Wednesday, 7 November 2012
Pixel-on-pixel
I promised pixel-on-pixel last week. I am still unsure going about doing these animations. If I would to have unique pixel-on-pixel animations for each enemy, there's gonna be a lot of work. Meanwhile if I go about have set animations of the heroine being done from behind/front/top/bottom/many, it'll be easier, and the extra time spent elsewhere to better the game. (Not to mention the game finish development faster too)
There you go. Still doing the slime AI, should have an executable up in a day or two ... no promises though.
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lol, looks really good. :) I feel like you haven't presented a lot of enemies yet, so I think people will be more satisfied with fewer enemies with unique animations than with more enemies with generic animations. The expectation of LOTS of enemies has not set in yet. Unique animations gives us a unique insentive to keep playing forward, that traditional platformers don't have. The player is like, "oh, what interesting animation will I see in the next stage?"
ReplyDeleteIf you make more enemies your soul bonus for going forward, your game will be not that different from metal slug or whatever, you know? We come here for an h-game. Therefore unique animations should take precedence, I think.
I see your point of view. Well, I'm already going down that path of the unique animations so you and the people are in for some good fun. Thanks for the input!
DeleteThanks for being the kind of game creator to make amazing games and listen to new ideas!
DeleteAah, the obligatory raping slime monster >:) Looks good already!
ReplyDeleteIf I may ask, do you have any plan or preference as to the direction the monsters in the game will be taking? More like Kurovadis with fantasy creatures or more like MitsukoX/SpaceEscape with beasts?
In any case, I wish you the best of luck and from what I see, if you manage to finish the game, it's a definite buy from me :)
You will definitely see beasts, fantasy monsters and the like, just that they'll be in the forms of how I depict them.
DeleteIf you think about having a set number of positions, and then sprite the monsters to interact based on these positions, you have more variety out of the gate while lessening the load on player character sprites. If you think about the enemies that you can add SPECIFIC unique animations to, i.e. the ones that are your most unique or interesting, and leave the more generic ones to common/grunt monster sprites, you end up controlling the amount of content you have to generate based on your interest/finances/time.
ReplyDeleteInstead of saying "I must do X number of unique enemies with a unique animation each," you say "I have X number of set animations which are reusable, thus filling my bases, and now I can decide to impress with X number of unique animations based on available resources." If you think about it, sex positions really do not change that much. It is easier to create a baseline sprite of your player character for a given act, and then adjust it for interacting with the monster in question, than it is to create the sprites to interact solely with each other, and then reinvent the wheel each time.
If you run into a situation where you have an enemy sprite that you can do nothing with a set sprite animation of the player character, and can't figure out how to merge the two, then you know you need to concentrate on a unique angle/motion for that enemy. I, for one, enjoy a sort of quantity over quality, where you have a preponderance on the quantity side over the quality side. If you have one really good animation, but it's only used on one enemy, and you don't really do anything with any of the other enemies, what have you accomplished? You've limited the intersection between gameplay and h-content by encounter rate. Whereas, if you have more enemies that you can encounter with, but it is maybe a bit more generic on positions, you still have that ephemeral encounter quality where the fact that the scene changes to the nth degree reaffirms your interest in the content.
In the end, you have to balance your finances/interest/time allotment AND game style, vs. the perceived interests of your audience. You have two different interests in your audience so far: you have a person who has posted earlier who believes that unique animations and searching for them are the best part. You have me, who believes that the enjoyment of the encounter is not determined solely by the animation angle or uniqueness of it, but by where it happens, who can get involved, and the frequency with which it happens.
DeleteKurovadis has a unique animation approach, as do a lot of visual novel-styled games which have unique CG for unique scenes, which are NOT reused, therefore creating a specific number of scenes and no more. A game with a more generic reuse approach would be some of the run-or-rape games which have similar positions, but alternate enemies, OR some of the RPG Maker games that make use of collage images to create a generic sequence which can be applied to a variety of encounters, such as Violated Heroine or the dlsite commercial games with similar setups. I have enjoyed all of the above, so it is not possible to say that one is more perfect than the other.
In the end, what do YOU enjoy? You will have an easier time doing what you enjoy, instead of slaving to the market, for at least your first game, and you will know your territory better.
Interesting wall-o-text. I have to say I have not thought of it in such flexible manner (generic + unique sprites). I shall ponder about this.
DeleteMeanwhile, I must know the name you go by!
Know my name and fear it! I am Onslaught!
ReplyDeleteEr, rather, the major thing you should think about starting off is your time, artistic investment, and perceived benefit. One thing you can think about is timing yourself on how long it takes to create one enemy and one unique animation. Now, think about how simple that enemy is, and think about how complex the next might be. From that enemy, you have at least a general idea of how long it would take to do a unique enemy, with animation, and with your player character as a part of it.
The benefit of having generic player character animations is saving investment in the PC side of spriting. For future enemies, you can make very minor adjustments to the PC for possible angle considerations and concentrate solely on the enemy. From this, you can shave off the PC's side of your time in creating the scene.
It's sort of like code reuse. As long as you take the effort to tweak the PC to match the enemy and add some easy ingredient to each PC/enemy encounter, there's no need to reinvent the wheel each time. If you look at a lot of PC sprites from video games, you'll be amazed by how much is either blatantly reused, or is modified from a previously existing sprite. Capcom games can get away with making every. freaking. sprite. unique because they are rich, and have dedicated concept artists and spriters.
You have you, yourself, and thou.
Depending on how you do the generic positions, you could even merge various enemies into the same encounter. From a spatial perspective, doggy style allows you to have up to three humanoids simultaneously for one female. In this case, the PC stays the same, and what you are adding is enemies. For the front and back (oral, vaginal, anal), you have roughly the same height, which means you don't have much to change. For three enemies at once, you have an additional under sprite. If you don't feel like the tough work of doing a bottom, then you've got two on one in doggy. Now, think about standing/holding. You've got front and back at also roughly the same heights. As long as the PC is consistent, you can sprite the enemies around the PC. For enemies like tentacles, jellies, etc., you can create a generic floating sprite. For ground-based animals, make a generic cowgirl or squatting. With the proper use of transparency/opacity effects, you can even have an enemy in front of the PC, between the camera and PC.
I apologize for typing out a lot, but it's difficult to reach a concise way of saying these things. I whole-heartedly agree with having unique animations, but that can become a creative nightmare. A unique pose like Kyrieru's held by the snake doctor and being railed is definitely worth doing for a big character. Something like Kyrieru's zombie animation (simple, maybe boring, but effective!) is a good concept for a generic PC pose. It's easier to put legs on the ground or over the shoulders than it is to shift the whole body on its axis in a particular angle. Missionary doesn't really get that complicated. Doggystyle is usually hands at rest, or on elbows, or being plowed into the ground by the experience. You'll adjust the torso and head's elevation, but the legs and ass stay relatively the same.
For now, the game mechanics and their design/implementation will largely take up the most of your time. If you can think of a special way to include the sexual content you're looking for into the way you play, that's a plus as well. Having a gimmick for your game will go a long way, as long as the gimmick is fun! The sprites will not be a secondary goal for long, but having good sprites/art without solid gameplay and controls will end up pushing you into softhouse-seal territory: pretty to look at, but makes you reach for a revolver to put to your temple when you play it.
Never give up on what you're doing, so long as you enjoy it!
I for one would love to see some after effects of getting raped to completion. Both visual and gameplay effects would be great. For example, after the slime finishes you see her laying on the ground, panting, with the lower half of her body covered in green slime. After getting back up, she is still covered in slime and is slowed because of it for a while. Maybe the slime-head could impregnate her with an egg, and afterwards she looks heavily pregnant until a brief (and somewhat random) time later she is disabled/super slowed while she births a small slime. Giving rise to a new enemy type (maybe one that wants her breasts).
ReplyDeleteThese are just some basic ideas and while they may be a bit of work to implement, they add a lot (imo) to the gameplay and give the player a reason to avoid being fucked by the monsters. This is rather different than most games where there is really no reason to avoid it (maybe a tiny bit of health loss) and in fact many players actively seek out and enjoy the rape animations (I know I do). Make the rapes dangerous/debilitating and the pervert side of me (us) with be battling it out with the gamer side of me (us). Plus this helps keep the animations from getting old.
Either way, I look forward to seeing how this progresses.
Cheers!