Sunday, June 12, 2005

Space Crack: Graphics Mockup


Click here to download the presentation (2.5 megs)

Just download the zip file, unzip the exe onto your drive and run the file.

Some things to try:

  • Building a ship
  • Launching a ship
  • Wasting command points
  • Building an upgrade
  • Spinning the planet

This particular test isn't intended to be very functional. The goal is to create the graphics and put them together in context so I can see if this art style works. The theme of the game is 'white space'.

Expect a bit more 'glitz' as I flesh the rest of the game tokens out.

take care
Danc.

Posted by Daniel Cook at 7:38 PM
Labels: ,

9 comments:

  1. I dl'd it. I just randomly clicked on stuff... and it did stuff...

    Running the program causes my work computer speakers to bleat out a nasty high pitched whine, and then I have to reboot my computer.

    And so now you run into the bane of all game development, PC compatibility issues. ;)

    --Ray
    ReplyDelete
  2. Looks nice, going for a 50ties space age design would work well with the minimalistic style.
    ReplyDelete
  3. Ray, I couldn't agree more. If I was a true causual game guy, I might do this game in Flash. However, I wanted to play with the 3D aspect of the interface.

    It looks like what you are running into is a sound driver issues...one that our tests running on thousands of machines have never come across. Naturally. If you update your sound driver (who does that these days) it will probably fix the issue.

    Len: As someone said in another post, minimalism / modernism isn't a new art style so there's lots to steal from.

    The trick is...can you do the same with a fantasy game? Not sure, but it would be fun to try. :-)
    ReplyDelete
  4. Well, naturally, it's my sound driver... (Hah!)

    Minimalist fantasy is kind of done on the gameboy, etc, but they're mostly 2D. I suppose the cell-shaded link from the last incarnation of Zelda might qualify. It might be funny to have a fantasy game that had creatures and such that looked like they were hand drawn by an eight-year-old with crayons... by stylistically pleasing and predictable. If it was simple enough, you might even be able to create a tool with which players could draw their own critters and mesh them into the game without it looking as though it took an advanced degree in graphic design to incorporate.

    --Ray
    ReplyDelete
  5. behold, Ray, and despair:

    Magic Pengel
    ReplyDelete
  6. just thinking about it, i think the planet has a tad too much momentum, it doesnt feel "heavy" at all making what might be an easy thing of launching a ship, an annoyance if the lauch pad is not on the side facign the computer at that moment. just my 2 cents. other than that, this looks pretty sarn neat.
    ReplyDelete
  7. Aye, I've been prototyping the UI a bit more on the side and I agree with the problems associated with spinning the object.

    What I'll probably end up doing is resticting the rotation to the planet's central axis. The ship will always be at the pole of planet so that it is easy to select at any point. Upgrades will be located around the equator of the planet.

    I can also increase the decelleration on the planet so that it comes to a stop more quickly. Is this what you were refering to what you were mentioning 'heaviness'?

    -Danc.
    ReplyDelete
  8. is Anark robust enough to handle the entire game, or are you just mocking it up in Anark and going to use something else for the full game?
    ReplyDelete
  9. Oh, Anark should be more than capable of handling the whole game. We do giant enterprise apps in our services group and there are some tricks to play, but generally it works.

    The graphics are rather low polygon and I'm barely pushing the texture memory at all. Since I'll be using a scrolling screen, we can also do some simple culling on the world. It is likely you'll only see 20 or 30 planets at a time and you'll only be interacting with one or two. The rest I can freeze so they don't get updated.

    Anark isn't a killer game engine, but it is pretty solid if you are doing a simple game. Plus, I know where the platform is going in the future, so I have a lot of faith in it.

    take care
    Danc.
    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)