[WIP] Tales of Lena - 2D (pixel art) platformer

Thank you very much for the kind words

Of course you're allowed to get inspired by my game If you have any specific questions you can always send me a PM

 

Finally got back to the project! Currently reworking the collision/physics system (really needed some work, it was a mess). Still not perfect but I'm getting there

Testing the physics by kicking a ball

 

Moving platforms are working again and all physics objects react to them properly

 

The clouds in the background are nice, what about some silhouettes of birds that fly and then disappear?

 

Sounds like a nice idea though I'll add that later, working on gameplay mechanics now

 

How are you solving the moving platform issue, btw?

Telling it to move and any "player" collider with it on the platform script?

 

@SiegfriedCroes any update on release?
This is one of the games I've been following on the forum - for a long while - cause I really want to play it!
Keep up the progress.

 

@Not_Sure

There are various ways to deal with moving platforms. One is to make the player a child of the platform as long as they are touching (collider, raycast).

 

Huh, never thought of doing that.

Pretty clever.

 

Like sngdan suggested, I do it by making the player/other physics object a child of the platform. What made it a bit complicated is that I'm using my own collision system and the platforms are jump through (not really apparent in the situation seen in the gif). Previously I was a bit stuck with the problem of a vertical platform moving up into you while you're falling down. At that moment the system didn't really know if you just landed on it or if you tried to jump on it from underneath but didn't reach high enough. It's fixed now and it seems to work really well so I'm quite happy

@theANMATOR2b Thank you very much It sure is taking a lot longer than I thought... It doesn't help that I focus too often on details and that I always want things to be perfect (which is never possible). Sometimes it's also hard for me to like my own art... The good news is that I'm feeling motivated again to work on it I sure hope to post updates more often from now on

 

No rush - just looking forward to playing this.
Well - tell yourself to buzz off because I like your art. I dont want to see everything your working on but if you want to upload to get feedback (we) can give advice on art pieces.

Glad youve found motivation again. I experience highs & lows myself on my own works, I think it is normal.
Keep up the solid progress

Wazzup with the name change?

 

Thanks a lot

I'll definitely be working on it more again Haven't worked on it these past few days though as it was another Ludum Dare last weekend so I made another little game. Check this thread to see what I made: Ludum Dare 38

About my name change. It's my real name and I use it on all social media (FB, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram,...) so I wanted it here too

 

I added a new way of defeating enemies!

 

Keep up the good work! I really like your attention to detail with the dust that's created when objects land. It's really giving me Golden Sun vibes. Don't lose motivation to complete it!

 

Thanks Yeah I just love adding details! Actually a bit too much cause I've been focusing on details lately while I should be working on more general stuff. But I like to do it just to get a feel of what the game should look like in the end

I don't know exactly what makes you think of Golden Sun but I loved that game so it's definitely a compliment, thanks a lot

I won't Sometimes there is a lot of time between updates but that's cause I work on other little projects in between like a game for the last Ludum Dare in April.

 

Is this game out yet?

 

Not yet and it'll be a while before it's finished as I'm taking a break from it to focus on smaller games and get better at pixel art and especially animations to make this game as great as I imagine it

 

Why do you think the pixel art and animation needs focus? This is one of the best pixel art games I've seen. Very expressive and just looks quite interesting visually and gameplay wise.

Are you running out of ideas for the game itself?

 

Agree with GarBenjamin - get back to work Siegfried!

Seriously though - I enjoy your art style - I'm an artist - and I think you have a very nice style. I'm also very interested in Eitr, but interested just as much in your game as that.
You have a distinctive, clean art style that is appealing - might reflect on that a little.

And hurry up with those other little games. I wanna play this too.

 

Thank you sooo much for saying that! I'm just rarely happy with the stuff I make. It helps though when people tell me and make me realize what I make isn't bad at all.

Thank you so much too That really means a lot!

Haha, I will For those who wonder what I've been working on besides Tales of Lena, you can read about it here: https://facebook.com/siegfriedcroes

I have some good news too! I'm actually really looking forward to working on the game again when my current project is finished. I have a lot of new ideas! As I wrote on Facebook:

It's been a while since the last update, as I haven't been working on the project since announcing I'd be focusing on smaller projects (those who are following my new general Facebook page know what I'm talking about).

I did want to tell you all that I've been thinking about this project a lot lately and came up with a lot of new ideas and I'm excited to get back to it when my current short game (Nonsense at Nightfall) is done.

I can't say much yet but what I will tell is that I'll probably go back to the drawing board and rework/redesign the mechanics and visuals of the game. I can't wait to tell you all about it soon!

 

The art is awesome! Dont change it, the art was what made me interested in this game,the main character has tons of personality imo : )

 

Thank man, but don't worry, it will only get better One of the things I'll most likely do is drop the 16 color limit. I thought it would make doing the graphics easier and in a way it does but it's also starting to become a bit too limited. For example: I don't like that I have to use grey in the trees, both in the trunk and foliage. Trust me, it will only become better with the changes I have in mind

 

Glad to see this is still getting worked on. I'm still down to play this when something playable comes along

 

@SiegfriedCroes Seeing your game and the artwork inspires me. It reminds me why I became a game progammer and developer. I feel so excited just looking at it.

I've done 3D modeling, rigging and animation for about 3 years in Blender, but pixel art somehow drew my attention after finding it hard to get a good style in 3D (the kind where you just feel excited to play by looking at it!). I played MapleStory for a very long time, and before that, games like Sonic games from the 1990s, Kirby & The Amazing Mirror on GameBoy, and just.. the feeling of playing those games -- how much fun it was -- was one of the best things I've ever done.

Even if you don't release this game, thank you so much for showing this, it really made my day

 

Hi, looks nice.
You coded the editor yourself?
My tile based RPG is working with a mixture of tilemaps and gameobjects to represent the map. Not very ideal.
In addition the tile map editor in unity is not that well made.
Maybe I should code an editor inside Unity as well.

btw, why didn't you have the placement of ground have the collision box automatically placed? Wouldn't that save you time instead of having to draw the collision boxes and slopes yourself?

While I like the visual style, I think people advice against having so many black outlines in a sprite game.
You could replace the black outlines with darker versions of the color inside the character. It's still a dark outline, but black outlines are too conspicious.

In addition I noticed the trees don't have the clean one pixel outline. You have corners with more that goes with too much dense outline, which is in contrast to all the other object's outlines.

Maybe you just want to DO SOMETHING, and aware of all those issues.

Keep up the good work.

 

Guy, 2017.

 

Sorry for resurrecting such an old topic here but was surprised to see I never replied to the last few posts :O

This version of the project is dead, I've moved and worked on some other smaller games (one of them is Cats and Coins, a simple platform game using the same color palette as this one though not made in Unity).

Maybe someday I'll revisit the ideas behind this project as I've learned a lot about gamedev since then (better programming skills and improved pixel art style). A mistake I often made with my projects is focusing too much on little details instead of the basics and changing my mind too much about what I want the game to be. This one started out as a simple score based platformer for mobile but after a while I wanted it to be more like a 2D adventure game with Metroidvania elements and I got lost somewhere inbetween... If I ever go back to the project I think I'd focus more on the adventure part and making movement more versatile with things like climbing, ledge grabbing,... and using objects found in the environment as weapons

Thanks though to everyone who liked the project and feel free to ask any questions you might have surrounding its development, maybe I can help you with what I've learned

 

Aww man, thats a shame, this idea had a lot of great stuff going for it

I hope you do follow up on some of the ideas you made in this project, and it sees life in some spiritual successor. I loved the look and feel of this prototype, and there were a lot of great animations, both for the character, and the UI, like that sweet treasure chest item get animation.

It is cool to go back and revisit your old work from time to time, with the perspective of time to see what ideas you had were good and what you did wrong. It gives you a sense of just how much you've learned since you made those projects.

I will be interested in see what you do in the future.

 

Thanks for the kind words! Not sure yet if I'll ever go back to it but who knows

Absolutely! When I was working on this game picking colors for pixel art was still really difficult for me so I decided to stick to an existing palette which makes things easier but also a bit limiting at times. If I'd ever go back to the ideas of this project it would sure look a lot different in terms of colors.

Currently working on this, might make a topic about it when I work on it more regularly