And so it began

[Sammy]

Some of the best conceptual design as far as I'm concerned

http://www.gamespot.com/all/news/screens_6084885.html?page=6

Miyamoto I salute you

[gasmask]

holy crap, concept art that forever changed the world

[mtw]

I just see red x's.

[skrubbles]

i only see red x's too... though, that always happens when I go to any part of gamespot.com... I don't know why... i think it used to work at one point, or else I wouldn't already have an account there.

sucks... I always get links to "cool" concept art that I just can't see :(

Anyone know how to fix this problem?

[LiL QoH]

thats some bitchin concept art there... yep

[Sammy]

sorry you can't see it dudes, it's the early concept renderings for Mario and Donkey Kong. The two characters that sparked a multi-billion dollar industry.

Really puts it into perspective what concept design truely is. NOT pretty renderigns, but designs that sucessfully sell to an audience.

Design for your audience not yourself.

:EDIT:
here ya go :chug:

http://www.securevirtualpages.com/~sammyha/onlineforums/levelx_screen006.jpg

[Prometheus|ANJ]

Really interesting to see how they pixelated (manually?). I want to see the concept art for Metroid 1...

Ran a distort on it. My apologies to the photographer whomever it is. And those are not my JPG artifacts.
http://w1.485.telia.com/~u48508900/DK.jpg

[Android]

great find,

seeing that made my day!

i will ask about the metroid 1 stuff pro-

[Forge]

it's so good i didn't know they drew pixel art !!

[Kortez]

Now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside :) Thanks for sharing the link :)

[Erik]

Good old days of manual pixeling and even before manual anti-aliasing... I remember doing stuff like that changing the characters in games on C64 and stuff like that:

you would make a design on 16x8 or something like that in 8 colors on a raster paper, and then you had to compute byte codes for every line and every color. So a pixel on the first column would be hexadecimal 01, the second 02 and if they were all filled out hex FF. And then type thoise numbers in the machine at the right spot, start the game and see that you fucked up the numbers so his head would be all garbled up. Then go back, etc.

No image editors... They would come later... (Hm.. i seem old now i type this don't i? but i was actually customising my games at age 8, wonder where it went downhill... )

Great stuff!

[Sammy]

Dang, I've searched all day and I can't find any of this old work!!

To bad my old instruction manual for the NES metriod is back at my appartment. It had some kooky little illustrations of Samus and also refered to her as a "He."

Either way, I did find some pics of my all-time favorite conceptual design superstar!!!!

*Bidness is Bidness and Bidness... HELL... Bidness be MOVAFUCKIN' GUUUUUUUUD!!*

http://www.securevirtualpages.com/~sammyha/onlineforums/pics/25.jpg

http://www.securevirtualpages.com/~sammyha/onlineforums/pics/31.jpg

http://www.securevirtualpages.com/~sammyha/onlineforums/pics/33.jpg

[Noah Bradley]

Wow, I'm suprised that a bunch of artists are so uninformed about pixel art. I myself am a pixel artist, and yes, that means I do it manually, pixel by pixel. There's actually a whole communtiy of people, some producing stunning pieces, even extremely large, highly detailed pieces. It's a great art style. The link to the message board where we all go is: http://pixelation.swoo.net/ but unfornunately the site's been down for a week or two. I think I heard they were having server difficulties. Yes, pixel art is fun, and a simple discription of it would be whatever you can do in MSPaint. :) Good stuff.

[Redder]

I'm reminded of those old ansi art pieces and animations.

[Signature]

silvir:
I think they meant that pixels were painted with traditional media then ... ?

[Noah Bradley]

Possibly so, but even still, I think a few guys out there do that from time to time. In fact, just a week or two ago I drew on some graph paper a pixel drawing, very time consuming, but interesting results. Try it out! :D

[Prometheus|ANJ]

Found in a magazine:

http://w1.485.telia.com/~u48508900/shiggy.jpg

Metroid weren't very big in japan so I guess there's no obscure artbooks for it :/

I think I might have seen some concept art for the map but I'm not sure. Perhaps it was for the SNES version.


At the risk of boring ppl:

I read a 'hackers' hardware spec manual for the NES quite some time ago (when I decyphered the metroid password). I remember the sprites works something like this (correct me if I'm wrong).

There's 4 palette colors for each 8*8 pixel tile/sprite. 4 colors equals 2 bitplans. Each bitplan is 8 bytes, ie one byte per row of pixels. Thus, each tile is 16 bytes.
For example:

bitplan 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 - byte 1
0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 - byte 2
0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 - ...
0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0
0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0
0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0
0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
bitplan 2
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0
0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0
0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0
0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0
0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0
0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Combined, this would make the inside of the circle color 10(2), and the right side color 11(3). The border is 00(0) and the left circle side 01(1).


0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 1 1 3 3 0 0
0 1 1 2 2 3 3 0
0 1 2 2 2 2 3 0
0 1 2 2 2 2 3 0
0 1 1 2 2 3 3 0
0 0 1 1 3 3 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0


The sprites can be assigned different palettes from a limited palette buffer (sets of 4 colors), thats why you see the same enemies in different colors. One color is transparent so there's only 3 colors available really. In Metroid 1 you can see random 8*8 tiles flying around when you blow up an enemy, it's parts of other enemies mostly, with a wierd palette. They can rotate / flip the tiles by setting a flag, so only one angle has to be drawn for stuff seen from above for example. To make large characters, sprites are placed next to each other, but there are tricky rules for placing sprites.

From what I read in the C64 manual once, sprites are actually long vertical bars broken up into sprites and aligned horizontally somehow, if sprite members of the same 'vertical bar' moves into each other vertically (on the same horizontal scanline) there will be flicker as they take turns to show. It's a bit messy, I don't fully understand it, I've always prefered the slow blitter objects myself.

Sometimes they overlay sprites to get more colors on a character, like megaman who's face is separate so they could use extra the pink and white. I'm not sure of this but that's the only way they could've done it really.

I recall that the amiga could combine sprites with 2 bitplans and thus get 4 bitplans (16 colors).

INTERESTING HUH????

[Sammy]

Oh hell yea, mother load.. From the ever treasured Super Justin Baily (Metroid)
http://www.securevirtualpages.com/~sammyha/onlineforums/pics/smart_devmap.jpg

http://www.securevirtualpages.com/~sammyha/onlineforums/pics/smart_help.jpg

http://www.securevirtualpages.com/~sammyha/onlineforums/pics/smart_sketch01.jpg

This site has some good stuff

http://www.classicgaming.com/mdb/sm/artwork.htm

[Prometheus|ANJ]

Ah, it was for the SNES version then. I never played (or liked) the snes version much.
I'm familiar with mdb and probably already saved all notable images from there. I'm guessing that the owner make efforts to find as much art as possible so I'm keeping an eye on the site.

...I suddenly feel an urge to resume my metroid fanart project.

...and I still haven't played MP. I can get a GC and MP bundled for $170 or something now. I dunno if the copy I got from Android works in EU. Too bad a GC can't play DVD, cuz I dun have a DVD player. The PS2 can I think, and Rygar is out.

[Sammy]

In most game magazines and forums Super Metroid is reguarded as the best game ever, I'm curiouse why you didn't like it that much..

I hope you're looking forward to the Metroid Zero Mission for the GBA comming out January. It's a complete remake of the origional.
Metroid Fusion on the GBA was quite breathtaking, one of the greatest examples of 2d storytelling. At first it was a little more liniar than other metroids but once it opened up it was pretty damn huge. And I'm a sucker for in-gameplay storytelling like when you "accedently" stumble into the secret lab and Samus trips the allarms.

And it goes without saying that Prime is a modern classic, play it! My ONLY gripe about Prime was that there were NO booby traps!
But Metroid Fusion had some wicked crazy booby-traps, I was a sucker/dead for each and every one.

In Fusion the best booby-trap is the 2nd time you see the Evil-Samus... You're hiding at first and she walks above you and jumps down to platforms below... naturally you wanna get another glimse at her and you come out of hiding and peek over the edge... and that's when the floor decenegrates from under you and lands you smack-dab in Evil-Samus' face.... she kills you in 2 shots.

[Prometheus|ANJ]

I didn't like Super Metroid (or the gb version) for the following reasons:

- The character was too big. You couldn't see what was ahead of you. Big sprites like that means nothing to me, it's... pixel inefficient and cheesy. I've always liked small cute sprites better.

- It was much more linear than Metroid 1. I don't like linear games because the exploration aspect is lost and you can get stuck (with no alternative route). I don't like being forced and have indestructable doors shut in my face. I like making the story myself as I play, so I can tell ppl how I completed the game, and then play it again and get a whole new experience.

- Some of the designs went off in a direction I didn't think was honest to the original.

- First time I played it was when someone tossed me the pad in the motherbrain fight, and I beat it first try. I didn't even know what the buttons did.


I've seen a vid of the new GBA game and played Fusion a little, but again, didn't like it. The character was too big and jerked around all over the screen, and it seemed too linear.


If I got the opportunity to make a Metroid game it would be a hybrid between Metroid 1, Exile (BBC/C64) and Soldat. Then I'd make Kid Icarus with the same engine.

[Sammy]

I agree with you whole-heartedly about the player being able to make their own game. That's one of the reasons I look down on many games today, that take a media where the player can be creative and then making a story for them rather than letting them create. I was happy that Mario Sunshine didn't have much story thrown in.

Rygar is good, you should pick it up for cheep, but as far as exploration goes these days it doesn't get better than the GBA incarnations of Metroid and Castlevania.

But on the other hand that's just my opinion so I don't fault a game if the story is delivered nicely/cenematically. And I feel that Fusion has the best 2d storytelling of anything I've played. Yea the sprites are big but you have to be able to see 'em on the tiny GBA screen :chug:

But you should play Super Metroid, it's more non-liniar than the first (in that there's just more stuff, and a map.. heh.. but it's the same formula as the first). That's why there's cultish legions of people today still beating it through again and again in numerouse ways.

But it's a real shame that there are no Exploration games made other than Metroid and Castlevania. It's such a wonderfull genra, when you're about to put the game down and you're like "Well.. I'll just explore this one last area... and then that one..."
And also the fact that being "stuck" in a game is hardly anywere in games today... I miss the "Damn... I've been wondering around for hours... what the hell, I might as well ball up and bomb this rock.... OH HELL YEA!!!."

I'll send you some emulated stuff if you'd like. I know it's a great game but you can't play Exile for the rest of your life
:D
Oh, and SiliconKnights is supposed to be making the next Kid Icarus - Prom... lets cross our fingers...

[shyst]

yeah the metroid series is pretty phat...

i loved the metroid2 for gameboy -missed a lot of days of drawing cause of that game......

[Sammy]

Metroid 2 was great, even if it did just zig-zag down to the final boss. I pop that one in on TV with my gameboy-player just to remind myself how far we've come graphically.

[shyst]

sammy you gotta love the shuttle and closing animations at the end and the music - whoa!!!!!

[Prometheus|ANJ]

I can barely play any games today because:

A) I'm too old and my imagination works differently.

B) I overanalyze and disect games until all they become to me is formulas and changing the values of bytes.

C) Most games today are about the story and gfx. Computers today have awesome processing power but it isn't used for gameplay. I'd like to see SMB (for example) in multiplayer, and the entire world just one big map, with the mushroom kingdom really getting invaded by koopa's troops, like one big SMB platform-rts. Ok, a wierd idea perhaps but many games today have gameplay mechanics equal to asteroids. I really feel that they could be able to push things a bit further.

D) The craft has gotten quick and dirty. So many lame 'airbrush' + 'emboss filter' + 'photo source' + 'colorize' textures, Bad inconsistant designs etc.


Super metroid had more 'keys' than Metroid 1 and thus it was more linear I think. In metroid 1 there was just the missiles and bombs (and maru mari at the start) that restricted the player. There was also the high jump boots and freezer beams but you could take alternative routes. Then there was the statues but you could bomb your way up from the lava I think.
The Super Metroid map really ruined it for me. Drawing maps on grid paper is one of the charms of playing rpgs and exploration games. With no map, the game world becomes more undefined and you feel like anything can be around the next corner. If you have a map then you can see that it's a dead end cuz there's another room you already explored in the way.
Zelda 1 was also fairly unlinear. You could go into lvl8 almost right away and get the infinite key if you had the guts. I clearly remember running into a lvl that was 1 or 2 lvls ahead of me (and dying because it was hard) and I always thought that was cool. The difficulty was restricting the player, not a sequence decided by the story. When I was leet at zelda I used to play the lvls in a crazy order and stuff. It had good replay value.

I bought and played Halo and I got stuck plenty of times... Too bad there were no bots in it. There were no edit tools either. The single player missions felt like a bland HL ripoff (mixed with some Arthur C Clark?), and I didn't even like HL singleplayer. The weapons were nice though. I regret paying $50 for it though.

When I buy games I play the campaign, one or 2 levels, get bored, play skirmish if there is any, then I exit and look for files to edit. I probably spend more time editing than playing.


..so, Kid I. is in the pipe?

[Noah Bradley]

Prometheus, that's why you make your own games, get them published, and show those lazy, linear minded people how it's done. :) 'Twas looking at some of your little game project and I love those graphics, are they cg or pixeled? If you're ever in the mood for a little side project, I'm available for pixeling. :D

[Sammy]

I'm in the same boat as you Prom, but the simple fact is if they made games now like me and you like them nobody would purchase them and there would be no games industry. So, I make due with what I have.
I want to be making games someday, so I saturate myself in the biz. I've got upwards of 850 games and 13 systems in my personal collection right now, gotta appreciate each and every one for what they accomplished.
It's always my goal to try and see a game as the developer/director wanted it to be seen.

I'm playing Beyond Good & Evil right now, one of the most cenematic games I've ever played. And even if it's not the kind of game I'd like to create I play it for what the director had in mind. They did a great job of delivering a story and I try and enjoy it for that.

Speaking of story Orson Scott Carde is writing a video-game right now. I think it's Advent Rising??? Either way I hope it's delivered well.

I still enjoy creating graph-paper maps today with any game. But basically to map out how they wanted their gameplay to work. I lost my Metoid2 map so I'm in the process of makin' another map - you have any maps? it's fun to trade them and see the mistakes made :bash:

Also! My C64 was on it's last leg and keeled over, and it's been a looong time since I played Exile, you know of any emulations - 'cause I'm itchin' to do some ventage map-makin'

Thanx for lettin' me rant about gamepley, even if I have no clue what I'm talkin' 'bout.

:chug:

[Prometheus|ANJ]

Yeah, I know that there's not a chance on earth that a serious large publisher/developer will make a game like soldat, for example. It's left to enthusiasts with no ($) ($) signs imprinted on their retinas to do such things.


As for the number of (original) games, I can only boast a hundred or so, for NES, PS1, Amiga 500/1200, Mac and PC. Plus 6-7 Game&watch (with original boxes and manuals, whee). The G&W figures are very nicely done btw. I wonder if there's a site with lcd character sheets... Kinda hard to extract them... you'd have to make all figures show, and then take a hirez photo, or scan really quick. I dismantled mine and made my own levels with overhead film. Anyone else did that?

I play Exile on VICE (WinVICE-1.12), which is a nice windowed emu. It runs Vic20 and 128 aswell I think. Exile is a bit linear still, but the basic ideas are there, like physics and a large world with an ecosystem/inhabitants.

I only have a Metroid 1 map, which should be free from mistakes. My first map had a few though, I missed the Varia secret and got Norfair all wrong.

Who's Orson Scott?


silvir> It's old amiga DPIV stuff from when I was 16 or so. I made the asteroids in PS though. I've made quite a lot of small games but never made them public. I love BASIC even tho it's snaily. I started coding when I was 13 but mostly did lame ascii game on the C64. Then I started with AMOS and gradually expanded with various C languages. Now I mostly do lame JS or php cuz It's all I have atm. I want BlitzBasic but I can't find a retailer. I lost the neat unlimited use version they had when I changed puter and now they only have a '30 uses' one on the site.


Oh, I've been looking for a nostalgia game I played on the Vic20 on a 13" BW monitor. It was about a diver or something, and there were shelfs in the cliffs on the left and right sides of the screen, and some fishes/sinking bombs perhaps. If you dived to the bottom and to the right (I think) you came to a second screen, also with pockets to the left and right, plus wierd items. Me and my friend never figured out what it was about cuz we were like 10 at the time. We still played it a lot cuz it was so mystical... what were those items on the second screen? It's been haunting me for 15+ years... I tried finding it, with no luck.

[Sammy]

Doood, I donno what the fuck I'm talking about! I've never played this exile game. It's great! I think it was made in the 90's by some folks?? am I correct in thinking that?

anyways get me started in it 'cause I'm having a hard time figuring out the controlls, I can't make heads or tails of anything but I get the sense that there's a lot to explore. I like the little birdie that follows you and I like the sprite animations... everything's so fluid.
My interest is sparked, I must find out more info on this little gem... it definately feels like an exploration game, has that sense of something arround the next corner.

Mad props for your G&W collection, I'm jelouse. Those were the first games ever to have a D-pad, Nintendo's always been good about evolving controllers.

I'm off to figure our Exile more...

[Sammy]

ok, found some cool stuff (you may already know of)

but it was made in 88.. here's a site on it with some concept art too.
http://www.nemmelheim.de/exile/exile-infos.html

he Amiga version looks very very pretty, what emulator runs Amiga?

[Sammy]

I can't find the GD shoot button... got the gun

all the little animals keep cornerin' me... whew!

:Edit: n/m got it

[Prometheus|ANJ]

Exile was made in 1988 for the BBC micro, which only had 32Kb of RAM and a 2Mhz 6502 processor. Still it simulates a very large world and has nice physics such as gravity and wind for all objects. It's an amazing programming feat.
I've only played a bit into the game, but there's so many weird places to explore, and strange enemies with different weapons. Every encounter is a challange. I had to read a walkthru to get anywhere though. I think a prize and diploma was offered to the first guy who managed to beat it. It's super hard.

Here's a site with some nice reading:
http://exile.acornarcade.com/index.html

Walktru and good manual for keys.
http://project64.c64.org/games/0-l/exile.txt


Some useful keys for picking up the grenade:

pick up - < (or , on my keyboard)
throw - > (or . on my keyboard) Don't throw grenades unless you really need to. You can fly and headbutt the cannon inside the ship on the ground and get that grenade.
Store held item in inventory - S
Toggle inventory items - G

I have to go into joystick settings everytime I run VICE, and swapjoy in options back and forth until it works.


I don't have an amiga emu. The C64 version is pretty charmy. Most hardcore fans prefer the BBC version it seems.


---

My fanart and geeky 'design-doc'

http://w1.485.telia.com/~u48508900/exile/


...oh yes I just made some MB/SMB fanart... isn't it strange how he never used the MB crabs in SMB? The flies were used in the first GB vesion of SMB I think. And the gombas are totally under-represented in SMW!

[Bombesei]

One of my favorite games is Omikron, but I never hear it brought up. It was definitely different from most games that are coming out now. The fact that it was made in France gave it some freedom to be less mainstream and geared towards American teens too, but that shouldn't matter. There were so many places to explore and things to interact with that you could lose yourself in the world and not be concerned about the objectives, just wander around for a while. Plus, David Bowie had some some songs in it. You could go see him as an underground band in underground clubs, how cool is that? And Bowie collects Nerdrum's paintings, he rocks. Anyway, it's too bad Quantic Dream hasn't released a game since then, but they have a couple interesting projects coming out some time, Quark and Fahrenheit. That's one company that I think it would be great to work for. Their site has some really kick concept art, and you can download the Bowie videos. Here's a link.

Quantic Dream (http://www.quanticdream.com/)


-Nick

[Sammy]

Bombesei: I've heard of that game before, I should find the Dreamcast virsion and import it, looks fun.

Prom:
I'm completely blown away with how ambitious Exile is, I didn't even know the controlls and I spent like an hour just exploring. Now that I know more I'm gonna try and actually accomplish some goals in the game.
So far I've gotten that little flask and was able to put out a fire fora key, and I got past one little robot and got a key.. haha but I donno how to use these keys.

The whole game is very charming, I think you captured that with your designs. I would absolutely LOVE for them to create a GBA version that I could explore on the road.

The MB crabs are totally missing from most Mario games (They were always in M-Kart tho). That's why everyone (who's geeky on the MB universe) should play the new Mario & Luigi RPG, it's the most nostalgic game ever. It got me gigglin'

through the whole thing with all it's references to past mario stuff.
The story is great too: An evil captures Peach's voice and replaces it with an "explosive vocabulary" (bombs fall from the word bubble and go boom).... Seeing this Bowser is like "Hey Mario, I can't kidnapp Peach or she'll blow up my whole castle!!" .... so you have to go get Peach's voice back so the whole kidnapping thing can be set back to normal.

"I once caught a fish this big! I'm not shitting you ... But when I took it to the surface it exploded" haha, love that one

[Prometheus|ANJ]

I think you have to hold the key 'remote' (toggle inventory with g) and fire... or something, you can aim up and down with it too, just as with the gun. It's like a remote control. If there's a nasty robot behind a door you can open it from a distance and then toss in a grenade. Don't forget to use R or whatever to remember your position (where you end up when you die). Try feeding the imps with frogs, they'll get friendly and give you cool stuff.

I've played till I got to a large windshaft that exits at the groundlevel where you encountered the bird and got the first grenade. If I hold something heavy I might be able to get further down. I also activated some sort of console in a secret passage that materialized a green robot. All very mysterious. The game is STILL a bit too linear for my taste though, and the emu crashes all the time so I'm not playing it much. It seems some doors won't break no matter how much I blast them.


Oh yeah, the crabs are running across the road in Mario Kart. The new game is gor GBA or GC? Google, here I come.


If I find Omikron in the budget pile down at the store I'll be sure to get it.

[Sammy]

Ok, played the game a little more, managed to get some stuff from the imps.
Fore some reason the game really goes good to African Zulu Choirs.

I hope they remake this game. But they'll have to change some things, mostly defining your goals more clearly (not all gamers are as deturmined as us). 'Cause I'd've never figured out to feed the frogs to the imps.... but that's part of the charm, discoverin' stuff like that.

We should make some animated Exile gifs...

You've got a pretty steep defenition of non-liniar. Games really are just abstract interface designs to a final screan/credits. Just as longs as they keep me interested in clicking my way to the final goal.... Out of curiosity what games do you consider non-linear?
Games like Super Metroid are linear, but they do a great job of convincing me otherwise. It's best when KEYS are acutally usable upgrades like a morph-ball (or granade in Exile). Yea they could've taken it out and widened the passageways a bit, but it's fun using a 'key'(ball) to navigate tiny tunnels.

Mario & Luigi is for the GBAdvance... and WHEEEW is it ever a nostalgia-nerdboner-athon. Some cool points:
You get to level up your mustache http://media.pocket.ign.com/media/550/550433/img_1876939.html
Mario in his underwar whistling old tunes http://media.pocket.ign.com/media/550/550433/img_1876931.html
Luigi's still the bitch http://media.pocket.ign.com/media/550/550433/img_1851548.html
There's actually a part of the game where mario's sick.. and you have to hypnatize Luigi that he's actually Mario for him to get the courage to go on.
And the battle system is very interactive, you can jump at any point to dodge or counter attacks
http://media.pocket.ign.com/media/550/550433/img_1851546.html
and the concept art is pretty good http://media.pocket.ign.com/media/550/550433/img_1839207.html

I'm mappin' out Metroid right now, got the first area pretty charted. I got my friend to run arround in it and I drew, pretty good multiplayer action : ) ... but I know I've landed some mistakes.
But all in all it makes the game very easy to do this, no running around without a clue.

PS. Did you play the 2nd Blaster Master? I snagged it the other day but forgot to bring it to my parents house for winter.... from what I played it was pretty : )

[Prometheus|ANJ]

I played Blaster Master 1/NES a lot. I did try out the Megadrive/Genesis version, I didn't like the gfx at all. I'm very displeased with how most sprites look 'today'. Adding gradiations only makes the colors look dirty. Adding lines on the inside breaks up the sihuette of the figure etc...

I'm not sure if it was you that showed me this game but the gfx truly rock. 4.75 stars from me. I'm not sure if I've seen anything better (although there's still room for improvement).

http://www.trzy.org/raiden2/
http://spot.home.texas.net/raiden2/

Yoshis Isle (GBA) has nice GFX too, simple and charmy. I had a similar pixeling style when I was doing work on my Amiga. I drew stuff 2x with the line tool, pressed O to outline, which resulted in a 3 pixel linewidth, then I halved with H and I got a 1.5 pixel line (ie, 1 or 2 pixels) which looked a bit scribbly. That's how I made the Asteroids GFX. It does however suffer from both the 'dull gradiations' and 'outlines on the inside' decease.



How do I define unlinear? Elite. Skirmish battles in RTS games. CTF, DM.
In general I like games where only the difficulty of the game is preventing me from entering certain areas. An example can be a game where the last boss is right next door, but your gear is so lousy he will turn you into steak with one look. So, you have to run around and get cool gear until you can beat him. The better you are the earlier you can beat him (and brag about it on the net). I don't know if there is such a game, but if there is I want it.


oh yeah...
If anyone have the Kid Icarus manual for NES with the neat enemy art I'd be interested in seeing some scans *cough*

[Sammy]

Raiden 2 is absolutely amazing. The explosions in that game are nice and dramatic, and you gotta love how EVERY little enemy leaves a crater in the ground when they blow up.. also every character has multiple death animations.

The only game that bests it is In The Hunt.... and it's a real shame that there are no screenshots online for it : (
We're talkin' MEGA shit blowing up all over the place.. the engine runs an insane amnt of sprites.
in the second level when you pass under the buildings shockwaves are sent above to the skyscrapers and all the windows shatter in a domino effect. Bridges have like 3 damage versions... there's a whole level where you blast up through brick and debris.
I'll try and find a MAIM rom of it to get some screenc-captures.

Yoshi's Island is definately a sprite fest.. and some of the best 2d leveldesign ever... my signature/quote at the bottom is my favorite level from that game (and I've yet to find all the red coins on that level)
I really respect the game for delivering such an insane storrybook style - couldn't have been easy to consistanly design everything for that.

Skirmish type games are non-liniar ... you make your own story through the event ... I still remember the most intense starcraft moments online with my buddy.
But your defenition of a "boss next door" game is exactly like what me and my friend are tryin' to accomplish... it's a metroid fan-game.. yea ... dignity whatever..
Basically it centers around an intro-boss-fight that leads into your ship crashing into the planet pinning the wounded Ridley under it. You can repair your ship (balling up and bombing plant and debris shit) but you have to be prepaired to combat ridley when it takes off. So as the game progresses Samus upgrades at the same (scripted) rate that Ridley heals/mutates with the native plantlife.... basically I want the player to decide when they're ready to take it on.
here's some thumbs and a shitty ass markering of the Ridley mutations... My Samus thumbs are pretty unfaithfull, I was exploring a very alien/choso interpretation of her armor.
http://www.securevirtualpages.com/~sammyha/onlineforums/sketchdump/dailysketches30.jpg
http://www.securevirtualpages.com/~sammyha/onlineforums/sketchdump/dailysketches31.jpg
http://www.securevirtualpages.com/~sammyha/onlineforums/sketchdump/dailysketches32.jpg
http://www.securevirtualpages.com/~sammyha/onlineforums/sketchdump/ridley.jpg

[Prometheus|ANJ]

Cool, I like the Ridley one. I never managed to get my fanart of him/it right. Purple skin (I'm working from the M1 sprite) is really hard to do and I couldn't make him look chubby like my other fanart pics at the time. it was a year or so since I tried now, so perhaps I should have a go at him again.

Here's the SMB fanart/redesigns I was working on. I made some sprites too (bloober, wreching crew monkey wrench and running thing, crab, mario).
http://w1.485.telia.com/~u48508900/smbmiscc2.jpg

My idea for a redesign of MB/SMB/DK/DKjr is to go back to the one screen format, ie no scrolling. With 400x300 I could fit a good amount of details/puzzles on screen. I just played some DK/DKjr and realized how much fun it is with all the hanging or moving ropes, ladders, platforms, springboards, elevatrors, wierd bonus items, etc.

I'd also like to make a world for each personality, Bowser would have the usual koopa troopas and gombas, Wart would have shyguys, Tatanga would have robots, DK would have... well I haven't figured that one out yet (help me), but Mario would have the walking monkeywrenches and snapjaws.

[Sammy]

So you're goin' back to like uni-screen/panneled game&watch style! Fun, just get better physics worked up... so far SMW had my fav physics.

my fav has to be your blooper with the mask, that fits in the MB universe real nice! It would be cool if you did an underwater panel, froggie suit style.

old uni-panneled games had some of the best (and most challenging) gameplay.... sorta "king of the hill" play mechanics, having to get to the top usually.. sorta how side-scorrlers had you get from left to right.

Ever play DK 3? I just got that game, was so hard... you were the little dude squirting bugs..
Shouldn't the DK level have the snapjaws?? Hmmm.. time to go serchin' for old DK sprites

[geoffd]

a little OT here, but i've been playing Yoshi's Island (2d 16-bit games are my favs) and just now got your signature sammy.... i just beat that level about 10 minutes ago.