Tracking My Game
Hold me accountable to finishing at least the background resources ok?
These are the first four sketches centering on the beginning village. They're all edge enhanced and without any line cleanup or color, so if they super rough, it's because this is the first stage of it.
These are the first four sketches centering on the beginning village. They're all edge enhanced and without any line cleanup or color, so if they super rough, it's because this is the first stage of it.
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Besides that, those are superb. I love how each of them looks kinda bent, it gives a big cartoony feeling. I'm also planning stuff for my game (writing the script draft atm) and I drew some character concept arts, but I never bring myself to do the terrains and locations because it's always boring to me. Love the way you started off of them, actually.
I drew six rooms up tonight so that means 24 are left. Cleanup will only require removing stray lines then processing the remaining stills through Paint Shop Pro to eliminate anything stray left over, and then to color, a fairly simple process in comparison to the actualy drawing of the backgrounds.
Once those are finished then it's on to character design and animation sequences. This is by far the most time consuming element given there is a central protagonists and three secondary protagonists all requiring design and animation, and beyond those a supporting cast of a dozen to two dozen or so, but at least the supporting cast remains still for the most part. The antagonist is another major character requiring animation but given that he does not conform to a physical body his animations can be fluid and it's less stress on the animation.
I want the backgrounds out and finished this month. Character design and animations will take an unforseen mount of time, probably the bulk of the design effort.
Once those two are finished I can begin composing a set of about a dozen songs in the MIDI composer Finale. My background in music and the ease of Finale means that won't be much more than a month's effort.
The puzzles themselves are the most curious element of it all. I'll run the backgrounds and animations through Adventure Game Studio and process it all and integrate the puzzles then.
Of course easier said than done, but like I said, the backgrounds, puzzles and compositions are fairly easy. It's the animation that will take time.
The only thing I would consider outsourcing is characters/animation, everything else is fairly simplistic. Cutscenes for me mean in game sprite animations. I'd try to not stray too far from my base animations where possible since this game will net me zero dollars and I don't want to invest more than six months into it.
Another 'super rough'. Did this in a few minutes to get a concept out, right after replying to your post.
Edit: I knew something looked off. She has no eyebrows.
Gotta say the blueprints to your game already creates the atmosphere.
I know how hard making a game can feel - I've been doing it bit by bit for ages now and I'm still barely off the ground - but if you hang in there, it will all start to come together and once it does, the drive to keep going becomes much stronger.
When it comes to character sprites, even something as simple as a 'walk left/right' animation can be enough to keep you going. The one I did is about 8 frames long, which is really all you need. Once you've done that, a 'walk forward' animation is another 8 frames, and a 'walk away' anim is third set of 8. That's 24 frames, and you've got your default movement animations sorted. You can do that over a weekend! And once you've got that done, it's not hard to spur yourself with the rest.
Do keep us updated with your progress, I'd love to see how you go with this.
First attempt ever at drawing a horse. Cut/paste resource for carriage background.
Legs need work.
The horse looks great, especially for your first time drawing one!
Needs perspective adjustment especially on the right hand side.
I can't wait to see them in colour!
(one of my main hindrances is my inability to draw. So many a time I've had a good idea in my head I can't translate into pictures. Sad really...)
There's definitely a ton to do once the roughs are completed. Solidifying the lines and editing them in PSP will clean the images a lot so there won't be a need for edge enhancements (which is what is creating the rough look; at the current moment the drawings are too light to translate easily through the scanner).
Once the 'clean' sketches are in, it's just a matter of using the right color palette. In the last image above, of the fort, you see a circular pattern. This is actually the moon and I'm taking a straight borrow of the "Black Cauldron" pattern of coloring; deep blue and purple circular patterns around the moon itself in order to evoke a terrified mood. The presence of that particular moon is for the moments the enemy is near.
Phew. Eleven more scenes.