This past week has been interesting. Playing some puzzle games I had a sudden realisation about one of the core mechanics in my game. I’ve yet to implement it but I’m hoping that it will enhance the basic gameplay mechanics and allow me to finally focus on the RPG side.
I realise I’m being rather vague but that’s just because everything is in such a high state of flux. As soon as things have a clearer direction, I’ll begin to share some details about what you actually do in the game.
The majority of my time this week has been spent on a first-pass at some of the artwork. This has also meant listening to lots of indie game soundtracks since I find these good inspiration without being too distracting. (I’ve mainly been listening to the Binding of Isaac and Portal 2 soundtracks).
The look I’m going for is simple, elegant, and clean. This usually means laying the initial structure of the tiles, colouring them, building up detail and then checking them at 1:1 zoom. At this stage I start reducing the level of detail to achieve the look I want. This may sound slightly protracted but I think its working.
The tiles above represent a partially complete setting for the first level. The UI is missing so I’m sure its not immediately obvious how the game plays out. I’m still playing with colours (the trees in particular) and detail so chances are these will change before the game ships.
I have a staggering number of tiles to create across the various tile-sets and themes. As a result, the style I choose needs to be fairly quick to reproduce. Whats important is that when viewed at its correct resolution it conveys the correct image and leaves your imagination to fill in the rest. When the tiles are blown up you can see that some of the detail is fairly crude. Detail at this scale isn’t visible when playing the game so elements need to be exaggerated if you want them to be seen (for example, the shadow in the front facing roof struts or the lack of horizontal planks on the gate).
Next week I’m implementing the player movement and the new mechanic I mentioned above. I’m slowly creeping towards a playable level 1 (sans RPG mechanics). See you next time.