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momo-shut-the-fuck-up · 4 months ago

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So i ve done the main story in infinity nikki and im gonna stop playin now, before i squeeze the game dry of content and have nothing (new) to do on release.

Time for a lil review/thoughts post

I m not gonna review every single mechanic in the game, simply things that stood out to me or that i wanna talk about. I also wont add more images, i kinda want ppl to see the world for themselves... i ll share more when the game comes out tho.

There s a lot of text under this. Tldr, i like the game i think it's a solid, enjoyable experience with a good gameplay loop, the story isn't for me, and i'll keep playin of course. And u should try it too if ur device wont blow itself up tryin to run it.

Dress up

The bread and butter of Nikki games... it's good as usual. Game doesn't shy away from long skirts or coat tails or complicated ballgowns just cuz nikki can run and jump and dash now and i'm very happy bout that. There's some clipping issues once in a while, but it's nothing major and the clothes we do have in the game are lovely. There s an evolution system for some of the sets, which makes em a diff color.... usually they can evolve once, but i saw Three extra evolutions for one of the UR sets and that scares me. Bcs to evolve them u have to craft the suit again. So u have to pull 4 copies of a suit to max it out..

Combat

Game's definitely succeeding in its quest for being cozy. There's no real stakes, combat isn't difficult in the slightest but i do welcome it- super simple but it's pretty fun regardless. The boss fights were surprisingly creative and fun for what they are, it's just unfortunate that you have to do them more than once or twice (crafting mats)- but they do change what the boss does so it's different depending on what mat u are farming for... and u can claim double or triple or however much stamina u got-le of the mat after u complete it once. So that s rly nice.

Exploration

I actually think it's really really good. Again this isn't a difficult or complicated game, not yet i guess... but with the major goal being "get new clothes" and "take pretty pictures maybe", the open world feels actively engaging to participate in. There's collectibles everywhere, little challenges you can do that are diverse but quick, styling battles, collecting everythin from animals fur to bugs to fish, and allll of this brings u closer to that never ending goal of woo more clothes.

However even if a challenge doesnt give you a blueprint, it's still just. Really Nice to exist in this world. It's very whimsical, as expected of Lilith, and the world has a combination of realism and cartoon artstyle that is just soso appealing to me. It's genuinely how i would've imagined miraland to look in 3d. Shame it's not the same miraland we know..

Story

Hmm... silly is one word i could use for it. Cute also. The story isn't doin anythin bad per se, and i did start skippin dialogue near the end w the pieceys because i want to keep at least Some part of the story for the game's release... but i get the gist of it, and it s just not my thing.

It feels like a story made for children, and it definitely would get a G rating. Easy and simple to follow, there's moments of tension or sadness sure but with the antagonist bein a literal babie lookin cutey fairy with a grown man's voice, or the creatures that i'm interacting with are a bunch of. Fuckin weird lookin big eyed balls of fabric that look closer to plushies than somethin Alive... it's all so silly and dramatic sometimes i can t help but cringe.

Part of it is a me problem, if u just open ur heart and free urself from the cringe the story is fine. It's just a little too kiddy for me and i so desperately hope it won't stay like this forever. My prayers might be answered though, there's a whole war beyond the borders and we have refugees around... shit's lookin bad for Umbrosa.

Other things i noticed that i liked:

The effect on nikki's skin when it's raining, she actually has water dripping down her face... its so cool

Momo capes are actually kinda neat ngl. Especially cuz the fucker follows u around everywhere, at least i can bedazzle him

Npc models look really good im a fan. They do suffer from "everyone is very beautiful" syndrome, which makes some of the npc villains look/sound ridiculous, but they have kid-teen-adult-elderly versions of models (i never see teen models in these games! Its cool!) And some body variation. The grandmas look so lovely i cry

The dark skin tone is really dark, and it looks quite nice and natural.

The lighting engine in this game is just rly good in general. God bless UE5

The edges of the map where there s forest, which u obv cant go thru, the forest is made to be darker, thicker.... i m a huge fan of this idk y. It's not just *invisible wall in front of an open field* nopee cant go there lets explore that area later tee hee. And it looks good to boot.

Camera function is p robust, has more options for changin brightness/saturation/contrast etc which i feel Shining Nikki lacks.

Some of the creature designs are so good man i looove themm <3.... the pieces are awful tho. Ok creature design is a hit and miss sometimes but the stray hatty? Peak. All the weirdy fashionable animals? Peak.

Bein able to quick switch thru ur saved sets while in the overworld is real neat

Oke that was it. Bye

#infinity nikki #if i was a reviewer i d put more effort into the presentation of this game but #im not and its 4 am so

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pokituu · 6 months ago

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I’m so impressed with how many styles you have and that you use them regularly (realistic, semi realistic, 2d, and 2d, 3d & pixel animation)! How did you learn to balance this many and get so good in all of them?

THANK YOUUUU this compliment means so much to me because so often i feel so worried I will stagnate since I basically like to draw the same subject matter over and over again 😳 but I do like to periodically try new things that I'll become invested in for chunks of time.

i guess advice more than just 'practice' is to be willing to try out new things that you have an interest in, even if it doesn't work out at first and is frustrating. you gotta be persistent to learn something new BUT if you get bored then just move on! if it sucks hit da bricks.... I really like this bjork quote abt creativity

idk throughout my life in art i just try to learn about stuff i'm interested in and practice what i wanna practice. like i wanted to get good at pixeling when i was like 14 so i kept practicing and trying new ways to go about it until i started to figure it out. same with digital painting when i was 15 and i just kept trying again and again until it clicked, even though i was frustrated a lot, i never actually lost the interest when i saw people's pretty paintings and that feeling of 'man i wish i could do that!'.... so i literally couldn't stop myself from trying over and over at painting. it goes beyond just drawing too. planet earth is fun because ANYTHING u are interested in you can try........ i make fursuit heads and other crafts to see if i can! this year i started making my own songs and also learned leather-working because i saw a cool craft and wanted to try :3

part of it is letting yourself age too because as you get older you will grow interested in new things. i am 27!! i've been drawing since i could hold a pencil. that's a long time to encounter a lot of stuff to get obsessed about and wanna try out for myself. SUCCESS TIP!: i typically pursue things that are adjacent to other skills i already have invested in, like drawing to 3d sculpture to digital modeling, or start blending them like sculpture + coding skills = 3d animation rigging. The reason is because a lot of these skills are transferable and make it easier to pick up. like a skill tree in a video game... and you'll end up in weird places like sculpture to sewing to leathercraft. It's nice to have creative hobbies you can be sorta be mediocre at without attaching your self worth to it, but other people still often find it impressive anyways because it's stuff they've never tried to do. It's really healing and easier to like what you create And yourself by extension when you're just having fun and learning without having to worry about the end product being "good". Anything you try is not a waste because you are learning new skills and more often than not, something you've learned is transferable to some other area of your life!!!!!!!!! nothing is ever a waste of time.

this is also the secret cure to art block btw well actually there are two secret cures. a) is you have to embrace the art block and go get obsessed with some other creative thing for a bit. either that or b) go absorb other people's creativity to a bit and watch some shows and read books or talk to people. c) is a mix of both. eventually you'll return to art again feeling fresh and motivated if you're willing to give it a few months. I think art block really just means you're bored and need a change of scenery one way or another 🤔 that's just my onion though

TL;DR have fun pursuing things just because you like them. as you keep doing it you'll just get better at it through practice whether you really intend to or not.

#answered asks #i don't know if this actually helps but here are my thoughts.#sorry for long answer. i tend to overexplain everything. and go on tangents. oopie

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fiyrball6063 · 7 months ago

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Im still getting into gg but i love roboky 😁 tell me whats on ur mind roboky/robovenom wise ... or anything gg idk .. this is ur infodump pass

Ok this is so much longer than I thought it was gonna be. So. Peep the horrors if u dare

I GET THE INFODUMP PASS YAYYYYY (thank you) I’m… okay where do I even beginnn like… hmmm… I was recently was rewatching the bedman fight and I think it’s cute it looks like he’s overclocking and then turning into just a head reminds me of his victory emote from XX and it just made me smile idk how I didn’t process that on my first first watch… also GOD his animations are so. So cool. I personally much prefer the typical 2D animations and art than 3D renders for GG and I think Roboky is one of those character I will always just ADMIRE… his shapes are just so satisfying to me. I do love his 3D model in Xrd idk wtf typa battery acid he’s on but Jesus Christ he looks so good… it gives me hope that when he gets added to strive he will look even better ! BUT LIKE YEAH idk he has so many unique animations (thatre all archived and SO fun to gawk at) and i think he’s also just a character that is so fun to build upon in your own way (IE thinking of robot things he does)… he’s also just annoying as hell and i love it. OH ALSO I love his robotic voice in XX it’s so cute. Kinda sad they got rid of that tone in XRD but honestly I do really like both and I’m excited to see how it evolves later on….

As for Robovenom. Lord. Don’t even. Everyone look away… the way roboky and venom parallel eachother has genuinly caused me to just stare at my ceiling for hours. I have a playlist of songs that make me think of them and it’s just… IDK they have so much potential STILL expecially with the new chapter of life they’ve both found themselves entangled within… we have a human who has had the mindset and self deprivation to the extent he’s existing to fulfil orders and take nothing of his own desire into note and is existing day by day in his own unhappiness because that’s what he’s used to he doesn’t even think he deserves happiness. then we have a robot who has a very assertive personality and although may be harsh he prides his appearance and values dreams and what the future CAN hold and deep down. Does like what humanity provides… goddd. They both have that hidden soft spot, they were both built as killing machines, what more can ya ask for. It’s strange how… soft (?) he seems towards venom in XRD but idk idk rips my skin off I think they see themselves in the other even if not realizing it at first. They’re like two sides of a coin. And it’s crazy roboky didn’t know venom was literally going to kill himself in the bedman fight until venom just states it outright. MANN venom ily so much god I’m (trying) keeping this roboky centric and I’ve already rambled so long my phones lagging when typing but… man… roboky and venom learning to live together is so nice. They’re both the first people to show eachother decency? Kindness? Understanding??? Humanity???? I don’t even know it’s some Secret third thing… Jesus this is long but. You best believe I could go on for so much longer just about robovenom

#there’s something so lovely about venom getting reminders of his own needs and that he IS human and not a machine from Robo my #they make me insane ur honour.#fiyr rambles #I’m not rlllyyy good at converting my feelings into words but I will. literally not stop trying

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thetoasterinyourbath · 4 months ago

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Nintendo rant like thing (Idk):

I personally hope in the future, nintendo re-adds music to menus in their devices e.g. nintendo eshop music and home menu music.

Not just a funky noise or cool startup music for things like eshop (the funky noises and eshop startup for switch is nice but its like trying to itch a scratch on your face by wiping your shoulder against it, its not very effective), but music that's always playing.

That's a reason why I really love old consoles like the wii and 3ds, the music is fun to hear! It would make the consoles feel more fun and cool instead of them only feeling like they're there to make money.

Interacting with a wii or 3ds feels like it was made to be fun, a switch feels like capitalism (that prolly doesnt make sense, but thats the words I have for it right now, I can always make it make more sense later)

Thanks for listening to my lil rant thing, what do yall think about menu music on consoles (nintendo, XBOX, PS, etc, whatever consoles you know about and find interesting)

Edit- adding onto 3 months ago me's points, switches just feel so soulless because they lack stuff like that. The lack of cool music, sweet lil menu animations and ZERO mii integration to the point where I had to look quite hard to find mii maker just make it feel very meh.

And with the announcement of the switch 2, there comes new potential and hope that nintendo will readd these cool things that EVERYONE wants back. Equally, considering the joycons have pretty much none of the colour of their predecessors (apart from some dulled red and blue around the joystick and side attachments), it removes SO much hope of getting the cool stuff back.

It's clearly been made to look more sleek and adult, which another tumblr user (oneriderrat101) mentioned in a post which made a good point about how it's being made less and less for younger audiences (their post explains this really well, look at it for more explanation), which is a big loss for them, since as @oneriderrat101 says, takes away the last console made with them in mind.

Hopefully the switch 2 will be more like 3ds's or wii u's and have pretty music, animations and good use of miis, as well as being given more colourful joycon options and keeping the all-ages appeal to it's games library and appearance after it's been out for a few months, but looking at how it looks rn and how apparently it will only have 2 colour options on release (with im assuming the dulled joycon colours for both black and white) doesn't bring much hope

#nintendo #wii #nintendo switch #nintendo 3ds #wii u

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partyhorn · 10 months ago

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Have u ever posted your comic or animation workflow anywhere? Im super curious on how you tackle the process, especially not using a drawing tablet. I know you have a very simple (and adorable) style so that probably helps in terms of workflow -- Im just curious about the steps you take.

Thank you! With both comics and animation my key thing is to not spend too much time on any particular thing, just draw loose and fast. Honestly the only downside to drawing with a mouse is that I can tell my arm has extremely specific muscle memory regarding it- if my mouse breaks and I get a new one I have to spend a good month or so just letting my hand get used to it again lol. Same with if my setup gets readjusted too much- right now my setup is my mouse on one of those padded mousepads, on top of 2 books, with my elbow resting on my 3DS case (I'll get an actual pillow or something for it eventually lol). But luckily thanks to this I suffer very minimal wrist pain 👍

(...Okay I started to go really in depth in my process here, so sorry if this is way more than what you were asking. Putting it under a readmore just to save space lol)

With MFM in particular, I start by writing out the entire script for the next story arc, which really is just all of the dialogue and vague notes about any important actions. Then I do the paneling with very loose stick-figure like sketches of where the characters are and what they're doing. I prefer having very little planning when it comes to character poses and panel shapes, coming up with those on the fly makes things much more exciting and faster to make. But it's the opposite with dialogue... it needs to be 100% FINAL before I draw a single line lol.

That's part of my script for my most recent chapter, as well as what my extremely loose goofy thumbnail sketching is like. I write the script as one big thing and don't separate it into pages until I actually start drawing- then I go and color change it just to keep track of what dialogue goes on each page

After that, I go back and do the ACTUAL sketch, as well as the lettering (I don't believe this is how it's done professionally. I used to do lettering as the very last step in the process... but then found it hard to cram speech bubbles in the right places lmao.) After that is lineart, coloring, background flat colors, then shading/rendering for all of it. I do each step in batches, as in I sketch out ALL pages of a chapter before moving to lineart, I line ALL pages before starting coloring, etc. I find it way easier to be productive when it's broken up like that, though when I first started the comic I used to draw each page to completion before starting the next (but also, the comic's style was DRASTICALLY simpler back then haha)

(Unfortunately I merged some of the shading to the background flat colors so it's not entirely accurate... oops) FireAlpaca has a sand texture feature that I only found out about last year- adding that to the backgrounds makes them look 10x better with WAY less effort.

With animation, it depends on the project. For simple 5-10 second animation I make for fun, there's very little planning lol. I skip some steps in the process- I'll sketch out the keyframes (and maybe any difficult inbetweens if necessary), line those, then go straight into making linework inbetweens. I'm not a cleanup artist and have no experience in that, so I always find trying to line my rough animation makes everything jittery and wobbly. If I do it with a clean line from the start then I can avoid that and save a lot of time 👍

For my bigger projects (such as the Parvey cartoon and the MFM Kickstarter trailer), I do the whole animatic with final audio first and foremost, with the animatic being almost like the keyframes. I split them up into individual shots, .mp4 files anywhere between 1-30 seconds usually, and animate those one at a time. I'm a huge fan of free to use programs and try to use them as much as I possibly can, here's a list of the ones I use:

FireAlpaca- for the actual drawing part itself (storyboarding/animating/etc). FireAlpaca has a feature that lets you export every frame as it's own drawing, as well as an onion skin mode

Windows Movie Maker- for compiling all of those frames into video format, creating individual shots. If you upload all of your frames and set them to around 0.08 seconds, it equals about 12fps (I usually animate at 0.10 seconds/10fps, its a bit slower but looks nice)

Onlinesequencer.net- for making music. It's the place I've made all of my songs on, like the timeloop song, hyperworkaholic, and the background music for the MFM Kickstarter trailer.

Audacity- for editing audio/music. Also great for recording things directly from your desktop

DaVinci Resolve- for editing and putting together all of the shots into one big video. Can get kind of intensive on the computer during rendering, so watch out.

YouCut (app)- also for editing and compiling shots, I used this one a lot a couple years back but I'm not sure how well it holds up. Doesn't need much phone storage to download but needs a lot to render videos.

MS Paint (yes really)- for typing up text. FireAlpaca has a text option but I don't like it as much as Paint's.

...The only thing I genuinely can't do alone is voice acting. Luckily there's a big voice acting community on Twitter and they're all amazing to work with!

This got... way more in depth than I planned for it to be, so sorry if this is way more than what you were asking lol. But that's my general process when it comes to my art 👍

#qna

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albaqae · 2 years ago

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NIMONA SPOILER RANT!!!

Soooooo I watched it a bit ago and OH MY GOD???????

The way they gave nimona a more pear shaped body as a kid really meant a lot to me, u don’t see that many kids like that in media, and as a child it felt like because I wasn’t like kids on tv i took up more space than I was supposed to (the good old “why do my thighs look like that when I sit” and “why are my shoulders wider” and ofc! The “why isn’t my face as thin as them?”) IDK I HAVENT SEEN LOTS OF PPL POINT IT OUT BUT IT MEANT THE WORLD TO ME??????

Altho Merida rlly helped me out w that but kids are still rude!

Bal also put out so many questions, like why do we feel we need to prove ourselves to other people? And why does it tend to take up a bigger seat than our morale? And the way it started to erode off his character was so realistic I feel also because they were so throughout with it, they didn’t just show the viewer “love urself” they actually DEMONSTRATED how that position FEELS

It felt like it was happening to YOU

And I really love they made a character gay without making it a CONFLICT, it feels like whenever people try to make movies about queerness, they can get lost in the homophobia and conflicting gay identity, and it can sometimes overshadow over the characters themselves (their intentions, feelings, etc replaced by labels and social customs so much that the character is just lost), and in the end of it, it leaves me super unsatisfied because I never KNEW who this was even about!!!

But here yes it was a plot point, but the characters felt real, like they actually loved each other, it made this conflict between feeling like one has to choose just a million times more important

I CARED about what happened to these characters

I feel that a part of that is how they made goldenloin the screentime of him regretting what he was going to bal, like u saw the raw, unresolved conflicts in his eyes every time he cornered him and ofc the “im fine, commander” scene REALLY just completes it all

If this movie was around when I was a child, I think it would’ve saved me a lot of heartache and maybe would’ve made me feel a bit better about being “too much”

And a lot more if I saw it when I didn’t know what my identity was (fun fact- I still dunno!)

And THE ANIMATION. THE ANIMATION. THE ANIMATION.

Ima just say- I’ve never seen characters melt onto each other that well, and even LESS in 3D ANIMATION??????

Also nimona’s unapologetic feral energy and how it both brings her up and throws her down- I just discovered a lot of myself in her and idk i guess I’m trying to be kinder to myself and ruder to those who aren’t kind to me (??)

I’m still figuring it out lol

#I wish child me saw this #also it was so pink in such a nice shade it’s my favorite now #this movie broke me #nimona spoilers #nimona #ballister boldheart #nimona movie #nimona film #sobbing #unintelligible rants #alba analysis

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aortaplatinum · 7 months ago

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Why Sonic sucked in the second half of the 2010s

-A lot of this second post is speculation based on what I've seen on The Cutting Room Floor, heard in interviews, and pieced together myself. Japanese studios are notoriously tight-lipped, so it's hard to get a clear and definitive picture of what happened, but this seems to be the likely story.-

Do I really have to talk about Sonic Lost World? It's so immensely boring and poorly tuned, I nearly forgot to mention it in either of these posts. TL;DR SonicTeam scrapped the successful and popular boost formula gameplay to try to copy Super Mario Galaxy almost 10 years after it released. The game sucked and the story and script sucked, but that's just down to SonicTeam forgetting to take their brain pills every morning during the planning phase of development.

What I REALLY want to talk about is Sonic BOOM. Finally realizing that it's almost exclusively the Western world that cares about Sonic, SEGA partnered with the newly-founded studio Big Red Button to begin development on Sonic Synergy. Founded by ex-Naughty Dog developers in 2007, they seemed to be the perfect team to reinvent Sonic specifically for North American audiences.

And they probably were, but we'll never know, because of what happened next...

In the early 2010s, SEGA signed on with French animation studio OuiDo! productions to begin work on an unrelated animated comedy Sonic TV series, Sonic BOOM. At this point, SEGA seem to have had a really stupid version of a Jimmy Neutron Brain Blast, and decided, "Hey, what if we combined both the Big Red Button and OuiDo! projects into one thing? And made the video game a tie-in with the animated series!" So SEGA goes to Big Red Button, who were in the middle of developing Sonic Synergy with their own lore, characters, and world, and who already had enough developed to create an internal trailer for higher-ups and investors and SEGA goes in and is like "Hey all this Lyric and Ancients and time travel stuff is real neat but we're gonna need you to overhaul the FUCK out of it and make it like THIS instead aight have fun assholes were gonna go blow our Yakuza money on some other stupid shit." [paraphrasing]

This overhaul and combination then lead into another new idea- that Sonic BOOM should be an entire separate sub-franchise of Sonic the Hedgehog, complete with toys and comic books and all the other merch that comes along with a plan like this. So, Sonic Synergy was renamed to Sonic BOOM Rise of Lyric, and BRB took what they already had and crammed OuiDo!'s tone into it while also removing their own lore from the game.

You may have noticed that despite sharing a name, there's VERY little crossover between Sonic BOOM Rise of Lyric, and Sonic BOOM the TV series. Most of the characters are in both, but Lyric is only in RoL and Eggman's island fortress is only in the TV series. It's very obvious in hindsight that the game and the TV series were two separate things that were mashed together during development of both.

Now, sometime during the development of Sonic BOOM, SEGA signed another deal, this time with Nintendo. This was an exclusivity deal, an agreement to make the next three Sonic games exclusive to the Nintendo platforms of the time, the Wii U and 3DS. The first of these was Sonic Lost World, and the second was Mario and Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. But it seems SEGA didn't even have a third game planned, because instead of working on something specifically for Wii U, they went BACK to Big Red Button and were like "Yo I see you got this running on Xbox One or some shit Imma need you to put it on the Game and Wario machine instead lmao have fun" [paraphrasing]

So, working with Nintendo to quickly port Rise of Lyric onto a console it wasn't designed for, running on a modified version of CryEngine, which the Wii U wasn't natively compatible with, Big Red Button got Sonic BOOM Rise of Lyric out the door and promptly exited console video game development. Visiting their site now, you can see that they went into VR games.

The DISASTROUS financial performance of Rise of Lyric- a half finished game retrofitted with another team's vision and then forced onto hardware that shouldn't have been able to even boot it- severely damaged the Sonic BOOM franchise's reputation right out the gate, which in turn hampered TV ratings, and since no one was watching the TV series, no one was buying the merch. And to add on top of that, Cartoon Network, the channel airing Sonic BOOM in the US, has always judged a series' "success" on merch sales. So since no one was buying "Here comes the BOOM" t-shirts or Sonic BOOM birthday party paper plates, CN shifted BOOM around to different, weird time slots until finally offloading it onto their sister channel, Boomerang, where it died after two seasons. Everything went wrong because of SEGA's short-sightedness and their willingness to fuck over the game development team they were working with. This was a MASSIVE, multi-faceted plan with dozens of projects holding up other projects, and it was an unabashed financial failure.

Needless to say, this cost SEGA Sammy Holdings as a whole likely BILLIONS OF DOLLARS. Because Sonic had lost them so much money, there was very little money to invest back into Sonic. This lead to the Sonic drought, as it's been called by the community, where for years, no new major Sonic stuff released. We had a few mobile games and some limited physical releases of the Sonic BOOM TV series and that was about it. Sonic as a whole was just coasting on what was already made for BOOM, and trying to recoup their losses by any means necessary. The 3DS game, Sonic BOOM Shattered Crystal, seemed to sell decently, because it DID get a sequel in Sonic BOOM Fire and Ice, which DID tie in directly with characters and storylines from the TV series, but at that point, it was already far too late.

Embarrassed, financially hurting, and in need of a safe win, SEGA went back to SonicTeam, and had them start work on updating the Hedgehog Engine used in Unleashed and Generations, and start work on Sonic Forces- and that's why Forces sucks. It was a safe-bet "PLEASE make us money" project that tried to appeal to everyone and inevitably wound up as a massive disappointment to everyone, because only SEGA knew what Forces really was meant to be. Sonic Mania was made for the same reason, it was a "oh God we have no cash, hire the cheap fans-turned-developers to make a nostalgia bait 2D pixel Sonic game" situation. Since Mania promised so much less and delivered on those promises though, it was VERY well-received. These two "life raft" projects together started to get SEGA and Sonic out of their financial pit, which in turn, gave them the leverage to bounce between a few different American movie studios to try to shop around the Sonic movie as a pitch, and to begin development on Sonic's first open world game, Sonic Frontiers.

In interviews, Frontiers is cited as being a "last chance" for SonicTeam during development. While this may sound harsh, it may have been that SEGA just didn't have faith in the franchise as a whole anymore, so the movie and Frontiers were to be potentially the final Sonic projects.

But I don't need to tell you how wrong SEGA was about this :D

#sonic #sonic the hedgehog #sega

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bryce-bucher · 2 years ago

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.50 Caliber 3D Platformer Post #5

(Flashing Lights Warning near the bottom of the post)

UI UI UI UI UI:

I've been working on UI mostly the past couple of weeks. It has been, as usual, both very cool & fun but also hell and evil. To be more specific, I really like designing the visual aspect of UI, but implementing it is always so horribly tedious and boring that it is really hard for me to focus on doing it. Without fail, I always end up getting UI done very slowly because of this. I am really happy with what I've got so far though, and it has brought me one step closer to getting to the point where I can just start hashing out levels.

Making the Health UI:

The health UI was something I was extremely excited about implementing, so I eagerly decided to decide that it was time to make it. Let me step u through the process 4 fun.

For me, it always starts with sketching out something crudely in pen. I've had this sketch done for months now, so it was p cool to see it finally come to life in game.

Next I hopped into blender and began trying to make some kind of cool y2k-era greebled out shape, but making detailed machinery (or details in general) is not my strongsuit, so I ended up with this kinda neat smooth shape that I wasn't entirely happy with. It looked cool, but I really wanted to challenge myself to make something closer to the windows media player skins I was inspired by.

More Specifically, I referenced this Half-Life 2 windows media player skin heavily, and started with a ring that I could build little pieces and wires off of. I hope u can forgive me if I maybe made it too similar lol, but I tried to get creative and put my own spin on it. I think the shapes on the top left are the most similar to my reference, and those are not-so-coincidentally the first bits that I modeled. This is my first time modeling something in this style, and I suspect that I'll get better at it if & when I do it again.

Finally, I slapped some materials on, made a texture for one of the faces I had sketched out, and rendered out a few frames of it gently(ish) flashing. I then went into affinity photo and made little speedometer components to slot into the small circle in the top right and programmed some functionality to it. The plan is to have the face represent the player's current health, so I am going to need to make a few more and then animate it rotating into a different face. But yeah, I am super happy with it, and I think it is lookin p sick!

Other Stuff What I Made:

Other than the health UI, I also added in functionality and UI for completing a level and selecting a level.

I was very much inspired by killer7 for the sequence that plays when you shoot your target, and I am addicted to intense flashing lights, so I included a lot of that. There are already accessibility options to turn that off, so if it's something that could harm u or if you just hate it (coward????!!!11) you can disable them. I've always found intense effects like that very cathartic, so I'm probably gonna include similar visuals in a few different things I make. That being said, I do also always want to make the alternative visuals (when the accessibility options are enabled) to also be cool af and get the point across. The level select screen was also really fun to make, I basically just slapped together some textures of warn-out paper into a little files situation and placed that on top of an abstract background that I made in jwildfire.

Conclusion:

I have honestly really loved working on this so far, but there has been a lot of anxiety about money in my life lately, so I really do hope to get this out in a reasonable time. I feel like I say that a lot about this game, but it is because it's always on my mind unfortunately. I don't want to make it sound like I am making this game entirely for money or w/e though, it is definitely a labor of love. Anyways, I hope to get to a point where I can get some environment art done soon, and I cannot wait to show off whatever this game is gonna look like. Have a nice day every1!

#screenshotsaturday #indiegamedev #gamedev #indiedev #game development #indiegames #y2k #y2k aesthetic #3d platformer #3dplatformer #sniper rifle #windows media player #50 caliber 3d platformer #50 cal

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arkus-rhapsode · 2 months ago

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So I just Played Star Fox Assault For the First time in Years and I have some thoughts...

So Star Fox, a franchise that needs no introduction when it comes to weird directions for a franchise to take. What started out as another classic Miyamoto title that fit perfectly alongside the likes of Mario and Zelda. Star Fox kinda fell into the unenvieable position of Mid tier Nintendo franchise: Iconic enough to have a bunch of devoted fans and not be lumped in with the weirder more niche releases like Geist, Chibi Robo, and Pushmo, but not quite enough a sales juggernaut to become a core pillar of Nintendo that will almost always get an new game with each console like Pokemon, Animal Crossing, and of course, Mario. With the GameCube being a particularly tumultuous time for the furry space mercenaries.

I'll admit though, GameCube is where I come into the Star Fox story. As I was actually not really a fan of the original SNES game or Star Fox 64. This was because as flight based rail shooters where the cool animals were bound to their ships for most the game, I just didn't really get the appeal. But around the sixth generation with the advent of... Star Fox Adventures I was willing to give the franchise another chance. And while Star Fox Adventure is literally not a Star Fox game, I still enjoyed it as it focused a bit more on something I wanted-actual control of Fox McCloud the character (Of course then I played Smash Melee and basically got the same experience). But ultimately after the GameCube generation Star Fox never really stuck with me the way it had with its fanbase. But there was one more game on the GameCube that I hadn't played for a while. Like... almost 20 years ago. Star Fox Assault.

Star Fox Assault feels like a weird middle child of the franchise no one really wants to talk about even though before the disaster that was Star Fox Zero on the Wii U, this was basically the last home console Star Fox game. And it looked to appease long-time fans of the franchise that wanted an in-depth 3D rail shooter and newer fans like me that wanted more direct character involvement gameplay. Assault originally started as an expansion of the Star Fox 64 multiplayer on-foot death match with the single-player story mode eventually being added later after poor reception to an E3 2003 showcase focusing on just the multiplayer aspect according to Electronic Gaming Monthly. This would also be a Star Fox that would be handled by Namco instead of Nintendo in-house. So did they manage to make that perfect Star Fox that would appease old and new fans and provide a fun multiplayer experience?

Well... its complicated.

Star Fox Assault, even now with my 20 extra years of developing my video game tastes still hits me oddly. The flight sections feel really slick and operatic, honestly Assault really made get the space opera vibes that fans often praised 64 for. The Arwing sections running on a much smoother frame rate than 64 also helps. Add on the damn great score after Adventures pretty generic one, and you might just have one of the best openings of the series. Seriously, even as someone who doesn't really like the flight combat sections, the presentation is strong.

But that's just the flight sections, what about the ground sections? While these section have been controversial, I actually like them. Fox being able to just get out of the vehicle and interact with these planets on a smaller scale is something that kept me from really enjoying the 64 game, but the problem with Adventures is that when they did this, their style of gameplay was closer to Ocarina of Time, with melee based combat and emphasis on exploration and puzzle solving. But Assault giving Fox a gun and making the levels being more open with little platforming honestly feels way more true to the series. Fox run and gunning through Aparoids feels like something out of Starship Troopers, and that's the kind of gameplay I think Fox and co should have and not a magic staff.

However, these on foot missions sadly are hampered by the controls. The tank-ish controls are just not conducive for me, and I would've preferred a more Star Wars Battlefront 2 style of third-person shooting. Also the GameCube controller is just annoying to play a shooter on. It always feels like when I need to get that one precise shot, I'm fighting with the control stick. Still though after all these years, this is still the part of the game I remember the most, and had hoped to see more of with some level of tune ups in future installments, but that ended up being a different story.

Speaking of the story, how is it? Honestly, the story is fun, introducing this new race of cyber insects that assimilate machines and people becoming such a threat the Fox and Wolf need to team up to beat them. Its simple, but lends itself to a lot of epic moments. Aparoids going for a more existential horror than Andros changes up the vibe of what we're fighting being a "Bug Hunt" (yes, I did just go there) and allowed us to put all of our characters under intense pressure. As well as have our banter with Wolf and his crew.

However, one thing it lacks from Star Fox 64 is branching paths, rather they opt for one much longer singular narrative which isn't a bad thing, but that leads into I think the biggest problem with this game, its single player mode is really short. All told-with cutscenes-I spent somewhere between 4 to 5 hours playing the main campaign. This is a shame because the branching pathways of 64 allowed for more replayability and unique play experiences. Now knowing that this game's single player mode came later while the emphasis on was making a great multiplayer experience first and that Assault would see multiple delays across its development cycle, its safe to assume the story treatment of the campaign didn't have enough time.

This is especially bad when we were in the sixth generation of console gaming. See, small tangent, I think one of Star Fox's problems is at its core its a very arcade-y style game, and by the time of the PS1, lots of arcade style games were getting left behind by console gamers. Stuff like Daytona USA, Pac-Man, and Virtua Fighter were more made to be quick quarter munching experiences that got pretty note-for-note home ports just weren't really justifying a purchase with what the amount of content they were offering. By now, gamers were looking for longer games, that were more ambitious in scope and story, and more complex in level design. They didn't have to be played over and over again, they were just a completely filling experience for gamers. This only got more prevalent going into the PS2.

Take for example, Panzer Dragoon by Sega, which started as a Rail Shooter like Star Fox in 1995, but by 1998 would convert in to a more traditional RPG to compete with the likes of Final Fantasy 7 on the Playstation.

But Nintendo being their usual unusual selves didn't really commit hard either way. You got arcade style games like F-Zero GX and WarioWare Micro Mini Games, but then you have games like Metroid Prime and Super Mario Sunshine that open the player up to these diverse 3D worlds and environments that you could sink hours into. Star Fox Assault sadly felt like it was stuck in the middle. You get some space sections that feel right at home with Star Fox 64, but clearly they wanted you to have something more than just being in the Arwing. But the story around those outside the Arwing or Land Master is so minimal it leaves a lot of Star Fox Assault feeling like potential was left on the table.

I know Assault isn't pure Star Fox like a lot of fans want. The on-foot sections were going to be divisive no matter what. There are fans who just want to continue the story of the Lylat Warriors but through the mechanics of 64. However, as a non purist and more casual enjoyer of the Star Fox franchise, I can say having a more intimate character levels can go a long way for people wanting to engage with the game and its world. Instead of just seeing Fox as a little talking head in the corner of the screen, being on the ground as fox fights for life is attractive. But its clear that these sections had a lot of potential just left on the table. Instead of taking the formula of Assault that mixed flying rail shooting sections with ground combat peppered with story and character moments and improving upon it and drawing out new stories or game ideas for it, Nintendo opted to basically just remake 64 again and again.

I guess we'll never know what it look like if Nintendo invested in a game that mixed the air and ground combat in a fun and slick fashion that offered a lot of content. Wait... they did do that it was called Kid Icarus Uprising!

Yeah, its kinda crazy going back to Star Fox Assault as someone who really enjoyed Kid Icarus Uprising and seeing what almost felt like prototype DNA for gameplay. Made even more surreal when researching that Masahiro Sakurai was originally considering making a Star Fox game for 3DS that would utilize the third person shooter style game play to highlight the handheld's 3D technological capability. However, Sakurai would apparently find the "Star Fox style" to be too restrictive for the gameplay he wanted to implement. So he went with Kid Icarus a franchise that had been much longer dormant.

Now look, I know this was supposed to be about Star Fox Assault, but believe when I say Kid Icarus Uprising is a fantastic game. Levels were split up into three parts: a flight rail shooter that would put your trigger finger to the test, an on-foot combat section that utilized stylus based movement, and a huge boss battle. Intersperced throughout a level is main character Pit bantering with his Goddess Palutena and villains that flesh out the characters and serve as a does of comedy.

It's crazy to say, and I'm sure it was unintentional, but I feel like I can see this game being built on the skeleton of Star Fox Assault's core mechanics. Making a character driven story of large scale proportions in the sky that would then become more intimate detailed levels on the ground that has a major focus on character interaction. Except, it manages to improve in the sections of Assault that needed more polish like its story length, its controls, and replayability.

I'm really glad we got a modern Kid Icarus game that fleshed out these characters that I guarantee most had only heard about for the first time through Smash Bros Brawl, and even though it aesthetically and gameplay wise was a soft reboot, still acknowledges the Kid Icarus games before it and the events that would appease older fans and intrigue newer ones to look into. All done in a very presentable and fun package. But it's a shame knowing that this could've been an opportunity for another franchise. A franchise that would've honestly slotted in perfectly with this style of gameplay and who have been having an identity crisis for years and seems to be now on Nintendo's self.

Going back to Star Fox Assault, while I don't think it would've converted me into the type of fan of Star Fox that waits with baited breath of hoping to see it mentioned once in a Nintendo Direct, I do see a lot of potential for it to become a thing I like. The world of the Lylat System and the anthropomorphic space-farers that inhabit it has definite appeal to reach a wide audience. The epic space battles of a Mass Effect, but with the soapy furry drama of Sonic. But it seems like the barrier of entry for Star Fox is finding that fresh idea that gets both fresh and iterative, but also attractive to new players that will grow the brand and please the existing players. And when I see how that it can be done for Kid Icarus and how close it is to Star Fox Assault, it makes me lament that we may have found that direction for franchise and let it slip away.

Sooooo yeah. Replaying Star Fox Assault after so long. I'd say the game is mostly fine to good. With the key decider, I think, for players is going to be if you got enough fun out of 5 hours worth of gameplay. Since Assault is a GameCube game, that means that its only available through second hand like eBay. And because the price for GameCube games is really jacked up, I do think its hard for me to fully recommend this game when I don't think it has one hundred dollars worth fun.

It also is just not "pure" Star Fox. Its not 64 2. Bt it isn't as radical a departure as Adventures. So I know that there's just going to be a bunch of people who don't like the new sections period, I do think it fits enough in the series that it makes its inclusion justifiable as opposed to Adventures. At the very least, I can say this is a game with a lot of potential. And we may probably never see that potential implemented in the Star Fox universe.

#star fox #star fox assault #star fox 64 #star fox adventures #kid icarus uprising #fox mccloud #pit kid icarus #falco lombardi #nintendo #video games #discussion #slippy toad

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byfulcrums · 1 year ago

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ngl but u right, afther the flamechasers arc ended everything went downhill like (here may come the askbox format breaking) -game balancing (if you don't have the new stuff then rip since hoyoverse doesn't likes buffing characters) being questionable -characters desings be like "BEGONE, GOTH!" (please release a goth char, the last one we got was Mobius) -History mode became more and more confusing (i feel like the stuff with the suga and kira could been covered for the chapter 2 with Kira being one of the new MCs instead of a Arc-Character tbh) -i feel like the animated cutscenes afther elysium everlating's are like... where are they now? did the animators moved to make the genshin anime? and now they have to make the "animated cutscenes" with the 3d models (with a chance of low-end dispositives breaking (aka overheating or lagging a lot)?) sorry for ranting so randomly at ya, but TLDR: Honkai's direction went downhill after the flamechasers stuff ended

Don't apologize! I love when ppl add more stuff to things I say

Tbh, I feel like it started to go downhill since before the Flamechasers arc. When we were on Kolosten, maybe. That's when we first got the open world, a feature that we didn't know would stay until know, and that's when the animations and cutscenes we all love just. Stopped appearing

At that time, though, the game was still enjoyable. It's fun to travel through the open world, and the character designs still weren't as lazy as they are now. But the over-explaining got worse since the Kolosten arc and while I loved (still love) the Flamechasers arc, it wasn't very enjoyable to play and I (and a lot of other people too apparently) was skipping through the dialogue because of how boring it was

I was waiting for the interesting parts to appear and those parts were great! But what took to get there was so annoying

What I loved about the Flamechasers arc was everything about Elysia and watching Mei interact with the Flamechasers. Also Kevinsu. That bitch became his best friend's sword. Amazing

Idk I just really miss the old play style, when we could leave the part we were playing without losing all our progress and when the cutscenes were still there! Man I miss those sm

The designs are just plain and boring now. Always with the same color palette and undressing the characters even more. Also what did they do to Seele? "Oh but Avis, her color scheme was always white and blue!" It was white and dark blue. What I'm tired of are pastel colors

The new Herrscher battlesuits (yes, I'm counting Origin and Finality) don't look like Herrschers at all. Seele is basically naked. They're all basically naked. The storyline is also becoming lazier and lazier and could be written better. I have many complaints about Elysia as well, even though I love her and she's one of my favorite characters (and her design is top tier. All of them. My girl)

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