Games [WIP] A Piece Of Sun

Hello everyone,
This is not my first project, but the first one I have been working over a month.

About me:
I am a 17-year-old high school girl who is interesting in game dev. Making a game is tough since I have to paint pictures and program with my broken programming skill.
I want to thank all the people who is contributing their knowledge or sharing open sources, without them, I couldn't go so far by myself.
I have to apologize that I am not good at putting this into words, cause I am not an English speaker. You are welcome to correct my English writing any time.

here is a short in-game cutscene I spent 4 days on.

the character in this video is controlled by the player(which is me).

the scene is basically assembled by many layers of sprites and some scripts.


The Game:
I want to build an RPG with touching story and some actions. In the game, the light is your weapon, with the assistance of elemental fairies, you go on the adventure of dangerous unknown. (so far I can think of.)

When is the story taking place?
200 years after the sun disappeared, a little girl bumped into a mysterious glowing mirror. She will learn more about it during the adventure.




I am now working on the dialogue system and localization which will contain English, Chinese and maybe Japanese in the future.


here is the main menu:


and a poster:


Next, I will be moving on to the battle system.
What do you think about the game style?
Any feedback is welcome.


(as a solo developer, I kind of feeling lonely )

 

Love the art style, and the additional particle effects is done nicely (not overkill with too many).

I might change your menu though

Start
Options
Continue
Quit

The "Light as a weapon" concept is interesting... does that imply enemies/things to fight/kill? or is it more of a puzzle-style you are going for?

 

Thank you very much

The main use of light is to fight monsters and can switch to different elements(such as fire, water...). Each element has its own effect like "fire" can make more damage and "water" can slow down the speed etc.

Now I am considering whether to design some puzzle levels since I am not good at making puzzles.
If there would be puzzle levels, I might put some triggers that need to be lightened by a certain element of light.

Thank again for your reply.

 

I really like the concept and dark mood there, background looks really solid, but fonts (like menu or title) needs some work to fit better.
Also dont worry, there are many one-person projects out there. Just keep doing what You like
Good luck!

 

Thanks! you sure encourage me a lot.

Here is some fix for the fonts, however, I can't decide where to put the title.



Or even make a new background?

by the way, Options menu looks like this:


Thank you for the reply

 

Menu looks better with the change of wording.

I like the title in the bottom left (any of the corners would do though; top left, top right or bottom left). it doesn't look right when it's directly above the menu buttons though, imo.

 

Cool work so far. P.s you are not the only solo dev here I think lots forum members are too!

 

I just watched your trailer and the art is absolutely beautiful. Perhaps I the animation could use some work, but the overall use of particles and the parallaxed background and over all atmosphere sends me off into dream worlds, amazing work!! Will definitely be watching this thread.

For your main menu btw, I would swap the ordering of continue and options

And don't be lonely! Most of us on the forums are fairly friendly

 

Thanks for the encouragement! I really feel the warmth of the community.
However, I have some confusion about the animation you referred to. Did you mean the character's walking animation or something else?

Here are 3 animations appeared in the trailer.
Idle animation:

walk animation

kneel animation

(I really love this community.)

 

Walk animation, felt a bit jerky. Maybe more frames are needed?

 

+1

Looking at the video it appears to only be 5 frames. This might not be an issue if it's what you wanted, but there is a little bit of "snapping" (for example, the transition at 0:50 in the video) the leg just snaps into place and your eye catches it when watching the video at full speed.

However, it doesn't mean you have to change it - but doing so will most likely give a "smoother" walking animation if that's what you want.

 

Yeah, this. Maybe try about 10 frames (just prototype, don't bother doing them properly) and see if that looks smoother. I think the frame count right now just isnt high enough to trick persistence of vision, but frame by frame its great

 

Yeah, although (and this might be getting to indepth) I prefer cutting off the last frame for fluidity in some circumstances and have found it to produce a slightly better animation (I originally heard about the technique watching a GDC conference post-morterm where they were discussing their animation pipeline and process.)

ie - you want a 10 frame animation clip, but it actually has 9 frames (with frame 1 representing frame 10)

Frame 1 Frame 1
Frame 2 Frame 2
Frame 3 Frame 3
Frame 4 Frame 4
Frame 5 Frame 5
Frame 6 Frame 6
Frame 7 Frame 7
Frame 8 Frame 8
Frame 9 Frame 9
Frame 10 Frame 1
Frame 1 Frame 2
Frame 2 Frame 3

 

Oh that's what I do to, makes it more seamless. My 60fps animations only render frame 1 to 59

 

Thanks for all of your advice.

After some works and adjustments, here comes a simple demo of basic control:

(Don't worry about the menu is in Chinese, you can change it to English in the game. And also I turned off the BGM.)


Here are 3 basic movements in the video:
"Walk" by pressing left or right arrow.
"Run" by pressing left or right arrow and shift.
"Teleport" by pressing the space bar.

About the mirror:
It automatically follows the player and floats around. The player can control the rotation of light beam by pressing W,A,S,D. (A, S rotate clockwise; W, D rotate counterclockwise )

However, I am thinking about changing the way of controlling.
for example, control the character by W,A,S,D inside, and make light beam rotate to the cursor's direction.

What do you guys think? Anything about the game.

 

I like it. Although have you considered using the InputManager so players can set their own buttons?

ie - standard teleport button is space. but allowing the player to set it to anything they want "LMB", "RMB" etc might provide a little extra polish.

 

Yeah, if you have some cash that you're willing to spend by the way, HIGHLY recommend rewired. But that can be saved for a later date when its further in development

 

Didn't know that existed. Rated 5 out of 5 stars / 577 user ratings... will have to try that out later.

 

I love the artwork and the moody setup of the game. The Japanese-style-character-close-up dialog though, isn't really fitting for the game in my opinion. I think it would be better if you keep the side-view narrative throughout the game, because the game, judging from the existing design style, should look more mysterious and the close-up shot of characters kinda kills the mood.
Just a thought. Good luck with the development! It is a great concept you've got there!

 

There is a free trial version available so you can see what you are getting before you buy.

 

I like what you've got thus far How's the progress on the battle system?

 

Thanks for all of your opinions.

I love to read your comments, but I also feel bad 'cause I can't reply to you within a few days since I only have few hours per day can work on the game.

• About animation:

I plan to remake both "walk" and "run" animations after I finish some major systems.

• About dialog:

I think you have got the point, close-up dialog kind of killing the mood. However, I do not quite get the "side-view dialog" you referred to.

This is the original one which I changed the back color to black.


And the non-close-up dialog (If I get it right):


Or you are talking about another style of dialog?

• Input Manager:

This is a great advice, however, I will consider it in the nearly future.

• Battle system:

This is models for fire and ice fairies so far.

In this demo, you can see a blue ball as Ice fairy and a red ball as fire fairy. I haven't painted them out yet.

As Ice fairy, hold "E" to shoot out ice breath. Enemies influenced by the ice breath will be slowed down, pushed away and leave an ice mark within a period of time.

As fire fairy, once you summon it, it will keep shooting fireballs which can cause higher damage and also leave a fire mark making damage over time.

When enemy get both fire and ice marks, it will make an explosion that causes 10 times more damage.

Next, I will be working on animations that played while using fairies' skill or summoning fairies.

Player will get the ability to summon them in the further gameplay. (Can't summon more than one fairy at the same time.)

More fairies will be added, what kind of fairy you are looking forward to?
And anything about the game?

Thanks for your attention.

 

Don't worry about taking a while to reply! Forum nature is alright with that
Look's pretty good, I really like the art. So are you going with a real time battle system then? Seem's like you've got some kind of elemental combo system in mind too?

 

I am the dialog guy.
I meant to say that full portraits of characters reveal too much details. You can experiment animating the small avatars to show the characters’ interactions during key events, instead of poping up full portraits to do that. I think that will A, prevent a shift of focus, B, give a sense of mystery because showing less sometimes stem more imaginations, like reading a book.
Regarding to the dialog frame, I would suggest to remove the white frames, and keep only a bit of blackness(paint style) at the back to contrast the text. Since the main scenes are of very little contrast, you wouldn’t need white frames to make texts stand out.

 

Thanks!
there are two new demos.

• New things in the video:
  • Hold left click to focus the light beam. (Can be used on the puzzle.)
  • Earth fairy: curing the player while stand close to it. Also, leave a mark to enemies in the radius.
  • Produce a poison mist while the enemy has both fire and earth marks.

• What is the usage of elemental attack?
  • Enhancing the challenge, since some bosses can only be hurt by the certain element.
  • Solving puzzles, for example,
    • use ice breath to push objects, triggers, etc.
    • use fire fairy to shoot fireballs and break obstacles.
    • focus the light beam so you can find the far-away hidden objects, triggers, etc.

Thank you always gives me good direction on designing dialog. I keep trying to find the best fit for it.
Initially, my art style was inspired by "Hello Charlotte".
(Hello Charlotte)

I will keep arranging them or even re-paint portraits for revealing less but still can show the character's expression.

The game is basically 70% of exploring story, 30% of combat.

• Story:

As you see, the game is generally dark and moody. The interaction between characters is the only thing that gives warmth and mild feeling to the player. So I want to make a better performance to connect with players, let their feeling associated.

• Combat:

For enhancing the challenge. And bring some moral decisions. e.g., Not every creature is harmful, but the player still can make damage to them.


Sorry not able to show the new dialog in this reply, it still need some works on.

• Others:

My school semester is close to end, I will work on the final reports with my classmates and also prepare for the exams from now on. The time I can spend on the game will be reduced, but I will still make things little by little.
I will post small updates on my twitter(just started recently).

 

Nice! You considered using videos for demos here? YT videos embed and will look better in terms of FPS and res (Are you from mainland china? I know it's banned there but I think it's accessible from Taiwan and Hong Kong)

I do like the minimalistic but expressioned art style youre going for there, good job!

Tell me about exams I'm almost done with my finals

 

Hello community~
It has been some time since the last update.

I have almost finished the first map.
And here shows the escaping event. (recorded by my friend.)

I have also made the polygon collider 2D automatically change with the sprites.

This function is basically for the player object, so it can walk on the uneven road.

well, as my friend said, he sometimes stuck at the obstacle while escaping. I have to think a stuck-proof method.

Next:
The new arrangement for the dialog

(should I put the avatar even smaller?)

Besides fixing some bugs, the next thing to do is designing the second map. (I am not good at arranging indoor environment, so it might take a while.)

Thanks! actually, I am Taiwanese, YT is fine with me. Sorry for using gif. (btw, exams was fine)

Thanks to all your support.

 

Well done on exams

Like the new progress, personally I'd make the avatar a smidge smaller further