ECOGGRAVATED SEPTUAMODAL ARCHAEOPOESIS

[Inyssius]

ECOGGRAVATED SEPTUAMODAL ARCHAEOPOESIS
or, "A Future History Of Me Making Things For You"

I'm working on a mod. A big mod. It's gonna take a hell of a lot of time to make; I don't expect anyone but me will be playing it before December at the least.

Wait! Don't go!  That's not what I'm here to talk about!

I know that no one could be reasonably expected to give a damn at this stage. I sound exactly like your stereotypical bright young lad with an introductory programming book and a bundle of overambitious game ideas; you know the type. They pop up one day, make a lot of noise about their grand designs and the revolutionary impact they'll have on the gaming industry--acting every bit the boundless wellsprings of naïve self-confidence that they are--and disappear below the waves, never to be heard from again, within the month. Indeed, I have been this individual, several times, and I think he is a very silly person.

You've got to back it up. You've got to walk the walk if you want to talk the talk. You've got to show the people out there that you know what you're doing, and that you have the drive to actually do it. If I want to keep pretending like I'm a serious game designer, I'm going to have to show my work at some point.

And frankly, I've been doing a hell of a lot of meticulous planning and writing and revising and researching and experimenting and I feel like it's going to drive me insane if I keep it up much longer. I want to actually make things. So I've decided on a challenge: every week, I will post something here for you to play. It should be polished, it should be fun, and it should run on your computer without instantly crashing. It should be at least the size of one zone in Aquaria, and considering the venue it's probably going to be a mod for said game. () I won't promise you much in the way of original art assets (in fact, I expect I'll be dipping into this game's /gfx directory pretty damn frequently), but the composition generally ought to be all mine; and if ever you feel like I'm just rehashing material from the original game, I will have failed as a game designer.

I'll probably also post here a lot about game design, Aquaria, and the Metroidvania genre in general. Hopefully I can get some conversation going--maybe even some cross-forum traffic, if I'm lucky.

And if I don't post something good here in the next seven days, I expect you all to heckle me mercilessly. I will also post a video of myself eating my own hat while watching the movie version of Twilight.

[Xiagan]

I enjoyed reading this post! The way you wrote it and its contents. Thank you and have a slice of my morally support-cake!

[Sindhi]

Very cool. I look forward to the progress! I can relate as to the length of time it takes to finish a mod.... (way longer than expected, x2, in our case) And  I hope I don't have to see any video of you interacting with a hat in any way...

[Inyssius]

I've spent the last hour or so messing around in Photoshop, tweaking some creatures I might end up using later. I'm rather pleased with how this young lady came out:



Spent some time working on her last night, came up with some nice ideas for the chest and shoulder details this morning. I'm not certain this will be the final version--I might change the feet if they would look too awkward on land--but it's close enough for government work, and I thought it came out well enough to share with you guys.

(Image compression's done a number on it, sadly. I assure you, it looks much better in play.)

[Sindhi]

Sassy! Great expression.

[False.Genesis]

Cool! Can't wait to see it in action
Wait... You said walking on land? Are you really going to add that to your mod, as seen in the Magic of Aquaria preview-images? That'd be SO awesome

*hands over half a bag of moral support cookies*

[FrancesF]

Looks pretty good to me, even with image compression!  I'm really looking forward to this mod. . .

[Alphasoldier]

Oh, this isn't a spam post, just noticed, haha... caps lock thread titles almost always point to spam.

The recolor and small modifications looks nice, though her eye looks a bit off and I'm not sure if I'm seeing an eyepatch on the other one.
Besides that the topic was rather well written, now let's see if you put up to the challenge and can pull this off, would love to see more! =D

[Widget]

Oh, this isn't a spam post, just noticed, haha... caps lock thread titles almost always point to spam.

It took me a while to figure that out aswell 

[Inyssius]

Oh, this isn't a spam post, just noticed, haha... caps lock thread titles almost always point to spam.

>.<

I knew that would happen! I knew it! I actually hesitated before using this thread title because I had a creeping suspicion that you specifically would mistake it for spam for a couple of days until the reply count got high enough!

The recolor and small modifications looks nice, though her eye looks a bit off and I'm not sure if I'm seeing an eyepatch on the other one.

Yeah, that's an eyepatch. Is it too hard to see at the moment? (What do the rest of you think?) I'd also be interested to hear any further critiques you might be able to come up with regarding her eye--I'm not quite sure what you mean there.

I might whip up a couple of other faces to test your reaction, if I have time. (It'd be interesting to see if whatever seems off to you is something specific about the way I alter/draw eyes in general, know what I mean?)

[Alphasoldier]

Her eyebrow is touching the corner of her eye, making it one "object". Obviously this is good when she's frowning or looking evil, but then her face wouldn't be so smooth, wrinkles over the bridge of her nose would appear, and her eyes would probably be a bit more squinted, tho this too is hard to do on such a small scale.
The eyepatch would probably show better on a light background so it seems to be fine. The only thing is, is that the "string" of most eyepatches go over the forehead (image google an eyepatch and you'll see what I mean). Of course Naija has hair on her forehead so it could be concealed.
Finally the only "detail" she has on her costume are her shoulders. There's nothing wrong with this, but one would figure the same detail would be in at least one other spot, that's just my logical side thinking though.

Inevitably this is all me nitpicking and suffering from my OCD for perfectionism, it looks great already!

[Inyssius]

Her eyebrow is touching the corner of her eye, making it one "object". Obviously this is good when she's frowning or looking evil, but then her face wouldn't be so smooth, wrinkles over the bridge of her nose would appear, and her eyes would probably be a bit more squinted, tho this too is hard to do on such a small scale.
The eyepatch would probably show better on a light background so it seems to be fine. The only thing is, is that the "string" of most eyepatches go over the forehead (image google an eyepatch and you'll see what I mean). Of course Naija has hair on her forehead so it could be concealed.
Finally the only "detail" she has on her costume are her shoulders. There's nothing wrong with this, but one would figure the same detail would be in at least one other spot, that's just my logical side thinking though.

Inevitably this is all me nitpicking and suffering from my OCD for perfectionism, it looks great already!

I'm as much of a perfectionist as you are, so I really appreciate the critique! (Playing through Sacrifice drove me crazy because it seemed like about every piece of the mod was nine-tenths perfect. The potential radness of the good bits made all those little flaws stand out even more glaringly until I couldn't concentrate on anything else and just aaaaaargh.)

 Yeah, the strap of the eyepatch is under her hair--the line of it is actually just barely visible all the way around her head, under the hair, although it doesn't show up in this shot (BLAAAAAAAAM THIS IMAGE COMPRESSION). It should be a little more visible in play.

Very interesting points about the effects her eyebrow should be having on the rest of her face. I don't know if I can fix it or if I'll even have time this week, but something about her eyebrow was really bugging me when I was working on her other expressions and I just couldn't put my finger on it.

You're right about the shoulders, too. They were the last thing I put on the costume, and it shows now that I look at them again. I'll see if I can make them flow a little more with the rest of her costume. And hey--while I was looking at them, I also noticed that they had a bit of that white halo you pointed out in a few of the Magic screenshots. I haven't the foggiest idea why that's the only piece of her costume that has them, but I'll see if I can't make them disappear.

So, again, thanks for the criticism!

[Inyssius]

By the way, the deadline I was planning (and still plan) to hold myself to is midnight on Sunday.

Yeah, I probably should have mentioned that earlier. I sound like I'm trying to weasel out of a commitment I made and now find I can't keep up with, even though I had intended Sunday night to be my deadline from the start and I fully intend to fulfill those expectations. Anyway. Midnight on Sunday. So... see you guys then. (Also, don't get your hopes too high! I started working on this stuff five days ago!  )

In consolation, I give you an old dude.



You won't be seeing him in game this week, but I'm pretty sure you will eventually.

[Alphasoldier]

White halo happens because photoshop defaults transparent pixels to white and in the game it antialiases the graphics, blurring the edges of the image and thus mixing the colored pixels of the image with the white invisible pixels.
The either solution is making it in GIMP, which doesn't default transparency to white, though I believe this is an option. Or you give the spot where there's a white halo an almost completely transparent black 5 pixel or so outline.

Also that old man's face looks awesome, love that he has an earring as well, must be a pirate too!

[Inyssius]

Sturm und Drang!

Long story short, certain parts of the mod I had been intending to show you today are simply not cooperating. I've got all the basics working, but the details... when I take all the little flaws together, I can only conclude that I just won't be able to get this mod polished enough to fit my standards for public consumption today.

So I'm going to give you something different. No pirates in this one, sassy or otherwise, and what new mechanics it will include will generally be less innovative than the stuff I've been really focusing on (you won't be seeing that stuff until next week), but I hope you'll find it reasonably interesting in spite of that.

... when I post it here later today, that is. It's not quite done yet. I've got to do a little more work before it's ready for public consumption, and by "do a little more work" I of course mean "figure out what it's going to be and then make it from scratch".