LASEReyes

[Jedi QuestMaster]

Not a big update, but I finally implemented the current player sprites and blocks into GMStudio (everything before was either GM5.0 or mockups).



Here's a little interactive test demo I set up: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OIf66R ... share_link

The LASER hasn't been implemented yet (on purpose). I wanted to make sure the bricks and pillars looked right first, no matter where they are positioned on screen and what surrounds them. I also wanted to make sure the player moved fluidly. Only the keyboard/mouse is set up for this demo:

• use SPACE, ENTER, LEFT, or RIGHT to change options
• left mouse click to place or delete a brick
• right mouse click to place or delete a pillar
• you can't place or delete pushable pillars, but you can push them! (they look slightly different from non-pushable pillars
• press ESCAPE to go back to the options screen

I don't intend to have diagonal movement in the final game, though diagonal movement is in this demo (and graphically glitches the player).

Also, see here how I'd like to implement a 4-button mode.

[pubby]

I didn't pay much attention to the graphics when I first saw this thread, but in your demo they look nice. The perspective effect is cool, and the animations are smooth, so good job!

[Jedi QuestMaster]

Next step is to reintroduce the laser for my new setup:

Using background tiles for the laser poses a small issue when the laser collides with blocks:

lasereyes_laser0.png (567 Bytes) Viewed 940 times

The laser can't overlap, so it has to just stop where it meets a wall. So what I've decided to do was add an animated 'spark' or 'smoke' sprite that also doubles as an indicator whether the laser is doing damage or not:

lasereyes_laser1.gif (660 Bytes) Viewed 940 times

The spark is a single sprite (8x8), the smoke is two sprites (8x16).

Now in order to make the laser destroying the bricks convincing, I need to add damage to the brick walls. The brick walls are already taking up 22 tiles. So recreating cracked bricks would take another 22 tiles (and that's assuming I don't intend to make two sets of minor cracked and very badly cracked bricks). Fortunately I had the idea ahead of time to not only draw one set of cracked bricks, but also to draw less cracked bricks compared to their non-cracked counterparts. It's hard to explain what I did, but here's a visual:

lasereyes_cracked_bricks0.png (1.05 KiB) Viewed 940 times

The left two columns are for bricks with the left perspective, the two center are for the center, and the right two are for the right perspective. When a brick wall takes enough damage, the top left and bottom right tiles of the 2x2 background appear cracked (the top row). When a brick takes significant damage, all tiles appear cracked (bottom row). Notice the missing space in column two? It's redundant--it's the same as the tiles to the left of it. Also, this entire set is only comprised of 6 unique tiles! For once, being lazy has its benefits.

Lastly, what happens when the bricks are finally completely destroyed? I opted for the SMB style of brick sprites flying around instead of the Bomberman-esque method of the bricks just obliterating (it seemed more promising). This would add one sprite tile flipped and multiplied four times:

Here it is in action:

As you can see, the sprites had to be a different color, but I think the burnt brown bricks work here.

Here's the test demo: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jyx_EQ ... share_link

[dink]

Really dig the laser effect in your animated gif, nice work!!

[Jedi QuestMaster]

I didn't like how the bomb explosion looked, so I redid it:

Old - 48 tiles:


New - 23 tiles (including bomb):

bomb.gif (4.31 KiB) Viewed 760 times

This is supposed to use bg tiles, it switches from the first subpalette (gray) to the second (red), then back to the first: It never uses more than one at the same time.

[tokumaru]

That's definitely an improvement! Are you sure this can be done using background tiles? Won't this effect ever have to overlap walls, lasers an other things also using the background?

[Drag]

I like everything I've seen so far.

Won't this effect ever have to overlap walls, lasers an other things also using the background?

I imagine it working like Bomberman, where the explosion is raycasted and just simply stops when it encounters something it can't eliminate. I think it might also be reasonable to assume that lasers wouldn't penetrate the explosion cloud until it's cleared.

[Jedi QuestMaster]

Won't this effect ever have to overlap walls, lasers an other things also using the background?

I imagine it working like Bomberman, where the explosion is raycasted and just simply stops when it encounters something it can't eliminate.

Yes, I pretty much just based all my bomb ideas off Bomberman.

I think it might also be reasonable to assume that lasers wouldn't penetrate the explosion cloud until it's cleared.

I didn't really think this part through. Either I'd have the laser go through an explosion (but the laser tiles taking place on an explosion would disappear, being replaced by explosion tiles), or what you said. What is in an explosion exactly? Lots of hot flying debris? It would be safe to assume that all that junk would impede a thermal/concussive beam (this laser doesn't make scientific sense anyway).

Hey, that's pretty cool! I would've made sketches, but I have no idea how I want any of these gimmicks to work. Ie. I wasn't planning on bombs penetrating diagonally unless both lateral paths were already opened first. But I like this idea:

lasereyes_explode1.gif (9.11 KiB) Viewed 630 times

lasereyes_explode2.gif (7.51 KiB) Viewed 630 times

lasereyes_explode3.gif (8.97 KiB) Viewed 630 times

lasereyes_explode4.gif (8.13 KiB) Viewed 630 times

Here's another test demo: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14BvU27 ... share_link
• right mouse click now places or deletes a bomb
• you can still press ESCAPE to go back to the options screen
• you can now die (be careful!):

lasereyes_death.png (754 Bytes) Viewed 630 times

[Jedi QuestMaster]

I decided to see what characters I could make with the sprite palette I had:

Here's what I came up with:

characters.png (2.71 KiB) Viewed 449 times

Some characters use two subpalettes, and some use one, but none use more than that. Best of all, I didn't even use the third subpalette! Now I've freed up a spot!

sprite_palette_battle.png (276 Bytes) Viewed 449 times

Unfortunately, this means Rion will have to go. You will be missed. I didn't care much for palette swaps anyway. Which reminds me, Ray now has a hat.

By the way, those four helmet people are reserved for CPU bots.

Oh yes, and everyone shoots a laser out of their eyes except the snake, who shoots a laser out of its mouth. I've already aligned everyone's sprites to have their laser origin be the same y-value, so no laser tiles will need to be adjusted.

I think every character is symmetrical except for the snake and doctor.

[Drag]

Very excellent! I'm a huge fan of the minotaur.

[calima]

The four CPU dudes look like hard to tell apart when in action, their colors are too close. If it matters that is, the player may not care which cpu killed them

[TmEE]

This is shaping up pretty well ~

As far as CPU guys go, maybe they can have a pattern on the helmets to distinguish them better ?

[Jedi QuestMaster]

Very excellent! I'm a huge fan of the minotaur.

Oh yeah, that's what they're called! I was searching 'demon bull' when trying to find reference images.

The four CPU dudes look like hard to tell apart when in action, their colors are too close. If it matters that is, the player may not care which cpu killed them

Good point. Technically, there are four of them because I intend to have the 'Bot' be an unlockable playable character, and if a single player decides to play as the Bot against CPU players, then all four colors would be utilized. In this case, it could be confusing. Also, team battles with a CPU on each team isn't out of the question.

Looking at them now, I don't think I achieved the robotic look I was going for. Do they look like machines to you? I would probably guess they are space Marines. Originally I wanted them to look more like R.O.B. and not have feet at all but instead have tank tracks. Anyway, if I just ripoff Base Wars' designs I can get three distinct bots:

bots.png (666 Bytes) Viewed 352 times

(all I'm missing is the 'Flybot')

How does this look?

As far as CPU guys go, maybe they can have a pattern on the helmets to distinguish them better ?

Funny you should say that: I went through multiple iterations on the helmet before settling on the design I have now. Now I wish I saved copies of my drafts.

Maybe I can recreate them?

bot_heads.png (517 Bytes) Viewed 352 times

Yeah, not really.

[calima]

The different feet are well distinguishable, but the helmets with just a few pixels' difference would not be.

[Jedi QuestMaster]

I decided to make my Flybot's saucer base spin:

bot_saucer.gif (347 Bytes) Viewed 255 times

So far this is the only animated idle sprite.

The different feet are well distinguishable, but the helmets with just a few pixels' difference would not be.

I was thinking of having both different helmets and different legs (and even have them interchangeable), but for now I'll leave the bot heads uniform:

bots.png (831 Bytes) Viewed 255 times

I think it still helps to have different palette combinations to further tell them apart:

bots_color.png (947 Bytes) Viewed 255 times

EDIT: Now pillars can be connected to form walls, allowing stages to have maze-like features.

Also, just messing around with the bot heads.

bot_head_designs.png (703 Bytes) Viewed 205 times