So, what's the reason for all of this? To put it simply, the game was becoming a mess due to our own incompetence and lack of experience in making any kind of game at all. After recently gaining new inspirations from other games, and studying our own flaws, we felt it was simply best to just start with a clean slate.
The first order of business was fixing up our art direction. For one, the sprites we made had the obviouse flaw of relying way too much on black outlines. This made them cluttered and larger than they needed to be. You can see an example of a character made with both styles below.
The new style is on the right.
The sprites are also animated very well now, but you'll have to take my word for it until we get a good video recorder.
Here's a look at the main characters.
We've also learned a bit about color, and will be more conscious when choosing what colors to use in the game. It's important that everything looks good together after all.
Here's a shot from the new game so far. It's basically a test map at this point.
Something you might notice in the screenshot above is the addition of slopes. They're something we really wanted to have in the game since the beginning and finally decided to put effort into getting them. You also might notice that the resolution of the game is different than before. We chose to zoom it out a bit to give the player more room to see, and to give us more options with level design. We also chose a 4:3 aspect ratio since it looked the best, and is the norm for most platformers.
We also looked at some of the core gameplay mechanics and made changes. A platformer where you shoot things should be fast paced and fun, not slow and clunky. That's why we made the basic weapon spammable, and allowed the player to shoot while running. It's just more fun that way.
See all those bullets? Spam that shit.
The story is entirely new as well. I won't go into too much detail there, but we think it's way more interesting than what we had before. Admittedly, It's still going to be riddled with cliches, but it's the better cliches. It's all about robots, evil scientists, and an entire planet nearly covered with factories... You know, to have a nice visual motif.
The music also needed some touching up. I've always felt that the 8-bit chiptunes I made just didn't fit with the game, especially with the way it looks now. Thankfully, I've recently discovered soundfonts and how amazing they are. I managed to find some that were made from SNES sounds and got to work. I'm still learning, but here's what I came up with so far.
http://soundcloud.com/uebo7/snes-style-video-game-song-ice
http://soundcloud.com/uebo7/snes-style-video-game-song
http://soundcloud.com/uebo7/snes-style-video-game-music
http://soundcloud.com/uebo7/snes-style-video-game-song-1
http://soundcloud.com/uebo7/snes-style-video-game-music-1
These probably aren't even done, and some of them are a mess, but they're interesting.
And in case you haven't realized it yet, the game is no longer called "Fallen Leaf" as that doesn't make any sense anymore. The new title of the game is... well, we're still working on that. Naming shit sucks. Oh, and speaking of that, our new company name(if you wanna call it that) is Neon Leaf. It sounds way better than Bobby's Pants, that's for sure. We would have used Fallen Leaf, but can you believe there's already a "fallenleafgames" here on blogger? Whatever, you know, that's fine... They can have the stupid name.
And one last thing that I want to say about our new approach to the game is that we'll be planning things out a lot more. Sure, it means it'll take even longer for a playable demo to come out, but it also means that a more solid product will be made. We wouldn't want to get tangled in a mess again.
Anyway, that's it for now. Be sure to check back for updates on the new game's progress, and know that we won't be restating again any time soon. I mean, I hope not.
As much as it breaks my heart to see the old design go, it's nice to see some more updates, and I've got to say the new style looks amazing. The new music sounds amazing too.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't mind me asking, what exactly happened that influenced you to completely start over? What mistake did you made that got you "tangled in a mess"? The demo was great, and apparently you had improved on that. What could have happened that necessitated a complete overhaul of the game and restart of development?
Either way, I'm waiting for more, as always. I'll be patiently awaiting more updates!
It was really something that built up over time. This is what we should have done the first time we revised the game. It just wasn't fun trying to make sense of a game that wasn't properly planned out from the beginning. It became more and more apparent how big this problem was as we tried to expand on the game. The story was a mess, especially, since we were bound to what we already had. You see, we actually started work on that game the very first day we even had the idea to make one. We jumped right in without any prior experience or direction. We could have continued the game, but it wouldn't have been what we really wanted. We've been looking at some amazing games other people have done on their own, and ours just wasn't up to par. It really motivated us.
DeleteNow it's such a relief to start over like this without any weight on our shoulders. We've got so much experience now from working on the game for so long that we wouldn't have ever gotten from just reading things. In that sense, it was definitely not a waste of time. We want to make the best thing we can make; not just something that's "pretty good for amateurs" but something that's actually great.
And you can be sure that the game will still have the things you liked about the demo. There'll still be NPCs to talk to, different levels to complete, and side quests here and there. It's all good.