Hi, I'm new and making my own shmup, LES MIZ

[Bea]

Have two friends working on concept/sprite art/portraits, and another friend making music

I'm going to be doing the programming/game design/writing.

The shmup? Based off of "Les Miserables", "LES MIZ: The Unofficial Game of the Official Movie of the Unofficial Musical of the Official Book". A lot more spaceships in my version than Victor Hugo intended. Think "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" mixed with "Charles Barkley Shut up and Jam Gaiden" and "Mars Matrix", that's what I'm trying to go for. Gimmicky, but my first attempt at a game

I've spent the last few weeks reading about the pros and cons of different game engines and approaches. Unfortunately for the most part the info I was getting was like, not really that useful or relevant. Stumbled upon this forum and there seems to be a lot of resources and good stuff to read. Right now my main concern is, what's the best way to build a shmup that has a 2d pixel art feel, gameplay, and style? When I voiced these concerns in other communities people just said "just lock the camera in unity", and I'm hoping that I can find more productive explorations of the subject while reading the resources here!



-STRGZR

[n0rtygames]

This thread may be of interest to you.

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=45233

There is also this:
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=39679


To build up a shmup that has "2d pixel art feel" is a seriously complicated question. It really depends on how fussy you are about this sort of thing. What you see on an LCD looks completely different to someone playing on a CRT, which again looks and feels completely different to somebody playing on a proper arcade monitor.

If you're using Unity, I can help you along = it's pretty simple - however to be perfectly honest with you, if you're going to be writing a 2D shmup for PC and you want crisp pixels.. I would not use Unity. I would just get hold of some sort of rendering libraries for C++ and teach yourself.

Reasons:
* You'll want fine control over things like anti aliasing, UV wrap modes - unless you know exactly what you're doing I think your results might be a little strange in Unity.

* Doing proper tate without the use of Unity3D pro which supports render targets and such is like cutting off your own testicles. You can do it, it's just not an enjoyable thing. Thankfully I have pro. woo.

* You just don't NEED unity for this!



Finally, one of the requirements to having a nice pixel art feel - is to either be able or know somebody who can produce quality pixel art...

[Bea]

To build up a shmup that has "2d pixel art feel" is a seriously complicated question. It really depends on how fussy you are about this sort of thing. What you see on an LCD looks completely different to someone playing on a CRT, which again looks and feels completely different to somebody playing on a proper arcade monitor.

If you're using Unity, I can help you along = it's pretty simple - however to be perfectly honest with you, if you're going to be writing a 2D shmup for PC and you want crisp pixels.. I would not use Unity. I would just get hold of some sort of rendering libraries for C++ and teach yourself.


Yes, exactly, this is as much as I've figured out doing research, thus my frustration with people blithely telling me to use Unity.

Happily, I'm pretty familiar with C++, though it's been a few years

[Bea]

that said, i'm definitely viewing this as my first project in terms of how much effort into making this perfect I want to put in. Frankly I'm sure I'll make a lot of mistakes and unwise decisions so I'm definitely going to be careful not to try and make it the "perfect" game. so i do not intend to try and make this my perfect dream shmup on my first attempt, just want to try and make it as decent and creative as possible

[BareKnuckleRoo]

This reminds me of that fighting game they made based on Les Misérables.