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Shifter (Pre-Alpha 0.0.009) MUSIC BREAK



  • Stuff like this, the flat update, looks terrible imo compared to the old iOS. They called it clean as well. I downgraded immediately.


    Also, here's some WipEout pulse to give a better idea of what I'm going for. It won't be much different from what I'm trying to explain.

  • WipEout uses flat design. It's not simple but have flat colors. In menus and GAME UI.

    And if some game like mario kart 8 uses color gradients, they use weak ones.
    White to grey
    it's better than
    White to Black


    Blue green to baby green
    it's better than
    Blue green to Dark green.

    You are using 3 colors in the same gradient and I personally think it's too much
  • edited June 2018
    I got some feedback from a game dev group and some of my coworkers. Some like it, some say it reminds them of old-school game menus, some aren't sure until it is finished. Maybe you'll like it more when it's done, but if not, I can't please everyone. Besides, the game will be remade in 3D if I get a kickstarter fund. I want to have the game be more like Smash Bros with Naruto cell shading for character customization. The menu may look better in 3D and with the character customization and globe map instead of a flat level select map like Sonic Adventure 2 has.
  • edited June 2018
    I’d like a voxel art style, but high res...
  • edited June 2018
    I'll see what I can do.
    I want to make it like the main menu in Metroid Prime, how it shows the Metroid brain zoomed in in the background, but I want more colors than just black and red, or cyan and white in the case of WipEout, and I hate plain text menus. The whole game revolves around the nanocells, so I was going to have the "Press Start" play an animation that zooms into the fibers and tissues and further zoom to the cells and nanocells like a microscope. The menu scheme itself is up for change, but we will see. This would be a lot easier to pull off in 3D, but I suck at 3D so I'll do what I can.

    maxresdefault (6)
  • I tried to keep SB3’s menu as clean as possible..
  • @CrimsonBlackGames
    I'll have to take a look at what you did. I remember one of those games the menu was packed with stuff so I only ever clicked on original, because there was too much on one screen.
  • edited June 2018
    There’s only one sub menu. And that’s for the gamemodes. Everything is lined up
  • edited June 2018
    Did a sketch on my phone for the ancient race concept. There will be 5 of them, different body size proportions, different features, etc. This is just an idea of the race in general. I personally like 6, but my brother watches a lot of anime and said it should have a mouth and nose like 3 but with war paint like 4. What do you guys think? Nose? Mouth? Should there be ears or holes? Pupils? Any ideas or suggestions?

    Kinda want no mouth, and have them be telepathic.

    @PixelPizza @CrimsonBlackGames @Latif3 @grazer

  • edited June 2018
    Wanted to add some double pupils, then tried some chin spikes, and a scar down the neck and chest, but now I feel like it almost looks like an alien Kratos from God of War, so I have to scrap that. Might just keep the eyes black. I tried a traditional pupils but then it reminded me of Killface the skeleton from Frisky Dingo.

    Aliens are hard. Too much and you get close to another character, too little and it's just a Grey, one of those plain original aliens from sci-fi documentaries, but too muscular and it will look like Jiren from Dragon Ball Super.

    Also need to concept some armor. Hm...

    Wanted to do spiked bladed elbows and kneecaps, but Omega Shenron from GT did huge black spikes now that I think about it. Guess it's technically not the same.

  • edited June 2018
    (Scroll up for other 2 posts)

    Something kind of like this for the body, with the knee and elbow spike blades same color as the bone texture skin, maybe scars all over, maybe a mark of their language, but Idk about the armor yet.

  • edited June 2018
    (See above)

    Considering having them have white scales like a snake, but they breathe through their skin like amphibians. Also considering retractable knuckle spikes. Not sure how I'll modify the fingers and feet, or if they'll have tails. Maybe they'll branch from different evolution patterns and have very distict features between the 5 of them based on their personality and fighting style.

    Edit: I guess a way you could imagine this is somewhat similar to how amphibians go through certain stages of life, some don't lose their tails, some don't lose their gills, or how Pokemon evolve, or how Frieza has 5 forms and Cooler has an extra form, but they're all the same race.

    Still unsure about a mouth. Telepathy means no need for talking. Maybe the others can have mouths but this one is psychic and evolved beyond mortal needs. No nose because skin breathing. Black line on the side of the head is the ear hole. Chin spikes are as hard as claw nails. Did you know human hair and nails are the same material? Hair tends to be softer though, with black hair on the face and body being rougher.

  • 5: looks like the puppet got buffed
  • @CrimsonBlackGames
    Just posted above you, but what's "the puppet"?
  • Nevermind, just googled it. Huh.
    Actually saw something else that it resembles with the purple under eyes, there was an episode of Naruto where Kakashi shows his face but wears paint.

    This is what I mean by it being such a pain to make original ideas.
  • More or less the outfit I'm gonna go with for this ancient. I wanted to do something that was both warrior and meditation themed, so I did black hooded robes but with a sort of clear glowing white sash (sort of like wedding dress silk material), metal belt, wrist guards, shoulder guards, and knee high boots. I decided to make the elbow and knee bone spikes black. They were originally going to be bone color, but I decided to add the lore that they coat them in a hardened metallic coating after whetstone sharpening them, to protect the bone from fractures, and using it as a blade. I'll work on better concept art when I'm able to, these are phone sketches. Also decided the purple lines will be scars from claws in a previous alien war he fought in. Their flesh will be bluish purple, like how our flesh is reddish white under the skin, but we have red blood, their blood is blue.

  • Looks nice, but hey if you want the purple lines to be scars make them less sharp and less regular
  • edited June 2018
    They were regular scars, but now they're a modification, since he used a knife to make them aesthetic, instead of jagged gashes. Body modifications aren't too common for normal people, most people just get tattoos, but rarely do people get scars or burns on purpose. It's pretty big in gothic/cyberpunk/sci-fi. I've seen some people get their eyeballs tattooed, and have spikes surgically implanted in their head, and glowing discs in their hands.

    This race created the nanobots that Crystal used to create nanocells. They're going to have a lot of genetic and cosmetic body modifications, that you'll notice really sets each of them apart. @PixelPizza
  • edited June 2018
    I'd consider it a bit graphic, but for reference. Don't click if you're easily disturbed by blood or wounds.

  • edited June 2018
    For a really early sketch, this one will have a lot more body mods, like spikes, and flesh. Ancient tribes throughout history, and I think even still recently in African tribes, they still practice scarring and body modifications. It's been around long before the futurists took over and did their version of it. I figured an ancient race that's technologically-advanced would be well-suited for this kind of stuff.

  • looks cool
  • edited June 2018
    @Wizardry @grazer @CrimsonBlackGames @Latif3
    This might amuse you guys.

    I'm taking your suggestions into consideration. You say a clean menu looks best, I say a dynamic menu looks best, so I'm taking it to a whole new step and letting the player decide. I am now redoing the menu so that almost everything is customizable, the background color, the silhouettes you unlock (more on that later), the fonts, tabs, etc. You'll be able to edit the menu to your heart's desire, and it will automatically save and load on next play. I spent maybe 2 or 3 hours messing around building a color picker concept.

    You can use up and down to switch between brightness, red, green, and blue. Once selected, use left and right to alpha that color from 0-100. Layer them whatever way you like, you can make pretty much any color, except neons, like bright yellow and cyan, but I plan to add cymk to rgb as well. I currently have R to reset to white, which should be the default on first play. It's a rough attempt, but it works. I'll add control bars to show 0-100 later on when I make the options menu. You'll be able to use this to set the color of the background behind everything on the menu. I'll probably add a random mode for a disco effect if I can figure it out. (Spoiler because possible seizure warning?)

  • edited June 2018
    Reworking that sketch from page 4 into a vector. Took a while to do just the head.
    Here's an example. You will be able to choose between several poses and characters as you unlock them, you can change the aura or ash cyclone to various shapes and movement effects, the element colors (cyan lightning when I add it), and there will be another layer with vectors based on each level of the game.
    I'm currently borrowing SFV music until I write my own menu songs.

    I have updated it since posting this gif. If it lags while holding left or right, you hit 0 or 100.
    Use Spacebar to switch between RGB and CYMK.
    - Click here to try it out -
  • edited June 2018
    Trying out some theme concepts. I was thinking I may as well not throw away my old menu concept art just yet, because maybe I can do something with it. Idk what yet, but something. Once again, praise the layers update. This would be impossible without it.

    Press T to try out the concept Data Theme
    (Also glad to see the music from my old playlist still fits the new menu)

    Also going to update the first page of the thread with the new "Click to play" icon.
  • Idk if I agree with the totally customizable menu, but that's just me.
    You don't have to please everyone.
    I just said my opinion last time, you didn't have to listen 100% to my opinion. Please yourself in the first place, I'm not saying to don't listen everyone but you shouldn't listen to everyone that has different opinions. Everyone is different and a customizable menu would leave your theme, I guess. I would just go to the colour background toggle.

    (and btw damn sorry for the english, I have been pretty exhausted and tired lately)

    Anyway I liked the icon and this menu:

    It looks good
  • edited June 2018
    Thanks, but nothing is final yet. For now, it's all concept stuff. I'm just trying to get an idea for maybe 7 themes, or maybe I'll just make it even more customizable than just set themes. When I originally thought about it, I wanted people to be able to unlock stuff, I wanted them to be able to customize something, preferably character customization, but I can't do that with flowlab. I wanted a music playlist, because I wanted people to be on the menu for a long time, whether it's multiplayer, character customization, settings, menu customization, they would be able to listen to multiple different songs, and just feel immersed. With flowlab, I can only do menu customization, so I just want them to be able to update the menu whenever you unlock something new.

    If you have an idea for any shapes or design for the menu you would like if you play, I can take some requests, since flowlab users are VIP to me.
  • The playlist idea seems great, whats the matter to do it?

    The character on the side could change or people could pick which character they want idk
  • edited June 2018
    There's nothing stopping me from doing the playlist, I just don't have any songs made yet. I barely put any effort into the songs for the first level. I got some permissions to borrow music from various artists that make no copyright electronic music, so I might temporarily add those just for playlist testing, and then later replace them once I write my own songs. Doing art and music takes me a very long time. I'm just never satisfied with what I made.

    I did already previously mention that the character vectors will be changeable as you unlock new ones. Honestly, I haven't really done enough character art to make a bunch of character vectors, so you will start out with Mhx, Crystal, and Mhx/Crystal back to back, then once I finish the concept art for the aliens, I'll make vectors of them, and I'll also make different poses for each character, as you unlock them, you can switch them out for whatever one you like. You also unlock new auras and elements that you can choose from.

    Also, you don't need to apologize for your English, it is much better than most people that are born in the United States, it's very good.
  • So... I've been thinking about it, and thinking about it, and I don't want to do Sprites. After doing the vector sketching, it made me think about sketching the characters as well, instead of pixel Sprites, it would be slightly more fluid hand drawn animation. Now, it won't be as high quality as I would want it to be, because flowlab is very under scaled. It has the screen resolution of a SNES, which isn't bad, but even the sharpest vectors will be very pixelated, and look bad on a large TV.
  • edited June 2018
    @grazer @CrimsonBlackGames @Latif3 @PixelPizza @Wizardry

    You guys are the most active. I would count a few other members like luminous, leonknighte, and muddyapples, but they're not too active. I need NPC characters for my game. Want to have 1 or 2 cameo characters? Submit concept art. It can be a character from one of your games, some OC you came up with, or you. It just has to be human. I'll redraw it or sprite it in my own art style.
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