Vilya's Work-blog! (aka Pixel Ferrets behind the scenes)

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Own

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Is the art design of Secrets of Grindea moving to a more... I don't know the word. Plastic-y style?

I ask because the one on the left had some textured grain on the wood which made the houses look 'realer' and more wooden, whereas the one on the right uses very limited texture, brighter colors and pops out more. I think that's what the Pillar Mountains stone design was trying to do too - less detail, brighter colors, popping out, etc.

The wood on the houses used the same style of texture as the trees in SoG, seen here: upload_2015-5-4_21-45-44.png

Are they getting updated to look more like the new style too?

I don't really have a preference for the old or new style and I'm not criticizing it, just noticing how distinctly the art design is being reworked. :p What inspired this?
 
Vilya

Vilya

Developer
Staff member
Basically, the old buildings (and plenty of other early props) are pretty terrible as far as pixel art goes. They use way too many colors and are very "sketched", with lots of pixels missing and no clear direction overall. As I've been working on SoG my understanding of pixel art has slowly become better, and I no longer simply paint away at random in low resolution, hoping the end result will look pixel-y enough to fit in. The result is fewer colors, more clear edges and stronger contrast, cause I now think of every piece as an actual prop of pixel art and plan ahead accordingly.

So basically this has led to the style of the game changing gradually, until recently where it's come to a point where the two styles are so different from eachother that Startington doesn't don't look much like the later areas of the game at all. Hence the rework of the earlier props :)

Some people might prefer the old look, which feels more painted and detailed, and in some ways I agree, even though those props are "bad" as far as the typical pixel art "rules" go. But I also believe it's better for the game to be cohesive in its artstyle, and since Fred's sprites use fewer colors and details as well, having a more cartoon-y feel, I think the new style fits better with that. :)
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
MAY 07, 2015
Portrait of a Fishing Girl
Another new character since the new Frontline update is this young lady, fishing away in Seasonne:


Sprite made by Fred!

As you may notice, the last part (before the portrait is finished) wasn't recorded! :( I was pausing the recording to get some water, and totally forgot to turn it back on. Sadly, I didn't notice my mistake until I was already finished, but most of the process was already recorded so hopefully that's ok!


Line Art​
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
MAY 08, 2015
A Bunch of Bridges
Now that the buildings of Startington have been upgraded, it's time to give some of the other super old props a facelift! In this post, as you might have guessed, it's all about bridges (and some other things) :3

When passing through the Pillar Mountains, you make use of a couple of suspension bridges. These are among those mega old props that use over 9000 colors and look really messy. So, time to clean it up:



More about the new bridges can be seen over at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/05/a-bunch-of-bridges.html​
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
MAY 11, 2015
Polishing Arcadia & Evergrind West

Remember those old buildings I upgraded last week? We just realized similar buildings are present in Arcadia, the starting town of Arcade Mode. So, they needed to be upgraded as well:


Old --> New


Old --> New

As you may or may not be able to tell, these are slightly darker than the ones I posted last week, and that's because I went over aaaall of the buildings once more and adjusted the colors in order for them to not pop as much as they did before. :) When the next patch goes live, a bunch of other things in Arcadia will have been updated as well, such as the well and logs, and basically any other thing that I went over in last week's post.

More of Vilya's quest to refine Grindeas looks can be appreciated over at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/05/polishing-arcadia-evergrind-west.html​
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
MAY 12, 2015
Polishing the Winterland

While the winterland (Seasonne) is a relatively new area, there are some old props hiding in there as well, as well as some lack of detail that we felt we needed to address...

First of all, in the bottom left map, there's this huge chunk of the area that has been neglected as far as details go:



Way back, in an early version of this map, we had super many "snow caves" here, but when Teddy was going to implement them he thought they were simply too many, and since we couldn't decide which ones to keep he removed them all temporarily. ..And then we kind of forgot about them...​

Read the whole article and future articles over at
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/05/polishing-winterland.html
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
MAY 13, 2015
Another Mixed Bag


Time for another one of those mixed bags!

One of the things we've wanted to add for a long while, but haven't gotten around to, is the ability to hide your pet. Those guys can get real annoying sometimes, especially when you have a green slime and you're intent on farming other green slimes. The aura helps a bit when it comes to recognizing which slime is my pet and which ones are enemies, but the way Slimey cries when I slaughter his brethren....! :((

Joking aside, it's nice to be able to hide your pet, and it's not particularly hard to do, so it's on our to-do list. And as such, we needed new icons for the Pet Menu:





I based the Show/Hide pet icons on the Show/Hide equipment icons, using the same colors and style, but with a pet instead of a hat in the middle. I thought this would make it feel coherent, indicating that they do the same thing.

Find out more at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/05/another-mixed-bag.html​
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
MAY 14, 2015
Steam Leaderboards

For those of you who follow my twitter, this comes as no surprise, but we're currently working on implementing Steam leaderboards for Arcade Mode!

So, a few nights ago me and Teddy sat down and discussed what we wanted the interface to look like. To begin with, we listed everything we wanted it to include:



Some of you have wondered how we'll deal with single and multiplayer Arcade Mode runs, and the answer to that is that we'll separate them into four different groups. Basically, there will be a 1p, 2p, 3p, 4p and Local highscore, and when browsing scores you'll swap between those by pressing up or down.​

Find out more at:

http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/05/steam-leaderboards.html
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
MAY 15, 2015
Big & Small Noses

So a while ago Teddy approached me suggesting that since I was reworking old things, perhaps I could take a look at a few of the old portraits again. You see, he had found that a lot of the noses looked rather big, and would prefer if I could make them smaller to give the characters a more pleasant and attractive look.

While I personally don't think the noses are too big, I'm sure that if he thinks so, plenty of others will agree with him! And I don't think making the noses smaller would mean the portraits will look worse, so why not!

I asked him to give me a list of the ones he thought needed fixing, and here's the first batch:


Nysbruden in Pillar Mountains: original version!


Nysbruden after her nosejob!​


For more of Vilya's surgical work, take a look at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/05/big-small-noses.html
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
MAY 18, 2015
Big & Small Noses, Part 2

Part two of the nosejob frenzy! This time we begin with the Blacksmith ladies:


Before


After
With these, I had to do some additional fixes on them aside from their noses as well. For instance, there were a lot of unnecessary shades in their faces in particular, so I cleaned that up to give the portraits a cleaner look.
​
And another set of fantastical portraits can be seen at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/05/big-small-noses-part-2.html
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
MAY 19, 2015
More Leaderboards!

Remember how I promised a male spring fae? Well, scratch that! This post will be about how we continue to work on our Steam leaderboards! The basics have been implemented now, and we're in the process of adding polish, some of which will be the focus of today's post!

To start off, we thought it would be nice to have an indicator of whether you know someone on the leaderboards or not. We also thought it'd be good to have a clear indicator of which score is your own. So, to do that we've added these two icons:



More on the leaderboards can be read over at
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/05/more-leaderboards.html​
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
MAY 20, 2015
Rank D & Final (?!) Portrait Fixes


In a coming patch, we'll be adding another rank to your Arcade Mode runs! Currently, you can get S, A, B, and C-ranks, and you get a bit of score for getting each of those ranks.

We've noticed, however, that playing extremely safe has become a bit too OP in terms of score - it's almost always better to play safe and get past higher floors, regardless of your score for each room, than to clear the rooms as fast & skillfully as possible.

To balance this a bit, we'll be introducing the D-rank, which gives you zero points when clearing a room too slowly:



We do understand that running around with Mr. Cloud or shooting enemies from afar once every 10 seconds is a strategy that many love to use (myself included), but it doesn't seem fair that it should be the most viable strategy in terms of getting a good score. ​

More on the leaderboards and portraits can be read over at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/05/rank-d-final-portrait-fixes.html
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
MAY 21, 2015
Quicklevel & Upgraded Menu Icons

Today we've been working on the design and implementation of a feature I think most on the team have been wanting for a long time... Quick leveling!





With this new feature, you'll be able to hold tab to bring up the interface seen above, where the last 5 skills and talents you used are shown. This means that instead of having to open the menu and find the correct skill and talent every time you level up, the game will find them for you, and you won't have to swap between the talent- and skill trees. ​

This is a excerpt from a longer article which can be found over at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/05/quicklevel-upgraded-menu-icons.html
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
MAY 22, 2015

A Spring Fae
As promised yesterday, it's time for a new portrait, featuring another of the fae! This time around, it's a spring fae male!
01%2B-%2BLine%2BArt.png

Line Art

http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/05/a-spring-fae.html​
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
MAY 25, 2015
Gotland Game Conference: Day 1

This week will look a bit different as me and my fellow Pixel Ferrets have been invited to Gotland Game Conference, where we'll serve as part of the jury, trying out a bunch of games and giving feedback (and scores)!

The jury consists of a bunch of interesting people from different parts of the game design industry, and the whole list of people can be seen here; needless to say I'm very excited to be part of this gang :)

Today (Sunday) was the first, inofficial, day of the conference, where the jury meet up for the first time and listen to a bunch of presentations held by the students about the games they've been making. Listening to the presentations is actually part of our duty as jurors, and we have to grade each presentation based on how good we thought it was.


The jury meeting up for some expo information and a light lunch ​
before starting the hard work!​
​
The rest of the article can be found over at:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/05/gotland-game-conference-day-1.html
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
MAY 26, 2015
Autumn Fae Female

Being a judge means very little time, it seems! Instead of talking about day two of GGC today, I'll throw in this pre-prepared portrait post. Basically I just came home and fell asleep yesterday, and now that I've awoken it's time to return to GGC for it's final day! I'll post more about that tomorrow. For now: enjoy!

Time for another fae portrait (nope, we're still not done with those)! Another autumn fae this time, contemplating who will become the next elder:


Line Art​

http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/05/autumn-fae-female.html
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
MAY 27, 2015
Gotland Game Conference: Day 2

Yesterday we continued to play games at GGC! This time around, the public was welcome to attend the showfloor, meaning there were a lot more people there. I finished playing the second year games, and managed to play a bunch of others as well, since we had a bit of extra time!




This time around, I was the most impressed by a racing game called Twin Shift, which combines the basics of a racing game with a shifting mechanic resembling the one in VVVVVV:


Basically, it's like any other racing game, but there's also a track above your which you can shift to. Sometimes the track you're on will end abruptly, meaning you have to shift to avoid crashing and losing valuable time, and sometimes the track above/beneath you will take you through a different route than the one you're currently on. While I don't normally enjoy a lot of racing games, this felt intriguing since it had such a cool, yet simple, mechanic that at least I haven't seen before in racing-type games.​

The rest of Vilya's article can be read here:
http://vilyaroo.blogspot.de/2015/05/gotland-game-conference-day-2.html
 
MrChocodemon

MrChocodemon

Handsome Moderator
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