My Little Pony: The Game

[Uncle Apples 296]

HD looks MUCH nicer! Hope you go with that 

Can't wait to play this! 

[Rikifive 24,126]

It seems, that we kinda got a tie here.  In that case, I'll be working with HD a little longer. There are few things I'd like to try, mainly animating sprites, as this is my main concern (sprites in general are the most problematic and time-consuming things). If that will go well, I'll most likely just stick to HD. That would also solve problems with resolution scaling, as pixel art is sensitive to that.

Either way, switching styles is still easier and faster, than doing this from nothing, so nothing will be wasted I suppose.  

 

Thank you for your input.  

[Compeador 101]

same as an developer and heard you said pixel is easier to make so I go for pixel here, a good game depends on its playability, plots and environment design imo, so I think you should pay more attention to those things instead of the graphics. (hey, graphic is still important, but no greater than the stuff I mentioned)

RAID WW2 may be a good example here, it doesn't receive much positive feedback due to its gameplay is similar to PAYDAY 2, which is the dev's past famous work, though it has good graphics and animations.

Edited September 27, 2017 by Compeador

[Rikifive 24,126]

21 hours ago, Compeador said:

same as an developer and heard you said pixel is easier to make so I go for pixel here, a good game depends on its playability, plots and environment design imo, so I think you should pay more attention to those things instead of the graphics. (hey, graphic is still important, but no greater than the stuff I mentioned)

RAID WW2 may be a good example here, it doesn't receive much positive feedback due to its gameplay is similar to PAYDAY 2, which is the dev's past famous work, though it has good graphics and animations.

Oh yes, I know the gameplay in general is the most important thing. It's not even about the quality and stuff- both styles have their pros and cons. I'm really curious about one thing- animating sprites. Nothing will take more time and effort than these, so I want to try both to see which one would be better to work with. I have some experience with pixel art games, so there I know what to expect - now I just want to give the typical digital art a try hoping, that it would help me there (i.e. be easier and more automatic (?)).

 

Personally, I always look at gameplay- then there come other aspects, such as graphics. I literally would play a game with stickmen, only if the gameplay would be good enough. I used to play (and sometimes come back to~) Atari/NES/Amiga/PS1 games (that were the best), so poor graphics aren't what will prevent me from playing a game.  

 

I'm just curious about the sprites- and I'll most likely choose the easier path. If working with smooth lines will fail, I'll come back to pixel art I suppose.  

 

Thanks for your input.  

[HereComesTom 2,266]

Please tell us that this project is ongoing!  You've put a lot into it, and I hope you come up with a terrific product in the end

[Rikifive 24,126]

18 hours ago, HereComesTom said:

Please tell us that this project is ongoing!  You've put a lot into it, and I hope you come up with a terrific product in the end

At the moment I'm participating in game-making contest, so this project is paused for a while. But it's not dead!  

Thank you, I hope so..  

[Drunkfrank 1,125]

A while ago I thought Pixel would be best, but admittedly I didn't see how amazing the HD work was, it looks very true to show

Hope this project turns out well, still looking forward to it.

 

[Rikifive 24,126]

Mhm, that's why I'm thinking about the HD version. It would just match better I think.

However, the only problem I have are the sprites-- their animations, to be more specific. Other than that I think I'd be able to nicely slowly make progress. I have some ideas for user interface and such, but for animations... I'm just bad at that.  

Once I'll get all the software back and be able to work on it further, I'll see what style will be easier to animate, then I guess I'll have to pick the style only because of that factor..

On the other hoof, as for pixel art, I think I'll make an another, smaller pixel mlp game in the future- I have an idea... 

 

Thank you for commenting!  

[horror_n_oates 71]

I could give my two cents on the pros and cons for the pixel art side of things if it would help!

Depending on the resolution, it would be beneficial to use pixels because of their simplicity and the variety of tools out there to get smooth and mathematically appealing curves, which would help with creating assets and speed up your pipeline, but there is the issue of clean pixel resizing and considering the (static?) resolution, you would also need to consider the size of the pixels (2x2, 3x3, etc) which may affect how certain objects and characters are animated. Pixel art is good for modular assets too if you needed to build areas quickly too!

Mode 7 in the SNES is a good example of how certain pixel maps can be manipulated to achieve animation, but that is primarily for dynamic backgrounds and visual effects. Animation for the player characters would probably (if you use pixel art) look visually best if done sprite-sheet style/frame by frame, unless you could emulate the show by using symbols in a rig. A large part of "cheating" with pixel animation could be achieved by resizing certain sections of a sprite (ala Knuckle Sandwich or how Pokemon Black and White animated the battle sprites), which is closer to the MLP's style but hasn't been experimented with too much as far as I heard.

Another game to look to for HD-looking pixel art is Owlboy, which does cheat by pulling the camera back and resizing the pixels to give the vistas a near-HD look; though it does have a larger resolution than most pixel art games which usually use consistent pixel proportions.

Hope this helps!

[Rikifive 24,126]

The scaling is actually the problem I've bumped into when working in pixelated environment.
All the different resolutions and what's worse- all these aspect ratios are what blow my mind. A game with really low resolution would look good when upscaled, where at higher base resolutions there are troubles, as upscaling pixel art by, for example, 1.5 makes it all look broken. On smaller resolutions, scaling up by, let's say, 6.5 would be, or at least should be unnoticeable. I'll try few things and see how it turns out later.  

 

~Each opinion & information always helps, thanks!  

[horror_n_oates 71]

15 hours ago, Rikifive said:

The scaling is actually the problem I've bumped into when working in pixelated environment.
All the different resolutions and what's worse- all these aspect ratios are what blow my mind. A game with really low resolution would look good when upscaled, where at higher base resolutions there are troubles, as upscaling pixel art by, for example, 1.5 makes it all look broken. On smaller resolutions, scaling up by, let's say, 6.5 would be, or at least should be unnoticeable. I'll try few things and see how it turns out later.  

 

~Each opinion & information always helps, thanks!  

I recommend scaling by whole numbers like x2 or x6 so the pixel proportions and image would be preserved. Doing it by decimals often transforms the pixels in unfavorable ways

Good luck!

[Rikifive 24,126]

17 hours ago, horror_n_oates said:

I recommend scaling by whole numbers like x2 or x6 so the pixel proportions and image would be preserved. Doing it by decimals often transforms the pixels in unfavorable ways

Good luck!

Oh yes, I perfectly know how it works.  Deformed shapes is what I've bumped into already.  And that's the problem to be honest- if anypony would have that highest common monitor resolution of 1920x1080 then it would be relatively easy to configure - but sadly, I need to consider some other resolutions, mainly other aspect ratios.

 

Nevertheless, the more I think of this, the more into pixel version I lean to. Eventually I'll make a HD remaster after 999 years.  But I just have to give that animation a try, even though I'm pretty sure it will be a complete disaster.  

 

Welp, I'm a menu lover ^{(HUD and UI in general, that is)}, so toying with these--- and with mechanics is my thing, sprites- not really.  Can't wait to get into coding! I'm kinda tired of art...  

 

Thank you!  

---

By the way, these votes in the poll...

It's not helping!  Just kidding, thanks for your opinions!  

Edited December 11, 2017 by Rikifive

[Codelyy 1,286]

I've only just discovered this project and it sure looks quite interesting. Though it sure looks like a big project for a single developer? 

I'd love to work on an MLP game and would offer help if you needed it though sadly I don't know GML and have way too much University work to do 

[Rikifive 24,126]

17 hours ago, Code said:

I've only just discovered this project and it sure looks quite interesting. Though it sure looks like a big project for a single developer? 

I'd love to work on an MLP game and would offer help if you needed it though sadly I don't know GML and have way too much University work to do 

Oh, it is. RPG's are considered as one of the most difficult genres to make and from my experience I can tell, that I totally agree. Working on that game is much, much, much slower than on the other projects I had/have. It's actually a pretty common mistake, that people aim that high, but this is the very first game project I have ever started, so I can't imagine leaving it. I will never feel accomplished until I'll bring this one to life.

Generally, I think it's totally doable, though I gotta admit, that these sprites are the biggest problem I've bumped into. That itself surely takes so much time to make.  Another problem will be sound effects and music. I'm only capable of doing some 8-bit thingies, so there my skills are pretty much useless, though I hope I'll be able to find some help online, such as publicly-available resources.

 

No worries, it's fine. Besides, at the moment there's not much to code- not until I get the base things done. ...And actually coding will be the fun part for me, I like it. I'd be more worried about different aspects.  

 

Thank you for visiting!  Much appreciated!  

[HereComesTom 2,266]

2 hours ago, Rikifive said:

Oh, it is. RPG's are considered as one of the most difficult genres to make and from my experience I can tell, that I totally agree. Working on that game is much, much, much slower than on the other projects I had/have. It's actually a pretty common mistake, that people aim that high, but this is the very first game project I have ever started, so I can't imagine leaving it. I will never feel accomplished until I'll bring this one to life.

Generally, I think it's totally doable, though I gotta admit, that these sprites are the biggest problem I've bumped into.

I'm having about the same experience with Weather Factory Meltdown; at the moment, I'm taking a break from it so I can build a Celestia sprite base---including a base for the animation of her mane and tail.  And I've been working on that since mid-October, and at this point, I've only got her walking base and three-quarters of her mane animated!  That might have something to do with the fact that her slowly-flowing mane's animation is 80 frames long, as is her tail's animation...

On that note, if you have a use for the mane and tail bases I'm building, feel free to use them once they're complete!  I'm not sure they'll be at the angle or aspect ratio you're looking for, of course, but...80 frames!

[Rikifive 24,126]

Yeah, making the sprites themselves- not that bad; animating them- RIP.  

80 frames long? I get why though, now that has to be time consuming indeed. I'll be struggling with that as well once I'll get there! 

Good luck!  

[Codelyy 1,286]

5 hours ago, Rikifive said:

Oh, it is. RPG's are considered as one of the most difficult genres to make and from my experience I can tell, that I totally agree. Working on that game is much, much, much slower than on the other projects I had/have. It's actually a pretty common mistake, that people aim that high, but this is the very first game project I have ever started, so I can't imagine leaving it. I will never feel accomplished until I'll bring this one to life.

Generally, I think it's totally doable, though I gotta admit, that these sprites are the biggest problem I've bumped into. That itself surely takes so much time to make.  Another problem will be sound effects and music. I'm only capable of doing some 8-bit thingies, so there my skills are pretty much useless, though I hope I'll be able to find some help online, such as publicly-available resources.

 

No worries, it's fine. Besides, at the moment there's not much to code- not until I get the base things done. ...And actually coding will be the fun part for me, I like it. I'd be more worried about different aspects.  

 

Thank you for visiting!  Much appreciated!  

I know what you mean. The worst part I find about developing games is actually having to create the assets XD... which is normally what leads to most of the problems with my projects as I suck at creating assets for them such as advanced sprites and 3D models.

And yea an RPG is a pretty big project for a single developer but as long as you're dedicated which you seem to be then you'll likely be fine . Just make sure you don't do what I have done in the past when working on projects and implement way more then you are basically capable of. I have a lot of projects where I've basically tried to add tons of different features and functionality instead of actually trying to finish the game which has lead to a lot of abandoned projects on my computer.

[Rikifive 24,126]

17 hours ago, Code said:

I know what you mean. The worst part I find about developing games is actually having to create the assets XD... which is normally what leads to most of the problems with my projects as I suck at creating assets for them such as advanced sprites and 3D models.

Hah, then I think we understand each other perfectly there.  

 

17 hours ago, Code said:

And yea an RPG is a pretty big project for a single developer but as long as you're dedicated which you seem to be then you'll likely be fine . Just make sure you don't do what I have done in the past when working on projects and implement way more then you are basically capable of. I have a lot of projects where I've basically tried to add tons of different features and functionality instead of actually trying to finish the game which has lead to a lot of abandoned projects on my computer.

It will be fun to do, except that amount of assets...  

Actually I've been through this already... - it happened in this project. It is my very first project ever and the first attempt was... rather random (what did I expect from a complete lack of coding knowledge? ) . I was thinking about adding more features without thinking about their quality. It started to remind me of some of these random, poorly designed&balanced games and I realized, that it all was a mistake, something, that I totally didn't want to share (I think I can consider myself as 'perfectionist' ~ I absolutely wasn't happy with any of the results), so after I did some smaller, quick (each made in 3-14 days), extremely silly projects in the meanwhile (as visible on my profile page; better don't go there), I started doing the MLP game from the beginning, where I was coding stuff on my own, adding what I was capable of handling. And now again, the project was restarted, but this time in another game making software, that would be more accurate to what I want to accomplish. Now there I'll have to implement every single mechanic, so that shows me the true value of every feature I'll be about to implement - and that will be great to build it all!

I love designing the game as I like, I love making it all work as I like.  

Thank you for sharing your experience! Always nice to talk with fellow game devs.  

Edited December 13, 2017 by Rikifive

[Rikifive 24,126]

Hello everypony!  

Looks like we have a tie in regards of the style of the game!  Since the game was initially in pixel art, I've decided, that a reasonable solution will be to just keep it that way, so yep! It will be continued in pixel environment!  I've did some science with the non-pixel style and I quickly realized, that it would take longer to create animations there. I believe, that making HUD, UI, maps and other things wouldn't really be an issue, animations on the other hoof, yes. Either way, that tie didn't encourage me to jump over to non-pixel style, so let's just keep it all the way it was. Thank you for your input! 

 

Taking a small step further towards that direction, I think I can announce, that the very basic 8-direction pony sprite is ready!  (it still may have some improvements in the future- probably shading will be added... or not. I'll see which one will look better in-game someday)

Of course, I'm starting with doing science on the pony, that loves science, Twilight Sparkle!  
In this preview she's with both, horn and wings, for better preview and stuff..

 

So that's a start!  

Thank you for visiting!  

[Rikifive 24,126]

Hello everypony!

I'm slowly doing some progress ~ but not with sprites (actually animations from that point), I left these for later.  

Since I'm working with a different resolution than I originally planned, I've been working on re-doing the HUD-- the simple-statuses at the moment, to be more specific.
For a reference, here is what I had so far:

Spoiler

Well that looks great. 
*cough* *cough*
Now I came up with a different design and that's how it looks like at the moment:

Also, the bar with saddle bag () shows the inventory space the pony has. I'm not sure yet, but I plan to make inventories have limited space and make ponies have their own bag to carry. This would make things more balanced and slightly harder - having to organize your inventories (ponies could use only items they own- but of course you could transfer items between ponies outside the battle), rather than just having everything x99 in later stages. ~And no worries, key-items will not take any space, that would be soooo inconvenient, would it?  

That bar will pop out for a moment when picking up items and such to let you know what's going on in ponies' inventories.
If the first pony will run out of space, the item will automatically go to the next one, also notifying you about that visually. That process will go on until everypony runs out of space.

In co-op, this process will cycle only through ponies belonging to the player, who picked up the item. For example, each player will control 3 ponies when having the mane6 in  party, so the process will cycle through 3 ponies, eventually resulting in being unable to pick up items if they all will run out of space. In this case, the player can go to inventory and free up some space (either by using/discarding items or giving some to another player), or just let the second player pick that item, if he didn't manage to steal it from you already.  

 

Getting back to the point-
I was aiming for something, that would be accurate to the source material, but pixel art kinda has its own style, so I guess I went for something ... general? It doesn't really look MLP-ish and is relatively simple, but it's readable and doesn't look that messy, like the previous one, due to shiny colors and stuff.  

 

Either way, I was thinking of some other variations and it's kinda hard to decide!  
Without "HP" title:

1. Full possible length
2. Beginning shaped relatively to end, slightly shorter bar in the result
3. Same as #1, but it has outline at the beginning - bar separated from the heart icon

 

Or perhaps...

Tilted:

4. Full possible length
5. Same thing as #2 ~ also I've been wondering on colors (so far it's green/yellow/red) ~
6. ~or I was also thinking of just giving it a fixed color based on the icon???
7. With 'HP' title.
8. MISSINGDESIGN
9. MISSINGDESIGN

 

I think I'll go with either #4 or #5. Considering, that there will be more bars visible in other places (such as battles), thus there will be some other icons, I think the most compatible design out of #4 and #5 would be the #5 one, but I'll see how it goes.

 

Heh, I know, that most of that stuff is kinda irrelevant, but I was just thinking, that I'll share some development process with you. It took me ages after all, so now you see what kind of silly struggles I have.  

Nevertheless, if you have some ideas, feel free to share these!  

Thank you for visiting!  

Edited January 28, 2018 by Rikifive

[ShiftyLips69 24]

On 9/4/2016 at 3:06 PM, Totally Lyra said:

Oh, if you're signing people up to be alpha/beta testers. *raises hoof and flails it around excitedly*

Yeah man, I'll totally beta test this as it looks really promising

 

Image of grass:

[Rikifive 24,126]

Glad to hear that!  I'll announce things once everything will be ready!  

[MickeyAdaptus 2,211]

Looks really good man! I have been developing some really small RPG games myself over the last years but you seem to be making something far better then I could ever hope to make xD.

[Rikifive 24,126]

Ooh you never know.  With time everything will be getting only better.  Thank you!  

[Prospekt 11,018]

Yay! I'm glad this is still a thing. It seems to be moving along pretty well. And I'm especially liking the visuals.