Spectrum Chase

[Strife]

Working on character art at the moment, as well as a high concept (i.e. describing the whole game in one or two sentences) and a synopsis of the game's plot. I want to build an official web page for the game, but I'll need to finish artwork for all of the major characters before I go ahead and do that.

Here's a lineup of the heroes, sorted according to height:

I think Violet stands out the most because of her shape and color, which is good since she'll be the protagonist. Indigo also stands out pretty good due to his heroic red+blue+yellow color combination. I'm thinking about making one of the other characters playable, but it's probably too big of a stretch at this point.

Villains coming soon.

[Serephim]

I really enjoy your artstyle for this game. It's simple yet it works very well.

As for the mask guy, i think it's cool either way. Kind of like Megaman with or without his Helmet.

[Strife]

Thank you.

Anyway, I think it's time to switch out the name of the game from Time Heroes to Spectrum Chase. Buuuut I don't know how to edit the thread title. D: Do admins need to do it, or?

[OverbounD]

Just double click the name of the topic in the FGC main forum. Love the concept art btw!

[snow toilet]

Nice character art.

My favorite is the second to last from left to right.

Also, I like the new name.

Sounds exciting to me.

[Strife]

Thanks for the tip Overbound. =D And thanks, Snow. You mean the little Martianesque alien with dark clothing? That would be Commander Malvador, an anti-villain who ends up joining the heroes to one-up the main villains. The shorter alien to his right is one of his henchmen.

So that leaves two more heroes to draw, plus the villains, and then some extra buttons and doodads, and then I'll have everything I need to build the website and include character bios and such.

Also, I changed the title screen to reflect the new name:

[snow toilet]

[qimg]http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/1268/scle.png[/qimg]

This is excellent!

Haha, and yeah that guy.

Thought I like them all, there's something about him that I can't figure out why he's my favorite out of the bunch.

[Kessler12]

I love that title screen!

[Strife]

Thanks guys! =D

I've successfully added a pause feature, and now I'm working on the pause menu. Here are two different mockups I've made:

The menu will change color depending on which character you use. I can't decide if I want a horizontal or vertical layout, though. I think the horizontal one looks a little better, but the vertical one would be easier to navigate.

At the moment, this pause menu will be the only way for the player to check their inventory. I'm wondering if I should make their items permanently visible on the HUD as well, or if that would add too much clutter to the screen.

[Vexus]

I prefer the horizontal menu since it looks tidier. And if you're decide to make items visible on the HUD, you should just have the active item visible.

[GSF]

I prefer the horizontal menu since it looks tidier. And if you're decide to make items visible on the HUD, you should just have the active item visible.

This. Use the horizontal layout, and only show a bar for the currently equipped weapon. Use the "Resident Evil" menu system, where by default, the cursor is set on the items section. If the player wants to choose an option like Quit, either make it so that moving down highlights the menu option, or hitting the cancel button returns focus to the "menu" (add an Items option in this case, so the player can return to the items part without exiting and reentering the menu.)

[Strife]

Alright, horizontal it is. Thanks for the advice!

I haven't actually implemented the ability to equip unique weapons yet, but I have the animations for each character just in case. I must admit, it'd be pretty neat if certain enemies dropped their weapons after defeat, or if the player could outright disarm them. But we'll see. xD

[Strife]

This will hopefully be the last time I decide to change his outfit. Doing full replacements of all of his animation frames gets pretty tiresome after a while. xD;

I definitely like this version the best, though. It looks a lot more comfortable and less bulky.

[Kessler12]

That menu is beast! Keep it up strife. The sprite seems fine to me.

[Strife]

Thanks Kess!

Here's what I got so far for the pause menu:

Currently, the player can only carry 6 items with them while the rest of their inventory remains back at their ship. However, I'm thinking about expanding the inventory into something akin to Zelda, where you have a big table of empty slots that get filled up as you collect new items and gadgets. It all depends on how many unique items I end up making.

Also, you might notice the icons on the far left of the screen. These are raw resources that can be used to craft or purchase new items. There are two types of resources - Metals and Gems - and each of them comes in 4 different colors. Generally speaking, each planet only contains resources of a specific color or type; so, for example, an underground cave might only contain gems and no metals, while an alien city might only contain yellow resources.

Of course, if I expand the inventory, I'll probably treat these resources like normal items that take up slots.

[TailsSena]

Looks great! Just don't make the inventory as cluttered as some Zelda games if you decide to do so. (Like Majora's Mask, amazing game, hard to find anything.)

[GSF]

Very nice. Just one tip: How about adding a small block to the left of the "Options" menu that shows the name of the currently selected item? If you're adding more items later, it would be handy.

[Strife]

Those are good pointers, guys. =D Thanks!

What I could do, actually, is split the inventory into two separate pages: Items/Gadgets and Treasures. Items are one-use, Gadgets have an energy meter (though some are just infinite use), and Treasures are quest items that can either be sold, broken down into raw materials, or transformed, depending on the treasure.

Unlike Christmas TH, there won't be yellow gemstones scattered around each level, so the game is only a collectathon if the player actively chooses to treasure hunt. If they just want to focus on the action, they can do so - they'll just have less useful items than someone who took the time to explore. :3

[Strife]

For those who didn't see my post in the Screenshots thread, Violet now has a quick punching attack that she uses when no weapon is equipped:

When she successfully hits an enemy, she can keep stringing together rapid punches for as long as the enemy is within her range.

That being said, I've been working on some enemy AI:

These buggers are Crashbots, the main grunts of the villains. I'm modeling their behavior after the generic soldiers in Gunstar Heroes, somewhat. They'll get knocked to the ground for a moment when they lose half of their health, and again before they're destroyed. They attack with projectiles and will periodically jump when the player does so that they don't stay grounded all the time. In other words, they move like the player does... which makes it difficult for me to keep their threat level consistent.

In the above screenshot, I'm running a test where I stand in place and fire forward at a group of five Crashbots. In each test, Indigo loses anywhere from 20-35% health. Violet loses 5-15% with her weapon, and practically all of it with melee even when I try my best. Ideally, I'd like everyone to lose 5-15% across the board, so I'll have to figure out how to make the bots more susceptible to Violet's punches and Indigo's default weapon.

[JetHawk95]

I hope theres still quite some progress on this

Also you probably wont but if you need assistance with the music I'd love to help.. I still haven't released that Chin'Chins remix I did for youu xD

[Strife]

I hope theres still quite some progress on this

Also you probably wont but if you need assistance with the music I'd love to help.. I still haven't released that Chin'Chins remix I did for youu xD

Don't feel bad about it. xD Like I said via PM, that's not even a song that I made for this game.

As far as progress goes, I'm mostly working out the plot details right now as well as character designs. ^^

[JetHawk95]

It was meant for a very interesting game

And keep it up, I adore your style of Art/Music/Games!