Topic: Mega Man Escape Velocity

[newbalance84]

Greetings, everyone.  The name's newbalance84, and I'm a new challenger to these parts.  I've been working on a fangame for the past few months, even though I am inexperienced in game programming and design.  I'm teaching myself to sprite, make tiles, and use Game Maker 8.0 (I have Multimedia Fusion 2, but I haven't looked at it as much).  So far, I've sprited all eight Robot Masters (provided below), the weapon sprites (also below, but a few need further work), the color palettes (ditto), and am working on six tilesets.  

Edit: The story of Escape Velocity involves our hero, the Blue Bomber, confronting an invasion of eight new robots from outer space (they each hail from different planets).  The group is led by two mysterious robots, Astute and Vortex, who have eradicated/colonized every other planet except for Earth (their last stop).  There's more, though: one night, Dr. Wily's castle is attacked by the eight robots...and Bass, as well.  With all his robots trashed, in addition to his lair decaying in disarray, Wily contacts Dr. Light and Mega Man.  Our hero believes it is a trap, but once Wily reveals that Bass is assisting in the attacks, Mega Man blasts off to the fortress (with Rush) in a blink.  The plate is stacked to the sky with dangers this time...

Note: I do realize that certain RMs, like Armor, Rocket, and Noise, are used by other creators, but so are Blade, Shark, Spike, Pyro, and Flare (and others), so whatever.  To me, it's a matter of design, weapon, stage, and behavior.  Any questions or comments are appreciated.  More to come in the future.  Hope you like my work.


http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Ts5fmT0
http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Ts5fpn9
http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Ts5frSi
http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Ts5fumr
http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Ts5fwRA
http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Ts5fzlJ
http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Ts5fEl0
http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Ts5fGQ9

[Gatuca]

Those Tiles Look..................Weird

[newbalance84]

Ah, nice.  Someone replied.  Thank you very much for your time and words.

As for your comment, I'm not sure what you mean by 'weird'.  Do you mean 'bad', or 'good', or out of this world?

[Blackhook]

Those are some interesting RM´s

[newbalance84]

Thank you, Blackhook.  I appreciate it.  It's my first crack at spriting RMs; it's not Capcom standards, but I'm cool with it.   

I'm aiming for seven non-elemental RMs and one elemental RM (similar to MM3).  Tidal Man is the lone elemental RM (like Spark Man); although there is propulsion from Rocket Man's jetpack, his weapon involves rockets which break apart and unleash energy geysers on both sides (NOT fire).

Sorry for the extra bit.  Getting feedback, even from a few people, makes me enthusiastic.  Thank you again. 

[Stardius]

I think what Gatuca had in mind is, that those tiles look really randomly thrown together and it looks sort of wierd.
Maybe some outlines and les chaotic color scheme could help it.

[Gatuca]

Actually, i Wasn't Able to see The Pics Before, but now that i saw those, i am sorry to say, but they need much more work, not only outlines but good shading aswell.

(Watching more of the Pictures)

Yeaaaah, they are chaotic and quite badly done, i am sorry man, they kinda look like a monochromatic to me, or commodore 64 like, but a little bit of more lively color wont kill it.

Also another problem is the background tiles, they looks like platform tiles that block your way, i think there has to be a limit of colors in the background tiles, tough, many megaman fan-games that i saw uses only 1 color plus "the black transparent" for their backgrounds.

[newbalance84]

Oh, okay.  I see what you mean.

Here's the issue, though: I remember reading some other posts dealing with color limits (I think 16 colors per screen).  My RMs have six (maybe seven) colors...here, let me show you:





Damn, I don't know if the palette is coming in.  Well, I'll try to explain: say one RM has white, black, light gray, dark gray, dark blue, and light orange.  So six colors, right?  And it's 16 colors for the screen (from what I've read in some of the other fangame posts, like New Tomorrow, Time Tangent, etc).  Already, I've used six colors.  That's ten colors left to use.  So I use three more colors (in addition to the same six colors) for the stage itself, bringing the total to nine.  Now, I would have seven remaining.  Two would go to the blue and cyan palette for Mega Man, two would go to the particular color palette for any of the eight weapons...and if I sound like I'm an idiot or confusing, please bear with me.

Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way.  Like I said, I'm a novice at this.  Any help would be appreciated.

[Stardius]

I am no expert in these things either, there are other people on RPM who could explain it better.
But well from my view. About Megaman, you forgot his face color, but that sometimes borrows colors available for the level itself, and I think
you don't need to count two extra colors to the blue and cyan, because when you switch weapons you replace those two with current weapon pallete.
As for the levels itself, there is not really that much problem here with the limitations, more like which colors you choose and how the tiles look like, you need to make some shades and outlines with the colors that you already have in the tiles to distinguish them from one another because this way they really more or less blend together into some chaotic mix. Also as Gatuca said, don't use too bright colors for the background, it really fights with the actual level tiles.

[newbalance84]

I was gonna mention the skin-tone, but...eh, I'm just frustrated right now.  Not with the fangame, because I knew I wasn't so skilled (I wanted to get some input from people who are more adept in game making).  More with things going on beyond here.  Got two midterms this week, and a variety of other personal issues (I'm real stressed right now).

I really appreciate your input (all the people who've commented so far), and I'm sorry for sounding down in the dumps.  I'm gonna put this on hold until my bearings together.  It's not smart for me to tackle this with the kind of dark attitude.  Take care.