New Game Idea: Tower Defense

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Artcfox
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Re: New Game Idea: Tower Defense

Post by Artcfox »

rocifier wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 11:10 am Maybe I'm an optimist, but this all sounds possible. It will take time to code though :D hope to chip away at it most days though!
Sweet! I'm really looking forward to this game. :-)
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Re: New Game Idea: Tower Defense

Post by rocifier »

Well, even though I've only got 8x8 pixels for most of the sprites, I realized I have no idea what some of these flying and crawling bugs really look like - I've not studied them before. So I am doing some studies on these things to train my brain to know what they look like. Then it should be not too hard to draw and animate the small pixels from scratcch so they still look like bugs (I hope).

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Artcfox
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Re: New Game Idea: Tower Defense

Post by Artcfox »

rocifier wrote: Fri Apr 13, 2018 10:30 am Well, even though I've only got 8x8 pixels for most of the sprites, I realized I have no idea what some of these flying and crawling bugs really look like - I've not studied them before. So I am doing some studies on these things to train my brain to know what they look like. Then it should be not too hard to draw and animate the small pixels from scratcch so they still look like bugs (I hope).
...
That is what I did when I created the 8x8 sprites for Bugz. YouTube has a lot of slow motion footage of the insects crawling and flying, which I found helped a lot for knowing how the wings and back legs moved.

How many colors will your sprites be? I almost think it would be creepier if they were just solid black like they were backlit silhouettes to match the city skyline as they are making their way up the side of the buildings. I'm not sure if 8x8 pixels is enough, but if you can let the player's imagination fill in some of the details, having just the silhouettes might make the building-sized scale of the bugs more apparent.

If you've ever played Limbo on the XBox 360, you'll know what I mean about the silhouettes making it creepier—especially when all you can see is something that looks like part of a spider, but you aren't quite sure if it really is one until it's legs move. And just when you think you've figured out how far its legs can move, the whole thing crawls toward you (in silhouette form) and it stabs the crap out of you.
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D3thAdd3r
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Re: New Game Idea: Tower Defense

Post by D3thAdd3r »

I also imagined the "backlit" type of insects since it matches the artwork style. Not specifying more detail (using a perhaps too limited color count) would seem to be more creepy, just because it is less specified/more mysterious.
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Re: New Game Idea: Tower Defense

Post by rocifier »

Yeah I was also thinking mostly silhouettes haha :D

Actually I was trying to think of some way to indicate HP so I thought I might be able to shift the colour of the bugs to show how "injured" they are so you know when you are about to kill them. Without having any feedback on HP the game will be more difficult and far less interactive.
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Re: New Game Idea: Tower Defense

Post by rocifier »


That is what I did when I created the 8x8 sprites for Bugz. YouTube has a lot of slow motion footage of the insects crawling and flying, which I found helped a lot for knowing how the wings and back legs moved.

How many colors will your sprites be? I almost think it would be creepier if they were just solid black like they were backlit silhouettes to match the city skyline as they are making their way up the side of the buildings. I'm not sure if 8x8 pixels is enough, but if you can let the player's imagination fill in some of the details, having just the silhouettes might make the building-sized scale of the bugs more apparent.

If you've ever played Limbo on the XBox 360, you'll know what I mean about the silhouettes making it creepier—especially when all you can see is something that looks like part of a spider, but you aren't quite sure if it really is one until it's legs move. And just when you think you've figured out how far its legs can move, the whole thing crawls toward you (in silhouette form) and it stabs the crap out of you.
Great idea with studying slow motion animation :D
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Re: New Game Idea: Tower Defense

Post by rocifier »

Is there any easy way to convert images into 4bpp C arrays?
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Artcfox
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Re: New Game Idea: Tower Defense

Post by Artcfox »

rocifier wrote: Sat Apr 14, 2018 3:18 am Is there any easy way to convert images into 4bpp C arrays?
Using GIMP you might be able to convert it to indexed, with that bit depth and save it as a C header or a C array. Otherwise you can probably use GIMP to convert it to indexed with that bit depth, save it as a raw binary data and then use the

Code: Select all

./uzebox/bin/bin2hex yourimage.raw yourimage.inc
utility to convert it to a C array. That works with any binary file.
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Re: New Game Idea: Tower Defense

Post by rocifier »

Artcfox wrote: Sat Apr 14, 2018 4:06 am
rocifier wrote: Sat Apr 14, 2018 3:18 am Is there any easy way to convert images into 4bpp C arrays?
Using GIMP you might be able to convert it to indexed, with that bit depth and save it as a C header or a C array. Otherwise you can probably use GIMP to convert it to indexed with that bit depth, save it as a raw binary data and then use the

Code: Select all

./uzebox/bin/bin2hex yourimage.raw yourimage.inc
utility to convert it to a C array. That works with any binary file.
Both of these record either 8bit index or 8bpp, eg:

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static const unsigned char header_data[] PROGMEM = {
	0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
	0,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,
	0,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,
	0,2,2,2,2,2,2,0,
	0,2,2,2,2,2,2,0,
	0,3,3,3,3,3,3,0,
	0,3,3,3,3,3,3,0,
	0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0
};
I might need to make a custom exporter to get this format:

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static const unsigned char cursor_sprite_data[] PROGMEM = {
 0b00000011U,0b11000000U,
 0b00000011U,0b11000000U,
 0b00001100U,0b00110000U,
 0b00001100U,0b00110000U,
 0b00110000U,0b00001100U,
 0b00110000U,0b00001100U,
 0b11000000U,0b00000011U,
 0b11111100U,0b00111111U
};
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Jubatian
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Re: New Game Idea: Tower Defense

Post by Jubatian »

rocifier wrote: Sat Apr 14, 2018 5:07 amI might need to make a custom exporter to get this format
Using Gimp's header output as source it isn't something difficult, Mode 74 has several such generators which could be used as examples. Why it is not so simple to make a generic one for Mode 72 is that sprites are quite arbitrary (there are other sprite modes with 12 or 16 pixels widths and the height is whatever you choose).
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