoughts out there.

re imagining

I know its way past the point of concepts but i had a re imagining of the terrain so I adapted the backgrounds and sky line we had into (what I think is) a new and improved style.

Tell me what you think; this scale is twice the height of our resolution,
Which I thought would be cool if the camera followed you as you traveled vertically... Though it would never stop scrolling horizontally obviously, I was hoping this would give an illusion of freedom in what is an extremely linear game play.

Program Requirements

As Brad and Andy mentioned to us today, we might want to get a more specific list of requirements for the programmers (and I felt it would help to get the same list going for the artists) so that we knew EXACTLY what was required of the program. This list will likely be updated as we go along and our requirements grow and change.

For Programmers:
Platform style gameplay (Jumping, collision, gravity)
Countdown timer (5 Minutes)
Changing Sprites during Gameplay (Character, Background, Platform, Object and Enemy sprites will be changing)
Object collection and score keeping.
640x480 screen size, 64x64 character size, 32x32 platform tile size.

For Artists:
1 bit, 8 bit, 16 bit and 32 bit themed sprites.
Character (enemies, objects and player) sprites 64x64.
Ground and platform size in 32x32 (with platform caps for the ends of the platforms).

Things we need to discuss are:
How death will work in the game (do you have lives or does it remove a bit?)
How the background will work (Does it move and repeat seamlessly, or does only the foreground move?)

Game Design Document

Threw together a preliminary GDD in my days off sick, I just threw in some finishing touches and thought I would show it to you guys first. If there's anything you feel that should be changed or taken out of there, let me know.

I couldn't link the images that I had in the document, so just imagine that the stuff Scott mocked up is where it says it is.

Threw together a preliminary GDD in my days off sick, I just threw in some finishing touches and thought I would show it to you guys first. If there's anything you feel that should be changed or taken out of there, let me know.

I couldn't link the images that I had in the document, so just imagine that the stuff Scott mocked up is where it says it is.

EDIT: I just added all our concept art and the GDD to our SVN. You can check it out on there if you have it set up on your computer.

BIT
Design Documentation

OVERVIEW
Bit is a game about games. In Bit, you are a simple sprite, floating through the stream of time and growing as the world around you changes. In Bit, there are four separate phases – 1-Bit, 8-Bit, 16-Bit and 32-Bit. In order to keep up with the ever changing world around you, you have to collect other bits to become more complex – and not fall behind lest you become an outdated concept in a far more complicated world. The whole game starts and finishes in a time span of 5 minutes, but encompasses a very large and very early era of gaming.

GAME MECHANICS
Early 1-Bit Concept Art
When the game first starts, you are simply a white block on a black background, fighting to collect other white blocks in order to grow in complexity. You float around the area of play, fighting off other, more aggressive bits. This phase is very simple and Pong-esque in visuals. The intention for the game is to have it grow in complexity as the player progresses, like most modern games do.

Early 8-Bit Concept Art
Once you collect 8 bits, the world changes – and so does the player and the way the game plays. Everything grows more complex as the era changes and the visuals become far more like that of the early Atari games. The player becomes a bit more like a recognizable character now, moving along in the world in a platform style game – though the goal has not changed. Collect bits, grow your complexity, and avoid other aggressive bits.

Early 16-Bit Concept Art
This theme continues into the 16 and 32 bit eras. To get from 8 bit into 16 bit, you must collect 16 bits. To get from 16 bit into 32 bit, you must collect 32 bits. Once entry into 32 bit has been achieved, the game is over – so long as you achieved the goal within 5 minutes.

PLAYER CHARACTER
Early 16-Bit Character Concept
You play as an unnamed, constantly changing character that moves through each era of gaming, becoming something new and interesting each time. As the game plays out, the character grows from a simple square sprite into something far more complicated each time. While the character may still look extremely blocky in 8-Bit, it becomes further and better defined in 16 and 32 bit.

GAME FEATURES
* Progression through four separate visual eras of gaming.
* Character growth and development from a simple 1 bit white sprite into a 32 bit one.
* 1 bit, 8 bit, 16 bit and 32 bit art styles in a short span of time.
* Fixed Sidescroller and Platformer style gameplay (?)
* Use of all 3 of the Product Owners requested themes.
* Playable in 5 minutes.

A Little Inspiration

I found the game that reminded me of the one we've come up with. It's called Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. You can see the official website here.

Matt Hazard is a fictional videogame character that had a stint of popular games in the 1980's, but later lost his luster and faded into obscurity. In Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard, people play as the returned Matt Hazard through all his old games. It's basically a metagame that pokes fun at the industry with a bunch of videogame references.

Look up Matt Hazard on Youtube, there's some pretty funny video clips of the gameplay.