Overall Goals and Strategies

Akake on 2011/09/09 20:00 of LandFish: Foxer Delta

I've decided that I want to spell out my goals for this coming PyWeek. It'll help me have a direction to take my ideas in, rather than just haphazardly making them. (the ideas in this post I made are still in effect unless... well, unless I change my mind, to be honest)

Here are my goals, briefly:

Learn to make good pixel art
- Painterly style rather than stereotypical game style
- Good animation
- Nice terrain tilemaps (I struggle with this one)
Prove the concept of the "code painting"
- Demonstrate the "single game state" concept effectively
- Show a feasible way of handling menus
Create an unconventional idea
- The idea should not be stereotypical of games
- Avoid violence, prefer peaceful activity
- Use gameplay rather than story to communicate
Communicate a feeling or idea
- Related to above, use gameplay to communicate
- Use feelings not often found in games, EG:
- - Romance
  - Nurturing
  - Industry
  - Peace
- Do not preach, but show instead

These are hopefully going to be goals that I can carry through. Well, hopefully.

Peace, love, and project planning,

--- Akake

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Comments

Cosmologicon on 2011/09/09 20:09:

Cool, sounds like you're putting a lot on yourself. I hope it's not too much pressure. :)

Do you want to explain what you mean by "painterly style" pixel art? You say you don't want it to be "stereotypical game style", but pixel art is the quintessence of game-style art in my mind. Got any images or links to what you might have in mind?

dotteri on 2011/09/09 20:53:

Except a idea for Negociator all my ideas are non violent. 1 ó 2 are very crazy :p.
You must work with sound too. With sound i mean effects and music. Sound in a videogame is important too.

Akake on 2011/09/09 21:00:

When I said "pixel art" I was talking about the method, not the output.

Here is the general style I want to aim for: (though I'm not certain that I can pull it off just yet)

The links are to images. The images are kind of big, so I didn't want to insert them here.

Those are paintings, but that's kind of the style that I'm aiming for. I'm not sure that I can pull that off completely, and I know I'll probably be using a Gimp filter or two, but this is what I'm hoping for at the very least.

I hope that makes my concept more clear. I know it's a weird-sounding thing...

Cosmologicon on 2011/09/09 21:07:

Oh, I guess I've heard "pixel art" used to refer to something different than you, then. I've heard it the way Wikipedia defines it:

Image filters (such as blurring or alpha-blending) or tools with automatic anti-aliasing are considered not valid tools for pixel art.

I'm not sure I know what you mean by "pixel art" then, if it doesn't describe the output, but that's okay, maybe I don't need to. :)

Akake on 2011/09/09 21:34:

Well, "pixel art" was the wrong way to say it. I meant making art with Gimp, probably starting with pixels and then using filters to make it look painterly.

mauve on 2011/09/10 11:35:

Raster art, as opposed to vectors?