Sprite Sheets

So I'm putting sprite sheets into practice now since we're making/experimenting with animating in unity 2D! I've learnt a good bit about it already, after doing my initial one I found out I need to use a bigger sprite sheet in Photoshop to make more room for the animation and I also preferably want more than 10 frames.

That's the 10 frame one ^^ 

Now I'm working one one with 15 frames and twice the height and a quarter the length... problem being now I cannot save them as a PNG! 

So I'll need to talk through my options with team mates on Thursday!

Remake

This was what I first began with... attempting to create a spaceship for our game... Shit right? Yes!

But not too long after making many backgrounds and getting more used to photoshop and finding cool new ways to do things I managed to create this one below. And I was happy with this... thinking Yippi I can finally do shit! 

I think a lesson after I managed to create a spaceship similar to this one below (but not quite this one) and I was even more delighted! The progression between them all is a lot since I am not comfortable with art! 

All in all here I am glad with my accomplishment and it's kinda edging me towards being a bit more artistic (only a little). The cool design phase for this is that I've written a background for all of the space craft we have which should be in the pitch document! 

I think it's going to be cool to pick on of these ships and make it your own! The next step for me is too create the visuals for the upgrades to go on these ships. Should be fun!  

Scorpion M4900

Scorpion M4900

The Scorpion spacecraft is a typical mining ship but due to its ability to withstand impact from debris it became very popular with the civilian population and thus the Scorpion M class was created. The 4900 model comes with a slightly more reinforced hull and has the potential to hold a lot more fuel than most spacecraft, also included are platforms for additional upgrades so you can go all out of this beaut! A bit more expensive than the others but when it comes to your life; you can never be too safe.

Upgrades:

Fuel Capacity – Level 1-14

(Before every level they player must draw a path and the length of the path is determined by how much fuel the ship can carry. The fuel capacity can be upgraded in-between levels which can allow for longer paths to be created which will increase the difficulty and give added bonuses!)

Hull strength – Level 1-12

(The hull strength is how much damage you can take before your ship is destroyed; the higher the level it is the more damage you can afford to take.)

Engine Power level 1-7

(Engine power is all about speed, some ships are more designed to speed away where as others need upgrades to even compare to others. Upgrading the engine will mean the ship will complete its journey faster hopefully avoiding more incoming asteroids.)

Add-ons:

Force Shield – Level 1-3

(Even the greatest Captains make mistakes like letting an asteroid hit them… or two… but with this nifty little gadget you need not worry they will bounce right off the shield protecting your ship from perilous death!! *customer warning: shield will only last a few impacts*)

Laser Guns – Level 1-3

(ATEROIDS, ASTEROIDS EVERYWHERE!! No matter, just activate your laser guns!? Don’t have them? Well you are missing out, these top of the line assault weapons will blow those pesky rocks into even smaller rocks rendering them useless and all that from the click of a button! *customer warning: multiple use only, batteries must be recharged after every journey*)

Shockwave – Level 1-3

(Oh no… They’re everywhere! Who can save us?! Well it’s not who can save us, it is “what” can save us! This cool piece of tech was developed to protect the mining crafts during asteroid showers. Anything within the radius will be blown away when you activate the shockwave! Protecting you from any and all dangers! *customer warning: multiple uses only, needs a long…ish… time until it can be used again.*)

Lesson Learnt!

Today I learn the valuable lesson of saving my fucking work before photoshop fucks me in the arse. So yeah. pretty much just that.

Spaceship number 2 please...

So here is one the the spacecraft that the player can choose from. It's called the Serenity 9000. A quick nimble transport ship but doesn't have that great a hull strength!

Showcase

Finished the art for all the asteroids a while back but just posting them before I forget! Whipped them all together too... As you can see they all follow our "geometric twist" of an art style which I feel looks really cool actually. I'll post more on the pitch document later that I have done and some of the space craft and hopefully some upgrades!! 

Art/Design Advancements

Lets start off with Design eh?

So just moving onto the pitch Document now, thought I'd give it a bit of TLC so I wrote a little on the game overview side:

Hexicronic is a strategy/action game where you have to draw a path for a spaceship through many different locations in space in search for unimaginable fortune in the form of a “Hexicronic”. To make things challenging, while navigating through the space asteroids will be flying at the player in which they have to defend against using their reflexes and quick thinking. Asteroids will fly in on the screen randomly some with different mechanics so it doesn’t get so repetitive and can indefinitely increase the difficulty level as the player attempts to keep their spaceship in once piece through the levels.

In the search of the “Hexicronic” you buy the cheapest ship you can find with all the money you own. Now you must travel across the vast space which is the universe, upgrading your ship as you go along with money you salvage along your journey. To do that, a path must be navigated to avoid death and scavenge valuables in the attempt to find the “Hexicronic” to ultimately gain untold riches! 

As I said just a little bit to describe the game, since it is more on a pick up and play game for Androids and such I thought against writing my usual essays of back story. 

I have also written on the mechanics of "Path drawing" and "Asteroids" so I need to get some art to accompany them to make sure it all looks dandy!! 

A problem I've en counted with design - art limitations is that I'm unable to draw up a spaceship the looks visually pleasing and I'd really want more than one spacecraft available to the player, I feel having multiple options in an app is a real repayable factor in these sort of games as I have found out the hard way a lot of wasted time later! Ideally I want 3 different space crafts with each different strengths and weaknesses like one more agile, one more durable and another maybe in between the both. This I feel would give the player a satisfying sense of picking "their" own spaceship rather than being handed one and then getting the luxury of still getting them both eventually, this can always lead to future updates with more space crafts more ideas which can make the game easily playable many a time just to get all the upgrades/spaceships or even new backgrounds. 

My inspiration from these ideas are a mixture, a bit from a game called "Hill Climb" some from "Pokemon" and then also from these images I found: 

Obviously I have to minimise my thoughts here since I'm talking post release but I am trying to prioritise the idea of making this repayable since it is the core strength of a game like this, I feel if it's only entertaining on the one play through then we'll have done something wrong. 

So... Now art! 

I have set out to create some cool backgrounds for our game, given we're going for a geometric look this is what I have made: 

I have made a lot of these quite dark mainly because I was mainly thinking they'd be subtle background images that you could only just make out while defending your ship but the grey scale in the middle is a favourite at the moment so I'm going to go ahead and try to make more similar to that. 

My biggest challenge is creating the space craft... which I'm going to have to work on... ALOT!