Author Topic: Journey To Hammerdale (zelda-like) (Read 10305 times)

winged doom · « **on:** December 11, 2011, 05:20:56 pm »

"Journey to Hammerdale" is RPG with oldskool graphixx and oldskool spirit.
The game features Zelda-style gameplay and puzzles like in Sokoban or Final Odyssey from Amiga.
All info here

Wes · « **Reply #1 on:** December 11, 2011, 09:05:41 pm »

i'ma edit this with more of a crit soon (i cant find my glasses atm and i hope i didnt leave them at work i cant see anything man)

4 frames for each direction, right? from what i can tell it looks like you have the basic pendulum motions right except that there's a jerkiness in the animation that's preventing it from looking very smooth. i do notice in some of them that her entire body moves a pixel here or there where it shouldn't—which makes a strange jumping effect (ex in the first image she seems to jump a little horizontally and in the second one she jumps vertically). while the body should move up and down a little during the walk cycle, it should be in a sqash-and-stretch kind of way, not moving the entire thing.

also i checked that link and dude i love the trees in the screenshots.

Seiseki · « **Reply #2 on:** December 12, 2011, 05:05:14 pm »

Interesting project

I saw this logo though and thought I had become dyslectic.

Is it just me or is that logo extremely hard to read..

(sorry for being off-topic)

edit: why is the crack between her breast blinking?

Mathias · « **Reply #3 on:** December 12, 2011, 06:28:34 pm »

It's legibility is way too low, yes.

I'm huge into logo/brand design and I must slap this down with my mighty backhand of design tyranny. The graphical treaments, although a little excessive, are very nice and give a great visual appeal. But it doesn't work. My best interpretation is Journey to Hammernale. The lowercase "r" tells me to read the capitalized "D" as "n".

One quick improvement he can do is get rid of the yellow stroke inside the purple letter shapes and let it all be purple. Nice use of nested strokes via Illustrator but come on naow.

winged doom · « **Reply #4 on:** December 13, 2011, 06:46:51 am »

Quote from: Wes on December 11, 2011, 09:05:41 pm

i'ma edit this with more of a crit soon (i cant find my glasses atm and i hope i didnt leave them at work i cant see anything man)

4 frames for each direction, right? from what i can tell it looks like you have the basic pendulum motions right except that there's a jerkiness in the animation that's preventing it from looking very smooth. i do notice in some of them that her entire body moves a pixel here or there where it shouldn't—which makes a strange jumping effect (ex in the first image she seems to jump a little horizontally and in the second one she jumps vertically). while the body should move up and down a little during the walk cycle, it should be in a sqash-and-stretch kind of way, not moving the entire thing.

also i checked that link and dude i love the trees in the screenshots.

right, 4 frames
looks like i should synchronize all these "jumps"

winged doom · « **Reply #5 on:** December 13, 2011, 06:52:37 am »

Quote from: Seiseki on December 12, 2011, 05:05:14 pm

edit: why is the crack between her breast blinking?

i don't understand (( what you mean?

winged doom · « **Reply #6 on:** December 13, 2011, 07:35:25 am »

Quote from: Mathias on December 12, 2011, 06:28:34 pm

The lowercase "r" tells me to read the capitalized "D" as "n".

better?

Fickludd · « **Reply #7 on:** December 13, 2011, 10:54:04 am »

Nice logo, but still I'm afraid preeetty hard to read.

Animation:
Your frames move about too much, making the animation jaggy/skippy instead of fluid. Walking is a pretty uneventful motion.

Southwest walk jitters horizontally
West walk jitters vertically
South and north walks jitter less, but still a bit
Northeast walk is ok

Is it just me or is the beltbuckle in the south walk moving in the wrong direction?

This is a really nice sprite by the way.

Mathias · « **Reply #8 on:** December 13, 2011, 12:21:30 pm »

While I appreciate your willingness to take direction, I have to be honest and answer - no. I think you regressed.

-Colors are washed out. Looks like you have a contrasty gradient blending in too strongly now. The yellows got really boosted somehow. Almost makes me want to see if your display is calibrated (displaying full range of luminosity efficiently/correctly).
-It appears you took a vector logo, rasterized it and did some smudges/swirls in Photoshop. If you did this in vector, keep it in vector so it's resolution remains infinite, creating raster-stylized versions only where necessary.
-That curl manually added to the "e" in Hammerdale doesn't work for me; doesn't match the scripty style of the typography.
-Try adding in some ornate olde english or celtic knotwork flourishes to frame in the letters; occupy the negative space inside the logo's implied rectangular bounding box.

I offer crit because I like it, and I hope you can improve it a bit. It is a very interesting logo, it just needs to be reigned in a little.

ROCK

ON

fortunato · « **Reply #9 on:** December 13, 2011, 05:16:43 pm »

Quote from: Mathias on December 12, 2011, 06:28:34 pm

It's legibility is way too low, yes.
...
One quick improvement he can do is get rid of the yellow stroke inside the purple letter shapes and let it all be purple. Nice use of nested strokes via Illustrator but come on naow.

try this. this would make it a lot more readable. the first time i saw the logo, i couldn't read it at all until i read the name of your game. even then, i could still barely make it out. if you want a logo to be successful, it has to be instantly understood and readable.

also, i'd have to agree with Mathias. i like the first version's colors better.

TheMonsterAtlas · « **Reply #10 on:** December 13, 2011, 11:41:32 pm »

It's in all honesty the font style's fault. We aren't able to distinguish what exactly each character is suppose to represent. Taking out a lot of the loops and outer branches would make it a lot better to read. The first logo is my favorite so far, It adds a darker tone to the game.

winged doom · « **Reply #11 on:** January 02, 2012, 07:12:32 pm »

guys thanx for critique of logotype
it's sad, but now i don't have any time for correction of that ugly logo, i do it later

some scetch from current stage of work

pistachio · « **Reply #12 on:** January 02, 2012, 07:33:36 pm »

Latest update seems confusing. What is it, exactly, that is in ruins? I would expect to see some sort of ruined castle. It's good nonetheless, very 3-dimensional and I like the way you've made use of planes (angles) there.

winged doom · « **Reply #13 on:** January 02, 2012, 07:52:49 pm »

Quote from: pistachio on January 02, 2012, 07:33:36 pm

Latest update seems confusing. What is it, exactly, that is in ruins? I would expect to see some sort of ruined castle. It's good nonetheless, very 3-dimensional and I like the way you've made use of planes (angles) there.

i ~~think~~ believe it's sedimentary rocks (or ruins may be) inside some goblin cave
but i'm not sure really, it's just a scetch

Mathias · « **Reply #14 on:** January 02, 2012, 09:16:35 pm »

Yeah, I'm digging that rough mockup. Really cool.
You seem to be using diminishing perspective, which will give you prblems if your character walks around the world enough and everything pans. Angles will get more and more extreme as she gets away from the central points. I'll just have to wait and see what you're doing here.

Also, you're already using this type of perspective projection:

Are you going to mix perspective types for this game?

The KKM · « **Reply #15 on:** January 05, 2012, 10:56:40 am »

May I also add that the logo used in those mockups is infinitely more readable than the large one, perhaps for it's use of only one colour.

winged doom · « **Reply #16 on:** January 05, 2012, 12:15:30 pm »

Quote from: Mathias on January 02, 2012, 09:16:35 pm

Are you going to mix perspective types for this game?

if it will be possible
coder of project will answer this for me soon

picrandom

Quote from: The KKM on January 05, 2012, 10:56:40 am

May I also add that the logo used in those mockups is infinitely more readable than the large one, perhaps for it's use of only one colour.

oh yes! :D

winged doom · « **Reply #17 on:** January 16, 2012, 08:51:48 am »

winged doom · « **Reply #18 on:** January 18, 2012, 07:18:51 am »

PypeBros · « **Reply #19 on:** January 18, 2012, 04:19:20 pm »

maybe a secondary colour on the dungeon wouldn't hurt ... it's a bit all-monochromatic, right now (although it's marvelously rendered).

jams0988 · « **Reply #20 on:** January 19, 2012, 05:38:18 pm »

I don't know why this isn't getting more comments. This is some great work!
I love how you did the stone walls, and everything else is very well done, too.
I'm not sure the ground tiles fit as well as they could with the wall tiles, though. The wall tiles look like an old dungeon, but the ground tiles look more sterile, like a hospital or something. Then again, it gives off a weird atmosphere like this, which, judging by the creepy mouths in the floor, might be what you're going for, heheh.

Cool set, either way!

MattB · « **Reply #21 on:** January 19, 2012, 11:43:56 pm »

Jourvpy Tohammemale?

[Edit: The art looks awesome, but I have to jump on board with everyone else about the logo]

rikfuzz · « **Reply #22 on:** January 20, 2012, 04:12:56 pm »

Looks fantastic as everyone's said, love the rocky texture - just replying to point out the top right of the shadows is showing a horizontal where it should be a diagonal like its opposite corner. (Can do a diagram if that's not clear).

winged doom · « **Reply #23 on:** January 27, 2012, 04:05:05 pm »

Quote from: MattB on January 19, 2012, 11:43:56 pm

but I have to jump on board with everyone else about the logo

i agree with you, just too busy now

Quote from: jams0988 on January 19, 2012, 05:38:18 pm

I'm not sure the ground tiles fit as well as they could with the wall tiles, though. The wall tiles look like an old dungeon, but the ground tiles look more sterile, like a hospital or something.

it's something like a hall from cave to underground city =)

Quote from: rikfuzz on January 20, 2012, 04:12:56 pm

Looks fantastic as everyone's said, love the rocky texture - just replying to point out the top right of the shadows is showing a horizontal where it should be a diagonal like its opposite corner. (Can do a diagram if that's not clear).

oh! thanx for the correction!

winged doom · « **Reply #24 on:** January 27, 2012, 04:07:53 pm »

slym · « **Reply #25 on:** January 28, 2012, 12:25:38 am »

Don't animate her boobs. For one, female players dislike it. Plus it doesn't really look right at this sprite size. Just my advise though!

tehwexxl0rz · « **Reply #26 on:** January 28, 2012, 01:52:14 am »

There's no problem with animating her breasts slightly to add believably, but if you make it gratuitous, you are going to alienate a lot of players (not just women.)
That being said, the only thing really gratuitous about it ATM is the flashing sign and the new thread title.... I mean, seriously? >_>

Overall, the walking animation is very static. There's a LOT more you can do to add some life to it (skirt movement, hair movement, etc.) so bouncing breasts should be low on the list.

Regardless of the animation, I suggest changing the shape of the hair so it's not perfectly round. In character design, a strong silhouette is critical and the hair is killing it right now.

EDIT:

Hope this helps!

jams0988 · « **Reply #27 on:** January 30, 2012, 05:54:49 am »

Quote

Don't animate her boobs. For one, female players dislike it. Plus it doesn't really look right at this sprite size. Just my advise though!

I don't think there's a problem with bouncing boobs...I think there's a problem with the outfit. Why would a knight have her boobs hanging out? Some games can get away with this sort of fan service, but (like you said) with a sprite this small, I don't think it's really worth it trying to go with unrealistic sex appeal - I can't even tell they're bouncing at this size.

So, yeah! If this is the main character, I'd get rid of her boobs altogether. Cover it up with a breastplate if she's a knight or whatever. She looks like a bartender fishing for tips right now, which really feels like showing boobs for the sake of showing boobs. Girls in armor are hot in their own way, anyway: http://www.google.com/imgres?q=soul+calibur+4+hilde&um=1&hl=en&biw=1680&bih=916&tbm=isch&tbnid=gX1rN3MWUXvJJM:&imgrefurl=http://soulcalibur.wikia.com/wiki/Hilde&docid=kKUP0QVIIJ67oM&imgurl=http://images.wikia.com/soulcalibur/images/a/a4/HildeSC4.jpg&w=1400&h=1600&ei=YzEmT7DKHabV0QH11eHICA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=165&vpy=152&dur=620&hovh=240&hovw=210&tx=137&ty=123&sig=107225778435442496790&page=1&tbnh=113&tbnw=99&start=0&ndsp=48&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0 (Check out Caska from Berserk, too. :3~ )

Your character is cute right now, winged doom, but she'd probably be even more charming if she was dressed realistically!

And as an aside, to texwexxl0rz: Your title a FLCL reference, by any chance?

winged doom · « **Reply #28 on:** February 05, 2012, 10:50:29 am »

Quote from: jams0988 on January 30, 2012, 05:54:49 am

Quote
Don't animate her boobs. For one, female players dislike it. Plus it doesn't really look right at this sprite size. Just my advise though!
So, yeah! If this is the main character, I'd get rid of her boobs altogether. Cover it up with a breastplate if she's a knight or whatever. She looks like a bartender fishing for tips right now, which really feels like showing boobs for the sake of showing boobs.

Ok, i understand you, but what do you think, guys, if in game will be a boy as second main character? Girls-players can play with Boy Main Char and boys-players can play with Girl With Boobies - like Lara Croft or Nina Williams from Tekken or Ivy from Soul Calibur!

Quote

Your character is cute right now, winged doom, but she'd probably be even more charming if she was dressed realistically!

I don't want realism in the game, because it goes beyond style.

Quote from: tehwexxl0rz on January 28, 2012, 01:52:14 am

EDIT:

Woooooow!! It's soooo cool!!!!!! But... why did you removed the animated belt? Animation looks a lot better with him:

winged doom · « **Reply #29 on:** February 05, 2012, 11:06:06 am »

Finally i took up the correction of the logo. At first, I removed all unnecessary - the colors, strokes, bevels etc. And tried to start to increase the space between letters, the logo began to read:

slym · « **Reply #30 on:** February 05, 2012, 02:48:20 pm »

Put more space between the "to" and "hammerdale". Right now it reads "Journey Tohammprdale". You also really need to give priority to the words. It's not often that you see a logo with all of the same font size. I would either make Journey larger and shrink "To Hammerdale", or make Journey much smaller and "To Hammderdale" larger. Preferably the second one because if the "To Hammerdale" is any smaller it may become impossible to read.

Sharm · « **Reply #31 on:** February 05, 2012, 03:50:25 pm »

I dislike the belt animation. It implies a pelvic thrust in the walk which is just weird.

Mike · « **Reply #32 on:** February 05, 2012, 08:38:57 pm »

It's not a pelvic thrust. At least it doesn't look like that to me anyway. To me it looks like it's being used to accentuate the hip twisting as she walks. The idea is sound but perhaps the execution isn't quite right.

tehwexxl0rz · « **Reply #33 on:** February 05, 2012, 09:17:58 pm »

There are two big problems with the belt 1) it's twisting in the direction of the torso when it should be twisting in the direction of the hips if anything 2) the torso doesn't rotate nearly enough to warrant such an extreme counter-rotation. Even if it did, the waistline is the articulation point, so it should be facing forward.

winged doom · « **Reply #34 on:** February 08, 2012, 07:26:36 am »

Quote from: slym on February 05, 2012, 02:48:20 pm

Put more space between the "to" and "hammerdale". Right now it reads "Journey Tohammprdale". You also really need to give priority to the words. It's not often that you see a logo with all of the same font size. I would either make Journey larger and shrink "To Hammerdale", or make Journey much smaller and "To Hammderdale" larger. Preferably the second one because if the "To Hammerdale" is any smaller it may become impossible to read.

So, which variant is better?

jok · « **Reply #35 on:** February 08, 2012, 10:12:01 pm »

there are two weak points in light between letters - ey (in journey) and r in hammerdale)
general shape looks nice but is hard to read - more space between words should help a little imho
(tommorow i could submit edit if you want)

StarRaven · « **Reply #36 on:** February 08, 2012, 11:24:04 pm »

Quote from: slym on January 28, 2012, 12:25:38 am

Don't animate her boobs. For one, female players dislike it. Plus it doesn't really look right at this sprite size. Just my advise though!

As a female gamer, I would like to refute this. I have nothing against boobie jiggle. I do have to agree that it does look strange at this sprite size, but I think the real problem is that they are swaying side to side or something. You don't want that. It's unnattractive. It makes her look like she has flabby granny boobs. If they're going to bounce, they should be bouncing up and down. The other thing is that she doesn't seem to be moving very fast. She's just walking. You have to get to a nice bouncy jog before you start to get boobie jiggle on the level that would even show on this sprite.

Anyway, other than that, it all looks great.

I like #2 for your logo. I like that long tail on the H. You could decrease the size of "to" if you wanted to. That would help separate it from "Hammerdale."

winged doom · « **Reply #37 on:** February 12, 2012, 10:07:01 am »

Quote from: jok on February 08, 2012, 10:12:01 pm

there are two weak points in light between letters - ey (in journey) and r in hammerdale)
general shape looks nice but is hard to read - more space between words should help a little imho
(tommorow i could submit edit if you want)

oh yes i want! )))) if it will help you i have a source of logotype http://rghost.ru/36349872 =)

@ StarRaven: thanks for very detailed answer!
i see about what you have written and i should think on this
owing to criticism in this thread i got added evidence that to return to previous variant of animation

winged doom · « **Reply #38 on:** February 16, 2012, 12:06:13 pm »

This template will be used for various messages in game, like notes, schemes, puzzle tips etc…

winged doom · « **Reply #39 on:** February 19, 2012, 06:40:12 pm »

Icons for site (on left side of pic) and for in-game map (on right side).

winged doom · « **Reply #40 on:** February 22, 2012, 07:51:18 am »

winged doom · « **Reply #41 on:** March 16, 2012, 06:46:16 am »

Just want to thank three persons for their feedback and help in my work on J2H.
tehwexxl0rz - for his animation edit of the main character. I'm not sure that i will work in offered direction (may be if i got a free time), but his version of girl is more pleasant to me than mine

astrospoon - for more readable version of J2H logotype. I should realize it!!

Bones for his idea add animation to "floor mouth" object. At first was no any animation for mouth-object, only two conditions, two modes - opened and closed (check 01:01 and 01:14 minute in this video). When i have seen animation edit of Bones i has understood that should animate "closed mod" of mouth- because it looked more logical:

winged doom · « **Reply #42 on:** June 08, 2012, 07:35:18 am »

i need your fresh look, guys! this is Raider and his walk animation:

is that ok?

Cupcake · « **Reply #43 on:** June 08, 2012, 08:37:38 am »

No edits from me (yet?) but those don't look like the same sprite to me. The animation feels very different between the two - and the sprite itself as well! The shirt changes colors, and you go from the deep shadows between the pauldrons and helmet to the very disconnected-feeling pauldrons on the right one. Shading changes a lot elsewhere as well (sword is most obvious.)

The right-facing animation feels more like a collection of loose parts sliding around than a moving character.

PypeBros · « **Reply #44 on:** June 08, 2012, 10:54:59 am »

you could easily increase the movement of the front-side animation: even if that's a bit unrealistic for the perspective, make legs move more, make shoulders circle a bit, etc.

Grimsane · « **Reply #45 on:** June 11, 2012, 04:01:15 pm »

one thing is the positioning is inconsistent, pushing him back and forward that much doesn't look so good, and also your attempt at animating the horns isn't an efficient one either, they just move, and not in synch with the body,

these are reasonably minor alterations, just making the positions more consistent frame to frame, adding an alternating 1 pixel down head bob on frames #1-#3, and quickly putting together a better approach to the horn animation, animate it in synch with his arm swing, because that would be the direction his body would swing/rotate.

also the forward animation has quite alot of head bob at the moment you want to make sure it is synchronized with your side on animation, before the edit, your side on had no head bob, so it clashed with the forward animation. also the arms and seemingly the legs too have much more extreme motions in your profile/side on view than they have in the downward one, you should try make them consistent with one another.
the overall design of the character is quite appealing.

the perspective matches your main character. but I'm not entirely sure about the colours. the colours on your main character look more subtle and desaturated, in this character they seem high contrast and vibrant in comparison, on their own both colour schemes look fine, but I'm not sure they mesh together perfectly

winged doom · « **Reply #46 on:** June 26, 2012, 12:45:55 pm »

Sorry guys, i don't have a time to answer, but BIG THANX everyone for your replies, specially to a Grimsane for edit! It really helped!!!
So, i have some progress - new edit based on your good advices:

And new animation of attack (east direction):

I know they are not ideal. Many details need to be corrected, but I tired from this work and have to switch to something else.

Mr. Fahrenheit · « **Reply #47 on:** June 26, 2012, 12:55:14 pm »

For the attack animation I would have the actual sword take only 1 frame to get to the other side but have the smear take a few. This will make the animation seem quicker.

hopoo · « **Reply #48 on:** June 26, 2012, 09:46:04 pm »

Some things to consider:
-You generally do not want the mid-swing frame, because it slows down the chop and makes it seem much slower.
-Try swinging a "sword" in midair and stop it at an exact time; you'll find that you cant. You cant instantly slow down a swing.
-It helps to 'break' some joints at the impact of the swing in order to convey strength more
-I don't know your animation limit, but consider some more build-up and perhaps a frame from after the swing to neutral again

A dirty edit:

Grimsane · « **Reply #49 on:** June 26, 2012, 11:42:53 pm »

Quote from: winged doom

'specially to a Grimsane for edit! It really helped!!!

glad it did.

although I've noticed quite a few things I think you could improve

badly done but hope it illustrates it sufficiently there are quite intense colour differences in the different views, the most profound being the darkness of the shoulders in the front view and the darkest tones which are no where near that level of presence side on, and the head positioning seems to be slightly contradicted in either view relative to the body, maybe it is just the downward view is a tad too top down at the moment (which when compared to the player might be true) or the side on is conversely too side on, the top down one is definitely the easier to adjust. at the moment side on he looks a bit overweight and from the front he looks broad shoulder and muscular.

also the sword in the side view has foreshortening when it is tilted that looks a bit too extreme, maybe lengthen it a pixel or too, i find the shoulders neutral neutral *suddenly both going in different directions (back and forth)* slightly strange when noticing it and only one portion of his torso is animating. and the backward most action on the legs seems strange with the pixels flaring from his pants

and your colour count is quite insanely high at the moment, even going 32 bit style, your main character sprite has a good balance of colours. 48 compared to triple digits for the current versions of your brute,

but I will say the side on animation has definitely improved quite considerably ^ ^ hopoo offered some great advice regarding the sword swing animation

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Author Topic: Journey To Hammerdale (zelda-like) (Read 10305 times)