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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby beelzy » 03 Apr 2016, 16:43

Oh, I see. It was touch. Not sure how that will work without an interface, as there's only so many gestures you can use that maps properly to the controls. I think it works okay in Infinity Blade because the controls are only for combat or only for exploring, unlike most classic games where you have precise control over where the character goes and what they do.

That retina screenshot turned out nicely. I was worried it would look blocky or too small.
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby palrogg » 03 Apr 2016, 21:09

Yes, that's right. However I stick to the idea it may be possible… If you don't mind, I'll continue experimenting with the demo sources. I edited my previous post to add a drag event which triggers the attack (it's still very unconvenient).
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby beelzy » 04 Apr 2016, 07:39

Sure, feel free to experiment. That's why it's GPL.
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby beelzy » 10 Apr 2016, 23:35

Another update.
There is now a UI for selecting levels. Excuse the atrocious looking map; I haven't exactly decided what the overworld should look like just yet.

I put in a tagging feature that allows players to tag specific levels for when they find levels with areas they can't reach yet or there's something there they missed and didn't get yet, or they simply just liked the level.

Image

Image

Image

The levels don't actually exist yet, so you can't actually select them just yet. That will be coming up soon.
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby beelzy » 12 Apr 2016, 22:58

Important new feature: warping between levels. The essential idea behind it is that you don't actually walk between levels to get there, but rather, teleport there by warping the catacombs underneath the level. The "lost" catacombs is the player's hub for everything: access to levels, some item shopping, healing, etc.


youtu.be/YpvhnP5HiKM
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby Akien » 13 Apr 2016, 06:36

The pentacle effect is pretty nice! It would be cool if there was something else though that made you feel like you're arriving in a different scene; right now the two levels you showed have the exact same catacombs room, so you don't feel like you were really warped. So you have three possibilities I guess (maybe use all of them):
- Make all levels have a somewhat recognizable catacombs room
- Make the character fade out/fade in while teleporting, or add a screen shake effect, or something like that
- Display the name of the level after the teleport, and not only after moving up the ladder
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby Imerion » 14 Apr 2016, 11:11

I hadn't noticed before, but that interface, like the sound-sliders and button list, looks really good! I love the design, very stylish and detailed yet still clear.
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby beelzy » 15 Apr 2016, 01:02

Thanks. I updated the animation for warping. After the magic spell, the entire catacombs disappears and reappears. I guess it's kind of hard to tell that it's supposed to be the same catacombs at the beginning of every level because that's what gets teleported. It's probably just a bit big. I do hope this helps though.

I guess being a web developer means you have some experience doing graphical interfaces.
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby beelzy » 23 Apr 2016, 03:54

Some more updates.
The "catacombs" level has received a total makeover, and now it looks more like one. You can also sleep in the coffin to restore health.

I put up the first tutorial level. People are free to try it. It's a bit of a unique level though because it's one of only a few levels that are shared between both characters.
Image
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby beelzy » 07 May 2016, 18:06

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I suppose planning all the levels would have taken some time and not much else to show, and there wasn't really a good place to just stop to take screenshots or show off features, so I guess I'll do that now.

Here are a few bosses. I don't want to spoil the strategy too much, so they're just screenshots. I pushed the changes though, so you can try them yourselves if you'd like. The tilesets are obviously not final either. They're just there so that I have a level, and will be replaced later.

Image

I had another idea for this boss which involved having a specific BGM for this fight with four voices in it (an SATB thing). Unfortunately, it's hard to find something like that for something as intense as a boss fight. Beethoven's 9th symphony, for example, is way too happy for something like this.

Image
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby charlie » 09 May 2016, 13:41

beelzy {l Wrote}:Sorry for the lack of updates, but I suppose planning all the levels would have taken some time and not much else to show, and there wasn't really a good place to just stop to take screenshots or show off features, so I guess I'll do that now.


Never apologise for working on your project. We are glad to hear of updates when it is appropriate to for you to talk about them. Developing should be fun, not onerous, and as such you should try not to let community expectations drive your engagement with it.

Looking good though! Nice work. 8)
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby Imerion » 11 May 2016, 16:06

Never apologise for working on your project. We are glad to hear of updates when it is appropriate to for you to talk about them. Developing should be fun, not onerous, and as such you should try not to let community expectations drive your engagement with it.


So true!

And I agree, it looks very nice! I've always had a thing for bosses that cover most of the screen. :)
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby palrogg » 15 May 2016, 21:37

Cool! And I love the hand drawn map :-)

In case you still look for a background music: I spent a long time last month finding songs on freemusicarchive.org and SoundCloud. Some links...

"Pulsing tension loop" https://soundcloud.com/freestings/video ... ensionloop (CC-BY)
"Boss sound" https://soundcloud.com/peakssound/catas ... boss-fight (CC-BY)
Besides I like what this guy does, but it's another genre: https://soundcloud.com/analogsheep
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby beelzy » 17 May 2016, 09:41

Thanks.

Ja, I didn't get around to posting screenshots of the new map. Glad you like it though.

The music isn't too bad at all. It's probably not got the kind of instrumentation I was looking for for this kind of game. I'm looking more for something in the harpsichord/pipe organ direction, though symphonic metal would be fine too. I'm a bit picky about that.
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby beelzy » 31 May 2016, 23:34

Yes I'm still working on this. So I finished most of the boss implementations, but they're designed to be beaten by specific characters (haven't restricted the levels yet). You can try them anyways:

Friederich
Berg Fortress
Marble Castle
Lava Cave

Adela
Aqueduct
holy ruins
Crypt

And here's a new tileset for one of the levels.
Image
Wondering if it offers enough contrast.
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby MCMic » 01 Jun 2016, 04:40

It does not, I can’t tell what is a platform and what isn’t. You should fade the background or something…
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby Akien » 01 Jun 2016, 06:37

Nice work! I'll try the new levels and boss fights as soon as I have some time :)

I agree with MCMic, that even though the new tileset it very good looking, it doesn't show well enough what elements you can interact with. The GUI is also not so visible on top of the colourful green shades. Maybe fading a bit, desaturating or increasing the overall contrast difference between background and foreground would help :)
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby c_xong » 01 Jun 2016, 10:19

A quick way to check if a game's visuals are clear enough is to desaturate the screenshot and see if it's easy to understand what's going on. You should be able to clearly see things like the player, enemies, powerups, platforms, and the background should not be intrusive at all. Here's more info:

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PeterAng ... r_Game.php

An easy and effective way to achieve clear visuals is to make the important things brightest, and the background darkest.

Don't use colour alone to differentiate elements. Not only is it worse than using brightness, it's also poor accessibility for those with colour blindness.
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby beelzy » 01 Jun 2016, 20:22

Thanks for all the tips. I noticed Castlevania employs another trick, which is to add pure black shadows under the platforms. There are quite a few rooms in that game where the walls consist mostly of black patches of shadows.

I've decided to just brighten the platforms and tone down the background contrasts. I hope it looks better now.

Image
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby c_xong » 02 Jun 2016, 01:49

One more thing you can do is highlight the ladder. At the moment it might be indistinguishable from the background, for blue-green blindness. You can use a consistent visual motif to show which elements are interactive; an extreme example is Mirror's Edge where everything you can grab is red. This isn't an issue now because everyone knows what a ladder looks like and does, but in case you use other items for climbing/progressing, you can reuse the visual motif so that players aren't confused. This is a very common technique in traversal games.

More info here: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/TravisHo ... ciples.php

IMHO you didn't have to change the entire platform to yellow, just the top surface, like in Sonic 1 level 1 with the grass-topped rocks. Also you may have overdone the brightness a bit; it's now yellow whereas a light brown will do, like in SOTN.
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby beelzy » 02 Jun 2016, 18:04

Thanks. I guess I could make the ladder a bit lighter, seeing as the original sandbox tile set I was using had a fairly dark background as well. Perhaps it was a bit less noisy though, so it was easier to see. I think I did decide to keep the same ladder for consistency, and because it's a ladder; can't get much fancier than that.

I did originally want the front tiles to be sort of yellow, but they didn't "blend" in well, so I made them too dark. I guess making tiles is different from a painting where the colors don't have to match.
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby Sauer2 » 02 Jun 2016, 22:25

Since you desaturate it for testing, why not go that way for the normal color as well and desaturate it and tune the hue so that it looks like white marble?

Kind of like in my attached image, only done by someone who knows how to manipulate images...
marble.png
marble.png (13.26 KiB) Viewed 11848 times
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby beelzy » 03 Jun 2016, 21:52

I guess I could use the original color. It's not really any less bright though. Does it look okay?

Image

And here's a cave like tileset.

Image
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby Sauer2 » 04 Jun 2016, 11:09

beelzy {l Wrote}:I guess I could use the original color. It's not really any less bright though. Does it look okay?

Image

And here's a cave like tileset.

Image

Pretty cool.

About the white stuff: Not sure, maybe a little less bright.
And like c_xong said, the under parts and the wood/ornaments may even be less brighter than the top part.

Cool background image, btw.
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Re: Castlevania Clone (working title, demo for now)

Postby palrogg » 05 Jun 2016, 20:08

It looks pretty good with the original color. I wanted to give a try and see if the ladder is bright enough, but I can't find the “CastlevaniaClone-fullgame” repository anymore. Did you move it somewhere?
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