57 replies to this topic

[IKSB]

Okay, first the boring bit : Specs!

Processor: Intel® Core™ i5 CPU 750 @ 2.67GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.7GHz

Memory: 4096MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
GFGX Card: AMD Radeon HD 6850 Series 1024Ram

Now the comments :

1)Terra - Runs at 85-95 fps. To me this is the most beautifully made of all the lands. Great graphics, lovely particle effects and the water is a great touch.
2)Unda - Runs at 95-100 fps. LOVE that smoke! Simple yet effective. The graphics in general are very good and captures the feel of being underground.
3)Ventas - Runs at 98-100fps. Pretty but bland. Doesn't quite communicate height... Mushrooms are more a floor plant so maybe that's why and the lack of pretty effects makes it seem unfinished
4)Acritar - Runs at 100fps. Not a lot to say here. The concept is good, but the area is a bit boring. How about some fog that moves across the room? Or bats?

Now, on a general note THIS SHOW REAL PROMISE and is (so far) beautifully and lovingly made... So stick at it and you've got yourself a top indie game on your hands. Seriously. My only real suggestion to add to what you have so far is that you add parrallax scrolling to your backgrounds... at the moment they have a sort of depth, but the illusion fails when the screen moves. Parrallax would solve this and give far more life to your game.

Anyway, I really hope you stick with this and good luck! I'll be back for each update, that's a promise!

What about Ventas do you find bland? I'm just curious, because I was kind of fond of it, to be honest, which is just ironic. I see what you mean by the "mushrooms" being a "ground" plant... so maybe, to give that sense of height, I put the mushrooms only on the lower parts of the canyon and maybe it would get darker the further down you got. I'm thinking about having stronger "wind" effects higher up and having free flying birds and insects in the upper portions, giving the open air feel.

And I was originally avoiding the "parrallax scrolling" effect because I was trying to reduce size, but now that everyone has made it clear they don't mind the extra load of size, I can add that in without hesitation. I'll make new, updated versions of these areas soon. Once I finish the fire element gameplay and make basic enemy AI, I'll make an official WIP post with all of this in it.

[Nocturne]

What about Ventas do you find bland? I'm just curious, because I was kind of fond of it, to be honest, which is just ironic. I see what you mean by the "mushrooms" being a "ground" plant... so maybe, to give that sense of height, I put the mushrooms only on the lower parts of the canyon and maybe it would get darker the further down you got. I'm thinking about having stronger "wind" effects higher up and having free flying birds and insects in the upper portions, giving the open air feel.

I can't say... But compared to the other levels it doesn't have that "wow!" factor... Although the changes you suggest will definitely help...

And I was originally avoiding the "parrallax scrolling" effect because I was trying to reduce size, but now that everyone has made it clear they don't mind the extra load of size, I can add that in without hesitation. I'll make new, updated versions of these areas soon. Once I finish the fire element gameplay and make basic enemy AI, I'll make an official WIP post with all of this in it.

Great! Can't wait to see it!

[speedchuck]

That is some pretty sweet looking concept art.

[IKSB]

Hey, I just wanted to post this to let everyone know about the style update.... which will take forever to implement, but I just want to get opinions. Also, because this has sort of morphed from its original purpose, this topic no longer really fits in this forum, so I will be making a WIP post soon. Just heads up.

[speedchuck]

I haven't seen it in motion, but according to what I can see, I like the old style better. That is just my opinion, but if you want to try something new, go for it!

[NicroGames]

Yeah, I think I like the old style better too, but I am still curious to see more of the new style.

[IKSB]

Yeah, I think I like the old style better too, but I am still curious to see more of the new style.

I just posted a sample of what I'm working on. It's sort of a mix of the two: not quite as "painted" as the new concept but not quite as bland as the old one. (Well, bland in my opinion at least.) Let me know what you think!

[Nocturne]

The new style could be interesting IF you get it all to "click" as you say in the first post... However, I'm of the opinion that "if it aint broke, don't fix it" and the previous style was anything but broke! It looked great and all fitted nicely together... so I wonder if maybe you aren't getting hung up on this when you should be going ahead and starting work on the gameplay? God knows I have been stuck in a vicious cycle of "lets change this as I wasn't happy with that detail" which then leads to another change then another.... until before you know it, you've wasted a year changing things that didn't need changed and gotten so sick of the project that you no longer wish to continue!!!!

[IKSB]

The new style could be interesting IF you get it all to "click" as you say in the first post... However, I'm of the opinion that "if it aint broke, don't fix it" and the previous style was anything but broke! It looked great and all fitted nicely together... so I wonder if maybe you aren't getting hung up on this when you should be going ahead and starting work on the gameplay? God knows I have been stuck in a vicious cycle of "lets change this as I wasn't happy with that detail" which then leads to another change then another.... until before you know it, you've wasted a year changing things that didn't need changed and gotten so sick of the project that you no longer wish to continue!!!!

Well, it's not entirely that I just prefer the new look, but that it is also much easier to replicate. With the old style I would draw one asset, and then when I came back to draw another similar asset I could not get them to look the same, which posed this problem for me that forced me to draw every related asset at one time or else they would have this weird difference in appearance between them.

That is actually the main reason I investigated a different way of painting the tiles. It would only require minor tweaking of old assets (trees, plants, etc) and the creation of all new ground tiles, which isn't really a problem because I plan to create a unique landscape style for every area instead of the current recoloring method.

EDIT: As a side note.... do you guys think I should just quit this and start a WIP post? I have a basic gameplay engine created (No enemies, just player and black blocks. The player model uses a skeleton system of mine, but has no final texture on it) the semi demonstrates the style of game play. But I don't want to start things too soon.... Just let me know what you think, because past games I've started making have been uploaded to here much too early in development I think.

If nothing else I could also just get a few volunteers to just quietly test the game engine on the side until I think it's ready for full WIP release. If anyone is interested in that, just toss me a PM.

Edited by IKSB, 15 February 2012 - 10:32 PM.

[Nocturne]

Cool... then I can't wait to see it all together in the WIP!!! Don't get distracted please, as I really would like to see this finished!

[speedchuck]

The new art does look good, so if it is easier, and you mix it with the old look, go ahead! I do agree, however, with Nocturne.

"if it aint broke, don't fix it" - Nocturne

Can't wait to see the WiP!

[Arthur Yarbrough]

I want to play it, it's beautiful. ;^; Seriously, I'd download it. 60mb? I have a gaming PC I'm used to like 10gb games. 60mb for a GM game that looks like that... I'll download right away.

[NicroGames]

"If it aint broke, don't fix it"

I agree! The new style seems nice too, so as long as you don't quit the project, because the graphics takes too much of your time, then go for it.

If nothing else I could also just get a few volunteers to just quietly test the game engine on the side until I think it's ready for full WIP release. If anyone is interested in that, just toss me a PM.

As I mentioned earlier, I am willing to help you. Just pm me the details.

[IKSB]

Just as a head up, college is getting kind of crazy lately, so I haven't been able to do much work on this for a bit and I won't be able to work on it for a while longer. So feel free to give me feedback, but new material won't be made for a bit... which is sad. Fear not, I will get back to it! (I've been working on this game's concept for literally years, so there is no chance I'll just dump it.)

[NicroGames]

Okay, that's fine. I will wait until you get back again!

[Timothyfoster]

wow that looks amazing... i especially like UNDA.. the look and feel of that environment is pretty epic... good job
also it ran at 100fps the whole time... and i wouldnt mind downloading +60mb ( which is saying something since my connection speed is 384kbps)

[Ampersand]

Runs at 100 FPS on my 3-4 year old machine. How can something that fits in those 30 year-old floppy disks be considered huge?

Last time I checked, 3 1/2" floppy disks had a storage capacity of 1.44MB. lul

As for the engines, now that I've gotten them downloaded: These look absolutely fantastic. Very beautiful. I'll be watching your other topic to see how things go!

As has been previously stated in a few ways, there is a certain balance for players between how much they have to download and how fantastic a game is. For some games, the massive download is made up for by loads of content, others, it's made up for by loads of awesome graphics. A large download means nothing if you can give them a great preview of what they're getting (screenshots, videos, etc.) and if you can give your game a reason for having such a large size. And it looks to me like you have an excellent reason.

Edited by Ampersand, 03 May 2012 - 12:24 PM.

[lballaty]

It gave me a d3d.CreateDevice Error.

Hi I realize this is an old post but I'm hoping it can help someone.

I ran into this issue when I loaded GM on a new DELL6420 running Windows 7. I had to load an HD graphic adapter driver on the intel graphic adapter to get directX and the NVidia card installed and working correctly. I have an intel and NVidia card in my laptop and the NVidia would not work correctly until the right driver was there for the intel. The device manager told me the entire time that the devices are all working correctly.

Once I put the right driver in and reinstalled NVidia drivers I was able to enable directX support. You might have a look at if your card has directX functionality enabled.

If you have a card in the system doublecheck that it's actually using it. There are some issues with cards and Optimus where the card doesn't actually get used and the system reverts to the standard VGA adapter which is there by default.

I took the NVidia driver files off a working system which I had to reference ... luckily ..... and I tried to install them manually. Then I got the first sensible error from that install which complained about not having the correct intel driver.

There are some tools out there to let you see what card is being used on the system and what the card's capabilities are as well as what is enabled.

Edited by lballaty, 30 May 2012 - 08:34 PM.