AVWW Pre-Alpha #11 -- Story, Setting, Explorers, Evil Outposts, and Animations

[Fiskbit]

Always nice to see progress on this, Chris. It's definitely looking interesting.

A few comments:

1) I agree with the others that the woman's jacket is a bit too flesh-colored. It took me a moment the first time I saw it to figure out what was going on up there, and it is still difficult to make it out in videos unless she is facing downward. Perhaps it looks better in-game, but I worry that this may wind up being a common initial reaction.

2) Something had been bugging me about tree shadows for a while and I finally figured out what it was. When a tree sways, its shadow sways in the wrong direction! When a tree sways to the right, the shadow should bend to the right with it, not the left, and vice versa.

3) Also, not all of the shadows seem to go at the same angle, as though each kind of object has its own directional light source. I don't think this is nearly as distracting as point 2, but I figure it's worth mentioning.

Looking forward to the next video!

[Nalgas]

1) I agree with the others that the woman's jacket is a bit too flesh-colored. It took me a moment the first time I saw it to figure out what was going on up there, and it is still difficult to make it out in videos unless she is facing downward. Perhaps it looks better in-game, but I worry that this may wind up being a common initial reaction.

Not to be the eight millionth to say the same thing or anything, but that's always my initial reaction every single time I ever see her in any videos or screenshots, even though I know better by now.  I have recurring "oh right, the woman with the skin-colored shirt" moments.  Heh.

[Cyborg]

Something I've been meaning to mention for a couple weeks:
Seeing a topless woman running around in short shorts during an ice age is weird even it looks fine visually.  The other characters seem more appropriately dressed. 

I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman.

[x4000]

Well, lots of comments, so responding to various of them:

- Sorry if you don't like the Skelebot designs, but that's about the last thing on my mind at this stage.  They're functional, I like the way they look, and I don't plan on redoing them endlessly.  I'll never please everyone.

- Regarding the bats, they're actually super easy to hit because you just hit TAB to target them.  I missed a couple of times in the video because I was being inept, and I was also trying to mess with FRAPS at the same time.  As c4sc4 mentioned, the mouse is not involved in the gameplay of this game, it's all keyboard or gamepad.

- Regarding the flesh-colored top, it's actually khaki and really doesn't seem that close to her skin tones, which are peach... but goodness, a lot of people seem to have this reaction.  I'm planning on trying to have clothes color randomization anyhow, so we'll see how that works, but that would take care of it if so.  There are definitely no nudes in this game.

- In terms of spells that alter the world, I doubt we'll get into anything like that pre-1.0; that just seems out of scope.  There are combat, healing, and logistical spell categories at the moment, though.  There are things you can do like casting a spell to plant a tree, or to move objects around, etc, already in place.  That has a very mild combat value, but is more about aesthetic options, really.  There will be other things like that, at the very least.

- In terms of the tree shadows, I'd intentionally made those opposing rotations because folks had complained about them when they were the same rotation.  I don't think there's a way to make that fully accurate given the faux perspective and the fact that the light source is at an angle to the lower right.  But, depending on how you interpret the movement of trees relative to the light, it could be semi-correct either way.  For now, I'm choosing the opposing rotation that's currently there because that seems to bug less people... seems to.

- Yeah, I'm aware all the shadows aren't at quite the same angle, as well.  That may not actually be possible to do, based on how I'm skewing the image rather than rotating it, and the images are of different sizes, etc.  I have something in there that attempts to get them on mostly the same footing, but I haven't put a lot of time into that one yet.

[Nalgas]

There are definitely no nudes in this game.

...yet.  Any game that becomes popular enough (which is sometimes a surprisingly low threshold) will get a nude mod if it's at all possible to do.  It's almost a law of the universe.

[x4000]

Oh, I know -- but they won't be brought into the game proper.  This game will be easier than average to put other characters into the game, or to make nude mods for, in the same sense that AI War is easy to replace ship graphics for.  But that's not at all something we're going to encourage or allow on these forums or whatever.

[Nalgas]

This game will be easier than average to [...] make nude mods for, in the same sense that AI War is

I demand to know where this AI War nude mod is and why I don't have a copy.  That brings a whole new meaning to the AI catching you with your pants down...

It also kind of makes me want to replace the voice clips with the same lines being read by a sultry female voice or a flamboyant male one, just because it would make the game hilarious whenever you do something like lose a system and trigger one of them.

[x4000]

Hahaha.  I didn't mean there were AI War nude mods, but there are plenty of graphical mods in general for it.

[Zhaine]

This looks good, and comments on RPS about the graphics seem to be improving too! :p

Heh, I've never thought the girl model looked topless, but now people have said it. . . Even if it's only half of people thinking that, might be worth changing :s

Random comments (not to be taken out of context, which is that I think this is looking great):

- Don't really like the spin-in animating for world tiles; I think a simple fade in from black would be more effective and give a nicer feeling of uncovering new ground (this is a very minor point though)
- I do like the skelebots and always have, they look nicely alien, futuristic and weird/menacing and I'm pro that kind of enemy design
- Also really like the animations for entering and exiting regions (forget what you called them) where all the objects expand or squish up.
- At first glance it seems like the casting animations/poses are held for a little too long, but I'd wait to actually play before definitely saying this is the case.

That's all I can think of right now

[x4000]

Yeah, I'm thinking the casting animations might need to be slightly briefer, too, but I'm not 100% sure.  We'll see on the tile flip-in.  I think the fancier effect adds a little life to the world map, but maybe in the end it's just too gaudy.  I'm not going to make a decision on that for a while, though; I want to have more time to get distance from it.  Glad you're liking it!  And yeah, the RPS comments are much better this time around.

[c4sc4]

On the tile thing, the tile spin-in seems off to me but I do like the tile flip-out. The flip-out just seems appropriate to entering a level. The spin-in just seems weird, I like the idea of making them fade-in though, that seems like it may look more appropriate for discovering tiles. The spin-in does look better at the end of the video when moving across a lot of the world map fast, but when moving one tile it looked kind of weird to me at least.

[Echo35]

It also kind of makes me want to replace the voice clips with the same lines being read by a sultry female voice or a flamboyant male one, just because it would make the game hilarious whenever you do something like lose a system and trigger one of them.

The number one thing I was sad about in Unreal 3. Not that the game sucked, but that there was no sexy announcer voice anymore. I want it to sound like a porno when I get a killing spree!

[Zhaine]

It also kind of makes me want to replace the voice clips with the same lines being read by a sultry female voice or a flamboyant male one, just because it would make the game hilarious whenever you do something like lose a system and trigger one of them.

The number one thing I was sad about in Unreal 3. Not that the game sucked, but that there was no sexy announcer voice anymore. I want it to sound like a porno when I get a killing spree!

UNSTOPPABLE!

GOD LIKE!

[Ozymandiaz]

Starting to shape up well

[snrub_guy]

Like the look of this!

2 Things-

I think a clothes colour randomiser would go a long way in this game. Consider my approval got.

Also, is there still EXP associated with exploring? And are there going to be EXP bonuses for finding important points on the map a la Fallout 3? I love alternate ways to level up instead of fights.