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Guest Rabbit

Enemies

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Don't have a cow... or do have a cow.

 

Some people might argue it's technically not a cow as it seems to be lacking certain parts on the ventral region.

 

You could counter that argument by pointing out that when they were inventing the English language, they forgot to include a singular for cattle, and as such, the most proper word is still the informal "cow".

 

Some people will probably then tell you the language wasn't "invented".

 

Then you get all existential on them and say it is only a two-dimensional arrangement of pixels that resemble a mammalian quadruped of the bovidae family, and you can call it anything you want.

 

They will then be caught off guard longer than the timeframe during which an adequate comeback may be issued without sounding like an idiot and will lose the argument by default. They may mumble an insult against your intelligence at this point, but regardless, you both will know who won.

 

I could really milk this if I wanted to, and probably come up with another good dozen or so cow puns, but I've done enough damage.

post-3542-0-71003200-1333703959_thumb.png

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Guest Good Job

Wow, looks great!

 

But, yeah, aside from the lack of udders and such, I'm sure it'll fit in just fine.

 

Unfortunately, I also made a small mistake. It turns out that enemies have to be slightly smaller, because both the enemy and text bar has to fit on screen. Which sucks. It doesn't change anything for the images you made, other than that I've just had to resize the cow and the fiends, but either way, it kinda sucks that they can't be larger, unless I can push out that fourth line of text (which I just might try to do).

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But, yeah, aside from the lack of udders and such, I'm sure it'll fit in just fine.

Well your sprite doesn't have any, right? If you want it to be female, I can add it.

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Guest Gliese

Nah, I'm not worried about it. The sprite doesn't have it, I don't think, but it's a detail I'm sure most will overlook.

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You say that as though female would still be better though... is it because you are calling it a cow? You could call it Mutated Bovine if you wanted it to be sexless.

 

Anyway... is there an enemy you want me to make next? I could make a new mutated chicken to match the other mutated animals if you'd prefer it over your current image.

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Guest Rabbit

I honestly like the chicken the way it is, it just has a good angry look to it, and it fits the cartoonishness of the fact that it's an RPG game.

 

On another note, I do need to make a few variations of mutant people, maybe we could work on that. Let me try to, at some point, pull up some decent "anime" images that would work with some basic mutant edits.

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Would you have preferred a cartoonish wolf, bear, and cow then?

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Guest Rabbit

Nah, these are fine, they fit really well. I just like the chicken, because by nature, it's not a very large or freakish animal, so the cartoony one makes it stand out a little.

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Did you want a new Vein Hole Monster, or are you going with the cartoon look on that one too?

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Guest Elephant

I guess, but the only reason I picked that is because it's the only one I could find that was large enough.

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Might as well continue this here rather than on the News post...

 

So if you are using placeholder battler graphics, I assume you haven't got any for humans yet? I can work off the default battler graphics that come with VX and Ace. Just tell me what you need, and I can make it. Though not today as I am supposed to be doing Cartoon and Conquer #61 right now and am already procrastinating even as I write this.

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Guest Stalhelm

Yeah, that's definitely something I want to figure out. I think I'm going to find some time next week to start doing a couple sketches and mockups to give myself a couple ideas. I'm still debating whether going with a visual representation or using a different battle engine that shows the sprites side by side. I have to fiddle with it and decide what works best.

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Guest Rabbit

Updated the enemy list once more. I've simplified it quite a bit, and I think it paints a good picture of the multiple sides to the war.

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A thought... if you need more ranks of enemies in order to continue giving you a challenge as you level up, perhaps each rank you currently have could be expanded into "promoted" levels, C&C style. Veteran, Elite, and Heroic versions can be basically the same as the original, with identical graphics, skills, and equipment, but bumped up stats.

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Guest Rabbit

That's definitely a good idea.

I'll deal with naming options later, but so far, I have the RDI setup as follows:

Sentry (Swordsman)
Sentry (Spearman)
Sentry (Bowman)
Sentry (Leader) - Stronger than the preceeding three, likely armed with just a sword.

Knight
Knight (Veteran)
Knight (Elite)

Captain
Captain (Veteran)
Captain (Elite)
Captain (Supreme)

Paladin
Paladin (Veteran)
Paladin (Elite)
Paladin (Supreme)

Spy

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Hey, just wondering if you're needing some new enemy graphics since you changed the gameplay style.

 

If enemies are to appear as animated sprites instead of stationary battlers, they will be significantly more difficult to create. This means more time involved, which means it would be a bad idea to just use placeholders and wait up until your game is nearly complete before requesting a million animations.

 

I don't mind doing them for you, I actually enjoy it, but I don't want to be the one holding back the game's progress.

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Guest Rabbit

I took a short break since I got a little burned out. Let me gather all my assets and try to come up with a list of what I actually need, and we can try to work out what you can do.

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Guest Rabbit

Alright, hopefully I have this organized enough. For now (I'm not sure if I'll change it or not), I have the enemies categorized in ranks. Some of them, I feel, don't need their own specific sprite, because I feel a "Nod Scout" can be dressed any which way.

In any case, here's what I've pulled together so far:



Nod Militia
EJqtJkn.png
1wfd8wh.png
KpxWNnh.png
JSozodQ.png

Nod Black Hand
KHf4Oe0.png
cVOesNl.png
ftxuUL2.png

Nod Black Disciples
2yBAlGO.png
pPhbXNH.png

Nod Initiate
Wd4IRIZ.png

Nod Confessor
Qi2XSj4.png

Nod Grand Confessor
45zmY6Q.png

Rebel Confessor
a5ssfDS.png


RDI Sentry
9QFzauh.png
1ZzBVXt.png
p2CzGfr.png
whgvtEQ.png

RDI Knights
gmPBV3L.png
59eQfcL.png
8F0pqE4.png

RDI Officers
ysSPwwa.png
2ig78gR.png
1HMDTcG.png


Mutant Males
YPbyHrI.png
xbbhD8v.png
Rto2jeD.png

Mutant Females
GYCwQJF.png
DdfUS2H.png

 

Personally, I feel the one I'm having the most trouble getting to look half decent is the Initiate. On top of that, I need to add in an Acolyte as well, which I haven't started yet.

 

On my actual list of things I need sprites for, I have:

 

Paladin, Nod Avatar, Nod Initiate, Nod Acolyte, Nod Enlightened, Vein Hole, some animals, and some tiberium creatures (which frankly, I think we can invent some if you're in the mood. So far I've been pretty heavy on Tiberian Sun.

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Well, if I may be critical for a moment, there are a few things I would adjust if I were you.

 

Most of the Nod units do not look Nodish or intimidating enough. Their clothes need to be high contrast red and black, using more red on low-tier units and more black on high-tier units. Blue-haired girls also do not seem fitting for the Black Hand. The Grand Confessor is a good example of how they could look (not necessarily to that extreme however). The other Confessors, unfortunately, look like Ice Climbers.

 

Another issue is the size of the rank icons. I'm assuming, since the icons are on the animation frames, they will appear in the game as they are presented here. They are so large, you can hardly see some of the units. I made a sample of the first unit using much smaller icons which I think would be less invasive to gameplay (if you want these icons, let me know and I'll upload the set):

Veterancy.png

 

The tiberium crystals you have growing on the mutated units could use some minor tweaking, it is just one shade of bright green. I would use a primary green (such as ███) as well as a secondary darker green to contrast it (such as ███). I think this may also help your Nod Initiate problem.

 

 

Anyway, I hope that doesn't feel too negative, I think you are doing a pretty good job on the game.

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Guest Rabbit

All criticism is definitely welcomed, as long as it's constructive, which is infinitely more helpful.

 

And yeah, I would like to use those rank icons. For some reason, I was having trouble coming up with a small enough icon that could actually be seen as a rank. Resizing isn't easy when things are measured by fewer pixels than you can count on two hands.

 

I do see what you mean though in terms of the tiberium contrast and the red / black. I might design an entirely new set of militants, giving them better red colors, and still keeping the older ones, implying that they are new so they're fighting with "hand-me-downs" and other thrown together uniforms.

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Alright, here's the rank icons, it's actually the same image as above with the bottom layer stripped off.

 

The chevrons are actually from the Yuri's Revenge pip set. I stacked them for the second rank. I tried a star pip from TibSun, but it was still too big, so that one is a star icon I made for use in some of my games, with the yellows changed to match the pip's palette.

post-3542-0-55993500-1389364316_thumb.png

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Guest Rabbit

I've updated most of the units to have these new rank icons.

Something else that occured to me is that it doesn't really make very much sense to have fiends and floaters, considering that's probably the result of years of mutation. I'm considering keeping them anyway, along with a number of animals that are less mutated, and making things such as the fiend / floater extremely rare.

 

Semantics aside, I've just finished fixing up a bear, I plan on doing something similar with a number of animals that would have likely existed around the time I'm trying to portray. Here's the bear:

 

EUKAjXY.png

 

XPiQjmB.png

 

 

I also am going to work on simple farm animals such as goats and sheep, and I'm going to be redoing the wolf as sort of a middle ground between dog and tiberium fiend.

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You're probably right about it needing years to create the more advanced lifeforms, but unless you intend on making a sequel game, I'd totally put them in anyway. Maybe they could be late game features, which might make more sense anyway, as they would certainly be difficult to fight using ~17th century gear.

 

However, to replace advanced tiberium evolution monsters, perhaps you could have multiple stages of mutation in the animal life. For example, you already have non-mutated bears, you could then have early-stage with only tiny crystals, your current mutations could be second-stage, then you could have late-stage with large embedded crystals and maybe physical deformities like tusks (aka; mutated teeth).

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Guest Rabbit

That's a very good point. Back to the drawing board (I'll see myself out).

 

On another note, I suppose part of it is how much I can actually create. Considering how large the bear is, I think it would be insulting to the fiend / floater if I kept them in at their original size. As such, I've been attempting to recreate them at a more appropriate size. Here's the floater so far:

 

3AOd8lr.png

 

I basically drew it using a pixel editing tool by enlarging the Firestorm floater and tracing a basic outline, then detailing it. I don't think it looks great so far, but it's going to be used in a dim light environment anyway (the wasteland).

Edited by Rabbit

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Well if you want help doing the graphics of any of your enemies, don't hesitate to ask.

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