A.N.N.E (Metroidvania meets Gradius)

[denpanosekai]

Pretty cool project, should interest some people here. I have known the guy for a long time and he's definitely way into Cave and SHMUPs in general, though obviously this isn't a bullet hell game.

Music is by MiYAMO, well-known for his stylish Touhou arrange circle こなぐすり

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1445624543/anne

A while ago he did the game "boss fight" which is definitely more in line with this forum.

[Fudoh]

serious Airwolf vibe

[louisg]

Looks kinda cool, but why when people say pixel art do they just mean incredibly blocky and simple art? Why not shoot for something as lush as Cinemaware?

[Hagane]

Indeed, I feel like going for that retro look instead of detailed 2D art is a waste.

[shmuppyLove]

Reminds me of Blaster Master -- cool!

[hail good sir]

for

[denpanosekai]

I was lucky enough to try the demo before the kickstarter and it really does play like Blaster Master. I personally think the art style is really cool but I can see where you guys are coming from. Remember it's a one-man operation.

[Pretas]

I'm of the opinion that if you actually need to specify that your game is a "Metroidvania," it isn't.

[hail good sir]

out

[Ed Oscuro]

Looks kinda cool, but why when people say pixel art do they just mean incredibly blocky and simple art? Why not shoot for something as lush as Cinemaware?

Because it's expensive to make not shit art.

*looks at Kickstarter goal*

uh, nevermind

[Weak Boson]

I don't particularly like the design of the player character - or the others for that matter. Are they supposed to be anything? The spaceships and environments look pretty cool and then you have this blue block head in the middle and I find it pretty inexplicable.

But as for the actual game it looks like it has potential, and since it's been funded I look forward to seeing how it turns out. There are hints of a euroshmuppy lifebar in the video but hopefully if that's what it is it won't bring sloppy design with it.

[Udderdude]

Lifebar, physics engine .. confirmed for sloppy as fuck gameplay. But it's not like anyone would ever play this seriously anyway, seeing as it's a Metroidvania .. >_>

[Moniker]

This actually looks pretty rad. I feel like the Blaster Master formula deserves more exploration.

[Hagane]

Because it's expensive to make not shit art.

*looks at Kickstarter goal*

uh, nevermind

A very low goal. Good high res sprite art costs much more than that.

[RNGmaster]

Lifebar, physics engine .. confirmed for sloppy as fuck gameplay. But it's not like anyone would ever play this seriously anyway, seeing as it's a Metroidvania .. >_>

People play metroidvanias seriously! They're very fun games to speedrun.

[Ed Oscuro]

Because it's expensive to make not shit art.

*looks at Kickstarter goal*

uh, nevermind

A very low goal. Good high res sprite art costs much more than that.

Yeah that's probably cutting it close for an entire project - although what I see there right now doesn't look particularly like $80K to me, no matter what's in it, and Udder nailed two other arenas where they're not making their keep. As for art, that depends on how much content they want in large part. These graphics could be made more detailed without being made larger - without question. The spaceship looks ugly as hell, for example. I'd love to see some budgets for games, I know AAA titles can often get into a couple million dollars, but this isn't promising to offer those kinds of visuals.

[Hagane]

Each Skullgirls character costs 250k, at reduced wages with a cheaper production method than traditional sprite art. Each SFIV character cost 1-2 million dollars to make. The Skullgirls Indiegogo campaign was a real eye opener for me when it comes to understanding game production costs. With such a low goal the look of this game is understandable, unless you have a really good and extremely dedicated sprite artist willing to work for pennies in your team.

[Moniker]

Each Skullgirls character costs 250k, at reduced wages with a cheaper production method than traditional sprite art. Each SFIV character cost 1-2 million dollars to make. The Skullgirls Indiegogo campaign was a real eye opener for me when it comes to understanding game production costs. With such a low goal the look of this game is understandable, unless you have a really good and extremely dedicated sprite artist willing to work for pennies in your team.

Instead of continually not finishing games, Konjak (Noitu Love/2) should be offering his services to all these 'retro' kickstarter games. What a wonderful world this could be.

[Ed Oscuro]

Hagane, those are interesting figures, but again we are taking about characters with orders of magnitude more complexity (size, character design, animation fluidity, and dynamic poses, and marrying the frames to hitbox interactions with other characters, to name what seem like the five key areas) than almost anything a Metroid/PSX/GBA era Castlevania needs to muster, really, and that probably includes taking into consideration that there will be more characters and art. I don't know what this game's design entails, but the characters need to be able to run, jump, and shoot, and possibly not much else, probably within the same exact hitbox 99% of the time. That's a far cry from most fighting games. I think a lot of it hinges on how much it costs to do that, and then the background art probably can take up the lion's share.

So yeah, 85K is probably absurdly low even in consideration of those things. If I had to guess that'd probably put the budget of a GBA-era Castlevania at something like $250K - half a million (at today's resolutions, probably $500K and up to a million). At the very least I think they should use a better trick than "make everything blocky and fugly" as a result. Anyway, thanks for the numbers. Wish I knew what Contra 4 wanted for an example - it looks like this game wants to have a few times the number of graphics compared to C4, where I think it would be better to just focus on having some better-looking default graphical elements to work with, even if it makes the game look more repetitive.

And yeah, Konjak is a good example of the awesome gulf between what's essentially modern-day development of Genesis-level complexity, which is a one-man show yet still feels like a complete game, versus "we gotta push everything in there" aspirations towards expansive open-world games. I wonder whether the devs really did have the skill set for making better looking graphics, but just decided to aim low. Unfortunately, it's quite true that on Kickstarter that first impression of the visuals speaks more to people than any careful consideration of how it's put together. The graphics in the screenshot, taken if they were individual tiles, didn't impress. But the overall sense of how that world fits together looks promising. Unfortunately most people won't view it that way, and it certainly doesn't look like anything nostalgic, either. I can't even say I could shake off this impression; the world and its heroes don't really look like something I could find myself caring about. I realize that seems contrary to everything shmups and retrogaming is about, but I can't really shake that feeling.

[Drum]

The only bad thing about the graphics there is that they're a little on the cliche indie side and that yucky smoke effect. This board is fucking tiresome to read sometimes.

[Ed Oscuro]

Well, you know how well shades of slate gray and slate blue sell games. (Looking at it again, I don't know where I was getting "detailed backdrops" from; I obviously wasn't looking closely enough.)

p.s. You're pretty tiresome too. In before more

[Drum]

Don't take it personally - your posts aren't tiresome to read (because I always skip the long ones).

[Ed Oscuro]

I like short posts that say nothing, but which still manage to contradict themselves. That could have been a nice slam, if you didn't also want to pretend it wasn't one. Greedy bugger.

[Drum]

How was that not a slam? I totally slammed you.

[BulletMagnet]

Back on topic, please.

[Ed Oscuro]

It would be nice if we didn't have self-appointed forum saviors waltzing in and complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio...while admitting that they are doing nothing to help it and just want to slag other people off.

[Drum]

sl4mm3d

[BryanM]

Oh yes, have to say it.

OUYA!

Youtubing it, looks like a love letter to Cave Story.

It's cute how his legs turn into a wheel when he sprints. I won't deny.

Because it's expensive to make not shit art.

*looks at Kickstarter goal*

uh, nevermind

Art anything is expensive. Brahs just trying to learn programming from nothing I can't stress it enough: start with ASCii games.

Spending 1 to 4 hours on simple 1 frame static sprites (even starting from a template) I have no empathy for folks that hate reused medusa heads.

But yeah dam that's a lot of money. It's either a hella lot for a bunch of publishing deals, he wants to hire some help, he really likes high profit margin sugar milk from Star Bucks, or he's a Mormon with fifty wives each with fifty kids.

Oh, and he's almost certainly using Unity. I'd bet reproductive organs on it. That's a $1,500 license fee to buy the damn thing.

Everyone uses Unity these days. Sigh.

Are they supposed to be anything?

I think you missed the memo somewhere that abstract pixelly things are the only indie games allowed free viral advertising.

vvvvvv

The Skullgirls Indiegogo campaign was a real eye opener for me when it comes to understanding game production costs.

For 1 guy to create the equivalent of all the art assets that are in Dragon Quest 1, it'd take him about a full month's worth of work.

And no one would buy a jRPG with DQ1 quantity assets for more than a $1.

I'm of the opinion that if you actually need to specify that your game is a "Metroidvania," it isn't.

The aforementioned vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv, Battle Kid, IWBTGuy, Cave Story... none of them are exploration games really. There's a level that's a hub, essentially an in-game level select screen, then linear levels.

Don't give me a hub and then call it a "where the fuck do I go" game. That's NES Adams Family/Milon's Secret Castle.

It's some kind of union-decreed requirement that every frackin' platformer calls itself a "metroidvania" now. When all it almost always means is the level select screen is integrated in-game now.

[Ed Oscuro]

Interesting post there, you've got some good points. ASCII...hmm, even Apogee started out by spelling "ZORK" backwards and then making little alphanumeric characters dance across the screen.

[denpanosekai]

one last bump and I'm done. ends in 11 hours.