[LakeFeperd]

A thingy I did for college.
It's an artwork of the 5th and 4th stage in spark.

I also posted a few sketches on the tumblr page, go there if you want to check those out.

[Chimera]

Ahhh, 1 point perspective assignments :V

I think one of the issues with Spark's design may be his oversimplification. Other than his hat and scarf, there's really not much going on with his face and body. It's a bland single-color smooth surface with a two pixel line for a mouth. While I understand he'll wear clothing as powerups, I still feel his base character should at least have SOME variety to him other than two eyes and a mouth. I mean, even simple accentuation like black rings around his eyes, maybe eyebrows, and like in that fanart maybe a black line on his stomach. Something like this?



Idk, it doesn't have to be much but it just looks like he needs /some/thing else there to add to him. Else he just looks... boring XP

Otherwise, pretty cool stuff so far!

[LakeFeperd]

Double post!

So, here's 2 more screenshots.: http://sparktej.tumblr.com/





@About spark's design

I really don't think I'm going to be changing his design since his design right now works really well for what I want to do with him and his world.
But if you guys think his desing is a bit boring, I'm going to try to make up for that by having quite a few power ups around the stages.

So far I've 3 "finished" power ups and 3 more in development.

This post has been edited by LakeFeperd: 20 April 2014 - 03:01 PM

[Jassbec]

I'm honestly fine with his design, though it may be the sprites what cause problems with the design.

Maybe changing them in the future?

And those screenshots look awesome Lake, I love the vibe of them.

[Lambda]

As always, your locations rock, Lake. The presentation and visual designs are always interesting and creative!

[LakeFeperd]

it is likely that his sprite will change in the future, I will at least rework most of his animations later on.

[LakeFeperd]

Finally, I'm back.

So, a while ago, I posted a few sketches on my tumblr page:



And, this is how it turned out in-game:

This level(above) being the transition between this stage(below) and the next one:


Also. I should have a demo ready for this year SAGE act 2 so you guys can try the game out.

Another thing, I'm looking for some people to test out the game, but not just by playing the game and giving me some feedback on text, I want someone that can test out a game build and record the playthrough so I can add some more polish on the level design. I feel like some levels might be hard for the wrong reasons and I want to fix that as soon as possible.

Oh, and btw, check out the tumblr page for some minor updates: http://sparktej.tumblr.com/
Still, I should be posting the most important updates over here or sfghq

This post has been edited by LakeFeperd: 13 June 2014 - 04:09 PM

[Falk]

Lake put up a new gameplay trailer

[ICEknight]

I'm really liking what I'm seeing... Although I could barely see the background buildings at night, but I believe that somebody has pointed that out already.


Now, regarding the main character's design, the only gripe I have with it is that the hat reminds me a bit too much of Kirby's mirror transformation:



In any case, good work! Just make sure that the level design isn't unfair in those high-speed levels...

[LakeFeperd]

I actually have a version of those buildings in the night stage that clearly show their shape but I ended up changing that version to the one you see now. I feel like it just adds a lot more to the stage by not showing how they are.
This is, in fact, a thing I want to do with most of the backgrounds in spark, most of them will have somekind of huge and foggy object in the distance. Even though most of those objects have no importance in the game's plot they are mentioned in signs all over the game and are there with the purpose of adding some flavor and identity to spark's universe.

And the deisgn, well, he looks like mirror kirby because I made him look like mirror kirby on purpose.
It probably wasn't a good idea in the end though. It might keep spark for being a great, or even good, game in any way but, well, I took the risk and with how things are going currently, spark will remain that way.
Unless things change.

And there are no enemies in the board section, only life ups. It works like a "stage especific in-stage mini bonus stage" in a way (ok, that was wierd, and I'm calling it "S.E.I.M.B.S" for no reason at all)

This post has been edited by LakeFeperd: 20 July 2014 - 06:50 PM

[Tiller]

I'm liking a lot of what I'm seeing from the movement system, hopefully you build stages to take advantage of it. I'm also in the group not too thrilled with the character design, but you're going with what you want to go with. Your work with backgrounds keeps getting better and better.

[LakeFeperd]

Those are a few ideas I made for a possible "re-design".
I still feel like spark's original design works for the game but not as much as before. As I work on the game, I do feel like spark is getting a bit outdated by the day, it's not much, but it's there.

Those "re-designs" are made to work with spark's original sprite wich means those aren't huge changes to the design. The 5th and 6th have little antennas similar to this game's npcs which I can't belive I haven't shown yet.


Keep in mind those are just ideas and it's still likely that spark will remain the way he is, the game itself will take priority.

[Felik]

Watch out, Lake! This sexy beast gonna get rule 34'd in the blink of an eye

[ICEknight]

LakeFeperd, on 21 July 2014 - 10:08 AM, said:

Those are a few ideas I made for a possible "re-design".

How about something like this for a hat?

Partly-visible antennae, recognizeable silhouette (very important in good character design) and less clutter for the small sprite, all-in-one.


Sorry for the quality, trying to draw anything on my laptop without a mouse is like painting with fingers (literally), but you get the idea. =P

This post has been edited by ICEknight: 21 July 2014 - 06:44 PM

[Chimera]

Why not something like this?



Sorry for the bad quality but I was working EXCLUSIVELY on my phone with this :V EDIT: I had to make my text really condensed when I left the airport because lol no service. By quality I mean the linework here is choppy as hell because I exported the image poorly.

I'm thinking if he's one of the citizens you drew up, Lake, he should kind of look like them a bit more. And considering he's a jester, I feel like his scaf should be more of a jester collar. Keeping with jester wear, I figured it'd be nice if he had two little puffs on his collar that made it look like he was wearing a suit. And dem jester shoess. Though I won't be upset if you don't use anything from this xP

Will post the original sketch later mayb

This post has been edited by Chimera: 22 July 2014 - 08:40 PM