My Little Pony: The Game

[Rikifive 23,486]

@@C. Thunder Dash, I see... Nevermind then. Either way, that's all for now. More tracks will be needed with further progress. There's no need to make everything right away.

 

@@HereComesTom, To be honest I'm kinda confused with these perspectives. From one point of view, it would be better to have the entrance on the right - that way the barn would be like you have drawn, which looks better than if that would have to face down I think. However, that will mean that some of the shacks and the entrance to the tree-area may get covered by that barn as it's pretty high... Though actually it shouldn't...?

 

Personally I think, that the perspective like in the concept art would be easier to work with as it's clearly showing the important parts of the map, that are easy to spot for a player. Though the front view of that barn isn't looking really good (at least in my masterpiece), so perhaps giving the other (based on your barn drawing) perspective a try would be good indeed, though honestly I'm not sure.

 

The second screenshot comes from S05E03 ~ somewhere in the middle of the episode.

 

~~~~

 

Mhm, I see. It will be good to put that in a separate map anyway.

[coopster1101 52]

This looks amazing, you seem to have a pretty big following, looks like you have your work cut out for you

[HereComesTom 2,232]

I don't think the show in general is super-consistent about the layout of SAA; take this one for instance from Apple Family Reunion:

 

 

 

SAA show ref 20.bmp

 

 

 

The way the fence is set up...isn't really consistent with the other screenshots in this thread.  I think the best we can hope for is to get something that's 80-90% consistent with the show, since the show is only about 80-90% consistent with itself!

 

Please let me know if you don't think my tentative plan will work, but for now, I'm planning on doing a layout with the entrance on the far right, the shacks on top with a fence behind them, and then the fence goes diagonally from the top of the screen to the barn, with an arch that leads to the orchards in the diagonal part.

 

Of course, having a diagonal arch means you'll needs two separate graphics, not one, to accurately show a pony walking through that arch, so I've split the graphic into two parts:

 

 

 

 

Here's the whole diagonal arch:

 

 

And the left half:

 

 

And the right half:

 

 

 

 

 

I've also made a new shack-graphic to go along the top of the screen:

 

 

 

side-by-side with the original shack graphic for comparison:

     

 

 

 

...Weird question:  the layout I'm proposing gives us the following:  a lot of non-apple crops on-screen, a path to the orchards through the arch, a good view of the well and the shacks, the gazebo if we decide to put it on the lower-left or lower-right, and a path to the carrot-house if we want it.  We could have as much or as little space as we wanted; what's the optimal amount of space?  I'm asking because I'm not sure how much space you'll need for the things you have planned for your game.

 

If you're going to adapt the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy episode, for instance, will you need a lot of space for tents, the cider-wheel, etc.?  Or would that not even be on this screen, since the apple orchards will need to be on the same screen for that scene to really work?

[HereComesTom 2,232]

I've got part of a layout going.  It's not near complete, but I figure that---again--I should get feedback on it early-on.

 

And again---don't feel bad about telling me if anything's wrong with it; I'm making it a point to post this draft early so that, if a course-correction is needed, I can learn that it's needed sooner rather than later:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have kind of a hybrid of your sketch and what I had before; some of the things that were right angles in your drawing are obtuse angles in this layout, and I still have the broad side of the barn showing.

 

I also did something different with the farm's entrance; my first thought was to put the entrance on the right-hand side of the map, and the player character comes into the map horizontally.  But I realized I wanted to re-use* the arch I put together for the entrance to the orchard that's by the barnhouse.  I also knew that the entrance to SAA was kind of...well, concave:  it's like someone bit out a chunk of Sweet Apple Acres' land, and they built a fence around the bite-mark, if you see what I mean.  I ended up making that bit-out chunk the lower-left corner of this map, and then the entrance to SAA ended up being diagonal.

 

This compromise has its advantages; first of all, it makes the screenshots from Season 1 Episode 1 look pretty plausible, as the view Twilight would have from the SAA entrance would have both the protruding house-door and the barn-door on the barnhouse very visible with this layout.  Secondly, if you wanted to have some dialog that's on the threshold of SAA, on the SAA map, but not yet inside the farm proper, then there's some room to have that dialog in that bit-out section.

 

That being said, you know more about your project than I do, so don't be afraid to let me know if changes need to happen, and what those changes are.

 

 

* I need to add more leaves, apples, and a rectangular wooden apple-sign to the arch before it's show-accurate; this is just a preliminary draft.

 

 

EDIT:  don't mind the diagonal fence-bits at the bottom; this is a working copy, and I was using that space in the image-file to edit the diagonal chunks of fencing.  Actually, I don't have much along the lines of solid plans for that area of the map, other than maybe filling it up with rows of carrots/cabbage/corn...

Edited January 12, 2017 by HereComesTom

[Rikifive 23,486]

This looks amazing, you seem to have a pretty big following, looks like you have your work cut out for you

Yeah ~ Even too big in my opinion ~ it kinda worries me considering, that I barely can find some time for myself - I mean working on the game and make some progress myself. I have so many things to do and there's still something, that I owe to community, which will delay the development even more. 

I was worried, that getting a job will ruin my all of my plans and.. I was right.   Silly real life!  :-P

 

Thank you for visiting! 

 

@@HereComesTom, As always - sorry for replying late. I tried to do that earlier, but of course, each time I didn't manage to do it in time as I had to go to work.

As for layouts ~ Yep! The show itself doesn't know how its locations look like. For example the layout of Ponyville changes every time it is shown. Only the Town Hall and its surroundings have a solid layout, though it still slightly changes as well. To this day I have no idea where Twilight's Library is, for example. One time it's on the outskirts of Ponyville, one time it is in the center (there was that one scene with it exploding if I recall correctly). Everything changes dependable on the perspective. They're reusing images pretty often, but if it comes to show something from different perspective, then many things are misplaced.

All we can do is to look at few references and try to come up with the most accurate working layout.

That being said, these first few references on this thread (mainly the first seasons and such) seem to be the most accurate as they're reused in the show very often, so let's stick to them.

 

 

Yep, yep ~ your plan is what I meant ~ rotating the whole layout by 90 degrees. I believe it should work, though I'm not sure. That perspective would allow us to put a nice parallax background with Ponyville* at the top of the map behind the shacks.

* Why Ponyville? According to S02E15, when you'll enter SAA through the main entrance, Ponyville should be on the right. Though it's not confirmed, I'm just assuming. More information later.

 

As for space - the most important thing is to place all objects accurately relative to each other, so you can use as much space as needed as long as it will be more or less accurate to show. I think the best way is to make the objects, place them around and see how spacing looks like. For example if the gaps would be too big (comparing to show), then making the map tighter would be the way to make it look nicer.

 

Regarding Super Speedy Cider Squeezy episode, yes I'll probably adapt it. There will be an arcade-like minigame related to it.

The action takes place in a totally different place ~ somewhere between SAA and Ponyville ~ more on the entrance to pathway leading to SAA.

Something like this I believe:

 

 

 

 

~ Though of course, the pathway is way longer and more curly than in what I drew. But as you can see, there are tree apples in front of SAA, so I believe, that the competition takes place in that area with trees. It's a pretty big place considering, that the pathway is pretty long.

Also when these brothers won the competition, they're telling, that they'll rebuild the barn and stuff - when they're referring to it, there's a transition and then the farm is shown from the front, which can suggest, that they're on that pathway, not directly in SAA or orchards behind it.

That all would make sense I think, but more importantly, it would give us a lot of space to make it all work nicely.

 

And getting back to SAA-Ponyville location relations ~ Assuming, that the pathway more or less leads directly to SAA without changing direction, then Ponyville seems to be on the right according to this screenshot (S02E15):

 

 

 

 

~ hence mentioning Ponyville like this in my first image on this post.

 

---

 

Oh this layout now looks much better, especially the top.

 

Everything looks nice so far ~ if I'd have to suggest something, then I'd prefer making it more show-accurate by doing something like this?

 

 

 

 

Please don't mind the quality and stuff, I was making it in hurry ~ Genereally that would make the map less plain by giving some unique characteristic things in the corners, not just fence. writing this post took me ages and now I have to go to work. 

 

I gotta go, sorries! Hope that helps. x3

Edited January 13, 2017 by Rikifive

[HereComesTom 2,232]

 

 

Please don't mind the quality and stuff, I was making it in hurry ~ Genereally that would make the map less plain by giving some unique characteristic things in the corners, not just fence. writing this post took me ages and now I have to go to work. I gotta go, sorries! Hope that helps. x3

 

 

Just so we're on the same page with this:  there's bushes and trees on the right-hand side acting as an end-of-navigable-map barrier, while those apple trees and bushes are visibly inside the fence?  And the hay-wheels at the top are acting as an end-of-navigable-map barrier, too?

[Rikifive 23,486]

More or less, though don't focus on blocking the borders with prop-barriers. There's always Invisible Wall™.

 

But yes, I've placed them there referring to screenshots ~ while giving them an usage to block these paths.

 

Take a look at this one:

 

 

 

The entrance has fences along its pathway - there's no fence to the right (nor to the left) as there are bushes and trees instead. Doing the same on our map will visually fill the map better, than just fences all over the place. It will give it a more unique look for each part.

 

As for hay-wheels at the top ~ They're visible in the screenshot above and even more clearly in this one:

 

 

As you can see the fence ends near the shack with that different perspective. There are hay-wheels blocking the way. I'm not sure how far they go, but even if we'd leave the space empty, I'd just block the way with the Invisible Wall™. I think it would be obvious for a player, that there's nothing there anyway, considering, that there would be a parallax landscape at the top and stuff.

Heh, and these aren't even hay-wheels ~ just a random piles of hay. Let's say I've derp'd on my edit of your layout ~ I was working quickly.   Anyway we should make it as random as in these screenshots ~ it could be hard to make 'tiles' of these as they're merged with each other, so I think making one big background object would work. Eventually you could leave it up to me, so I'd draw these at the end manually. I think I'll have to see how it all will look like in game first.

 

 

 

Now there's that bottom-right corner with trees - now I see, that I've derp'd. I mean, they're okay~ filling the bottom part like this gives the map more 'fullness' and is of course, accurate to the show layout. However, I drew them too early, if I can say it like this.

In my edit of your layout, there are trees all the way to the entrance, while in screenshots above and this image:

 

 

~ They're not. They need to be drawn further from the entrance.

 

Buuuut as for these trees at the bottom and perhaps the whole top - no need to worry as this is what I'll be toying with myself when I'll be placing objects on game-map. I'll see how it will look like and tweak it to my needs. There are background thingies, that can be made out of drawn-by-you objects, so you can focus on major points of the map. ~ I'll fill the rest. 

Edited January 13, 2017 by Rikifive

[Cherry Palette 81]

Woah! This looks awesome!  

[ScrewLoose 132]

LOOKING GOOD! Can't wait to see more

  :-P

[HereComesTom 2,232]

How does this draft look so far?

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took your advice about stopping the fence shortly after the fourth shack, I extended the map downwards a bit, and I added a fence that hems in the cabbage/corn/carrot fields.  I'm not sure whether those crop fields will be navigable by the player-characters...I guess that depends on whether you'd like something to happen on this screen that'll require a lot of space.

 

If this layout is what you'd like, I'll fix up the arch by the entrance, and start drawing the ground---stuff like the cabbage/carrot/corn fields and the paths and such.

 

It's funny how they color the ground; it's like you can't quite tell if it's dirt or grass...probably that ambiguity is what they were aiming for.

[Rikifive 23,486]

Woah! This looks awesome!

Happy to hear that! :3

 

LOOKING GOOD! Can't wait to see more

  :-P

Glad you liked what you saw  ~ Hopefully you'll not have to wait ages.. I wish I could progress much faster. 

 

@@HereComesTom, Oooh much closer!  

It looks more accurate now, though I think, that the entrance takes too much space. I like the idea in the reference images, where the entrance has these pots with bushes in the corners and then the fences form a path. In your latest draft it leaves a wide area in front of the entrance. The fences in here should head away from the barn. In reference images it seems, that these form a 'C' shape of some sort.

Doing this would visually make the farm bigger as the fence would eat less space and it would definitely take less space at the bottom, so these crop fields could be shrunk as well. (I hope I formed that correctly).

 

Other than that everything seems to be good.

 

Even funnier is how they change it from time to time.  :-P They have a pretty weird dirt/grass in general ~ in Ponyville it's kinda blueish.

[NightmareLuna800 1,383]

That's cool! I'd love to play it if I could!

(Nice work on it too!)

Edited January 18, 2017 by NightmareLuna800

[Rikifive 23,486]

Hopefully you'll be able to play it someday!  :-P

Happy to hear that! 

[HereComesTom 2,232]

Is this closer to what you had in mind?

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was trying to make the entrance more C-shaped like you said, but I wasn't sure I understood what you meant by shrinking the crops-area.

 

I also wasn't sure what to do with the lower part of the entrance fencing, whether I should end the map there (i.e. bring the bottom edge of the map up to it), keep extending the fence diagonally southeast, or make the fence turn south or make it turn east or what.  What do you think?

 

Sorry it took so long to reply; real life is a little hectic for me at the moment and will be for a few weeks.

[BlackLiquidSrw 15]

So, how's everything going, Riki?

[Rikifive 23,486]

@@HereComesTom, It's closer, though personally I was thinking of making it more like this?

 

 

 

 

I know, that the fence would be less accurate that way, but it would look better in game in my opinion, though of course, I'm not sure of that.

Either way, you can leave details like this (for example how the fences go etc.) up to me as I'm pretty sure I'll be moving things around anyway. I mean, even if things may look good in the first place, I may find out, that things need to be moved to make it more convenient for the player. There's always time to edit things even in the later stages of the game, so let's just make it easily navigable (not sure if that's a correct term to describe what I have in mind) for a player, while keeping it as accurate as possible.

 

As for the lower part of entrance fencing and ending the map there - I think putting trees at the bottom would do the thing (like in the image above) ~ it would visually fill the map with details.

 

What is your opinion on this? 

 

And again ~ No worries!  You don't even have to explain yourself as you're not obliged to do anything from my side. If you wouldn't be able to continue it then I'd totally respect that and it would be okay with me. I wouldn't be even disappointed - I really appreciate all the help already! Please, take your time! 

 

@@BlackLiquidSrw, I wish I could say, that everything goes nicely, but I'm afraid I'll have to say, that the project is paused for a while. I don't even have a good explanation for this. It's just that my job makes me feel kinda tired all the time, thus I find it slightly difficult to motivate myself to do what I originally plan to do. Besides, my family keeps me distracted and I can't say "Leave me alone!" to them.

This project was started when I was jobless and the progress was going nicely ~ now it's not that colorful anymore.

Sorry for that disappointment ~ I hope I'll be able to push it forward soon ~ I also have requests to do first.

 

So... blame it all on me, I'm not going to lie.

[HereComesTom 2,232]

 

 

As for the lower part of entrance fencing and ending the map there - I think putting trees at the bottom would do the thing (like in the image above) ~ it would visually fill the map with details. What is your opinion on this?

 

I think I'll start working on the ground graphics; I'll put some of those carrot/cabbage/corn/celery fields down there, and then let you decide where you want to put the trees to act as a visual "barrier" of sorts; maybe the trees would partially block them from view?

 

In any case, can you give me some screenshots of how you'd like the entrance "nook" to look, at least as far as how it'd compare visually with the dirt roads you have in mind in your pic's note about "compatible with the exterior pathway"?

 

Sorry about the last couple of weeks; they've been pretty hectic IRL for me.  Hopefully this coming week and the next will be a bit more laid-back...

[Alphys Hedge 671]

 

 

I wish I could say, that everything goes nicely, but I'm afraid I'll have to say, that the project is paused for a while. I don't even have a good explanation for this. It's just that my job makes me feel kinda tired all the time, thus I find it slightly difficult to motivate myself to do what I originally plan to do. Besides, my family keeps me distracted and I can't say "Leave me alone!" to them. This project was started when I was jobless and the progress was going nicely ~ now it's not that colorful anymore. Sorry for that disappointment ~ I hope I'll be able to push it forward soon ~ I also have requests to do first.

 

Remember: Your well being is much more important than anything else. If you feel that working on the game is taking too much out of you, don't be afraid to take a break from it, I'm sure everyone will understand   

[Rikifive 23,486]

@@HereComesTom,  Mhm ~ What view? Do you mean the main entrance? or crops?

 

I've made something... I think it should be something like this, what do you think?

(Don't mind the quality and the weird placement of trees as I was doing stuff it quickly  )

 

 

 

I think we'll just have to make tiles for grass/dirt ~ I think I could take care of that.

Hmm.. When I look at it, then everything basic is almost done ~ there's some structures missing ~ then just details and polishing.

 

 

Aaad don't you worry! I't totally okay! 

 

 

 

Remember: Your well being is much more important than anything else. If you feel that working on the game is taking too much out of you, don't be afraid to take a break from it, I'm sure everyone will understand  

From one point of view I'd like to take a break, but from another, I really want to push it forward. 

Anyway, when I'll finish the requests, then I'll be able to put that time towards game development, hopefully. Everything should get back to normal. 

Thank you for your kind words! 

 

Edited February 6, 2017 by Rikifive

[HereComesTom 2,232]

Sorry, I meant the view of the player.

 

Actually, I'm not sure what's missing; your background looks fairly complete.

[Rikifive 23,486]

Yeah, except hen house there are just minor thingies to do. I think the design is okay, it looks really nice already.

I'll be experimenting with tiles later and see how it all would look in game.

Though first, I'm planning to complete the base for sprites in game to make previewing better and more accurate. I'll try to make some progress today.

 

Thanks for all the help! It will be much easier now when having references like this. 

[ScrewLoose 132]

This game looks absolutely SICK!!! Can't wait to play it when it comes out!!! 

[HereComesTom 2,232]

 

 

Yeah, except hen house there are just minor thingies to do.

 

Do you mean you need to place the henhouse in the farm, or that the henhouse needs adjusting?  I can adjust it if need be, but...well, it looks pretty close to the show to me, so I'll need some guidance if I made a mistake with it.

[Rikifive 23,486]

@@HereComesTom, Umm.. I think I didn't even see the henhouse yet or.. I apparently forgot about it. Have you posted that before? I'm so sorry if I overlooked it or just derp'd. My files are messed up, because I have tons of thingies all over the place. I'm trying to organize stuff, but there's so much of it. If that was posted before, go ahead and tell me how poorly organized pony I am. 

 

As for me ~ I did a tiny little progress with base sprite for diagonal idle animation. Nothing interesting to show yet though.

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,809]

@@Rikifive,

 

Hey, since I have nothing to do atm, I could do an entirely new battle theme if you want...still don't know how that one Risquette made is gonna fit in...