Our game has really started coming together the last two weeks. But it was really lacking in quality art and aesthetics. And some of our aesthetics that we had in place way back had fallen out of our latest version. So I decided to take it upon myself while everyone else crammed for finals to give the game a major makeover in time for our presentation to the class, teachers, and EAE Master's students, and before the big EAE Open House.
Here is how our game looks from a quick snap of gameplay, zoomed out a tad:
Here is how our game looks from a quick snap of gameplay, zoomed out a tad:
Here are the quick and noticeable eye sores:
I went through each of these and made each thing a bit sexier. For the frame, I took some of our artists' rock art and just cut out slices of rock using photo shop to frame the play-space edges. I also resized the play-space while I was add it making it a little less cramped based on some previous feedback.
I removed the fixed health bar and resized the floating health bar.
I added some of the layered art the artists had done for the environment and replaced the placeholder concept art. The new art was also designed to replace the volcanoes. I added my previously written parallax script and added the layered art to it. It was missing some depth so I took some more rocks, gave their sprite a blue overlay and some transparency to appear fuzzy through the depths of the water. These rocks were also added to the parallaxing for a better effect.
I updated the swarm unit prefab to include the newer piranha art in place of the starfish.
I updated the damage floater to be easy-to-read integers instead of 6-decimal precise float numbers and if the number is less than one, will now read '< 1'.
I also updated the damage floater to be able to take strings (instead of just floats) and added a new prefab with a green font (instead of red). Then utilized it on the volcano charges which when destroyed spawn new swarm units. Now it says '+ 5' or whatever number of units you just earned.
I updated the art for the volcano charge to be an egg and added the damage indicator so it turns red upon damage. I also added a spin to the charges so they rotate while they move toward the volcano.
I updated the volcano charge script so that it would generate a random number of swarm units in a range determined by the designer and then determine its health based on the number of swarm units it contains.
I splashed the environment with plant sprites.
I moved the volcano on top to the bottom since it just makes more sense. This required photoshopping the art.
Doing all this turned the game into this (except the gridlines and not showing health bar or unit counter):
- The white frame
- Two health bars representing the same thing (the boss's health)
- The volcanoes
- The Damage Floaters are long floats (Precise decimal numbers).
- The box's on the Turtle's appendage's.
- The floating health bar on the turtle is oversized.
- The volcano charge (just under the turtle's head) is a box with an 'X' through it.
I went through each of these and made each thing a bit sexier. For the frame, I took some of our artists' rock art and just cut out slices of rock using photo shop to frame the play-space edges. I also resized the play-space while I was add it making it a little less cramped based on some previous feedback.
I removed the fixed health bar and resized the floating health bar.
I added some of the layered art the artists had done for the environment and replaced the placeholder concept art. The new art was also designed to replace the volcanoes. I added my previously written parallax script and added the layered art to it. It was missing some depth so I took some more rocks, gave their sprite a blue overlay and some transparency to appear fuzzy through the depths of the water. These rocks were also added to the parallaxing for a better effect.
I updated the swarm unit prefab to include the newer piranha art in place of the starfish.
I updated the damage floater to be easy-to-read integers instead of 6-decimal precise float numbers and if the number is less than one, will now read '< 1'.
I also updated the damage floater to be able to take strings (instead of just floats) and added a new prefab with a green font (instead of red). Then utilized it on the volcano charges which when destroyed spawn new swarm units. Now it says '+ 5' or whatever number of units you just earned.
I updated the art for the volcano charge to be an egg and added the damage indicator so it turns red upon damage. I also added a spin to the charges so they rotate while they move toward the volcano.
I updated the volcano charge script so that it would generate a random number of swarm units in a range determined by the designer and then determine its health based on the number of swarm units it contains.
I splashed the environment with plant sprites.
I moved the volcano on top to the bottom since it just makes more sense. This required photoshopping the art.
Doing all this turned the game into this (except the gridlines and not showing health bar or unit counter):