Metro Siege: new arcade quality a500 brawler!

[phx]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

I personally always preferred NTSC you get a larger Playfield

Because NTSC has less lines than PAL...?

and more FPS.

And less action, because you have less time to render your frame.

[DanScott]

Yep, any game that's pushing to the edge of 50 or 25fps will slow down horribly on NTSC machines.... a game needs designing with NTSC in mind if you want it to perform well on both systems

[Retro1234]

I always get into a bit of a discussion with other members about NTSC basically any PaL game that I run in NTSC runs faster and other members complain it's like a turbo mode or sound is too fast also a 200 high screen will fill the whole screen in NTSC I was not intending to take the thread off topic if anyone wants to talk about NTSC another thread is fine

See here for info.http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=596016#post596016

[Tsak]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

@redblade I believe Sprites trick is used for the Parallax, is that correct?

Yup, that's correct. Both the background buildings and the foreground pole are sprites.

[Tsak]

Originally Posted by invent

I’m super excited about the games shown, such an enjoyable stream, I hope the developers post more insights to share such as the copper tricks.

Absolutely! Let's dive into it:

As most of you probably know, using copperised colors is quite common on Amiga. However the vast majority of games often use this trick only as a finishing touch for the background (f.e. adding a gradient to a flat sky). Games like Lionheart push the copper usage one step forward by utilising it not only for the sky but also to give smooth, subtle gradations to the platforms, trees and plants of each level (among other things). And they achieve this by copperising more than one color.

In effect what we did in Metro Siege is quite similar, only this time the trick is not used just to make gradients but also give us artists the opportunity to directly pickup unique and specific colors per line to draw different background elements.

The game actualy runs on a 16 color palette but 4 of the colors are fully copperised. From those 4 colors the 3 of them are used only in the background/tileset, which means that the rest of the assets (like players, enemies, collectables e.t.c.) remain unaffected by the effect. This gives us the ability to freely and completely change the overal color scheme of later maps without hurting the rest of the assets, allowing the levels to have a unique aesthetic and coloration.



In the pic above you can see a raw part of the level, done with the standard 16 color palette. This is basically the final step in the pixeling process and how the gfx looks outside the game.



And here's the final result in-game. You can see here not only the sky and bricks having a nice gradient but also how we use different colors below to draw shadows, the pavement, it's edge and the road.



Here you can see at the left of the screen how each of the 4 copperised colors are setup. Each strip represents a different color bank and showcases what changes the copperlist follows. For example color 0 (most left strip) is used for the sky but also parts of the shadows, pavement, edge and the road. Mixed with color 1 and 2 we are able to add more colors and detail to these elements as well as add texture and do dithers.



Overal this whole process can yield great results. However managing the pixel art side can become tricky, requiring good planning and compromises. In the pic above you can see the metro entrance in the making. While designing and then drawing this gfx I had to take into account the available colors per line as shown from the copper strips. F.e. to create the metallic handle and the wall tile inside the entrance, as well as and other details and highlights for the frame, I had to track down where the grey color was available and carefully align those elements in order to be able and use it.

[vulture]

Very nice Tsak!

[turrican3]

I really like the way you did the flloor, good choice of colours... A little bit of dithering but not too much (usualy i hate dithering), you used it well.
Good luck with the rest.

[invent]

Tsak, great, thankyou for taking the time, look forward to trying this out, the images and explanations are nice and clear.

[kamelito]

@Tsak what paint program is used?

[DanyPPC]

Excellent !

[Predseda]

This is awesome, Tsak. I love when someone know how to use tricks that Amiga provides. It was common in those days, unfortunately it is mostly forgotten now.

[Amigajay]

Thanks for the info Tsak, very clever use of colour, i know some don’t like the look, i personally love the colours used, gives it a unique and metallic look.

[DamienD]

All graphics tools / techniques discussion moved to here: Graphics tools and techniques for creating Retro games

[spiff]

Originally Posted by Tsak

Absolutely! Let's dive into it:

...snip

And here I've been avoiding the topic all week believing it to be another click bait..

*sniff* but this is so beautiful it brings tears to my capcom rose tinted eyes

[Tsak]

Here's a video where Mike showcases and explains a lot of the moves the player characters can do.

[ Show youtube player ]

Note that many of these anims are unrefined at the moment and there's a ton of other details to fix and tweak as well, so we've got a lot of work moving forwards to bring them to the desired quality standards.

[saimon69]

Something that was talking with someone couple years ago: there was an idea to try to recode Final Fight and i did came out with the idea of add a "Grindhouse" alternate mode as Easter egg, with faded colors, scratches, muffled effects and cheesy 70s soundtrack to make it look like one of those doubtful mash up brucexploitation 70s D movies; to implement this would just need to have alternate palettes, some random sprites or bobs appearance and an alternate set of samples and music (maybe even the crappy single color titles between stages); what do you think?

[Shatterhand]

I really loved the variety of moves and the variety of stuff you can do and enemies will do. That's very cool, certainly there's a lot of variety to the game and lots of stuff to do. The "Desperation bar" is a great mechanic and its better than losing energy for those moves. I also like when different characters have the same moveset but the command don't do exactly the SAME thing for all characters, this makes learning each character more fun and diverse while keeping cohesion to the experience. (Kim not grabbing with the grab movement, for example, but doing that "shock" thing. That's very interesting and just that already makes her different enough from the other character)


I really don't like that "Hold button and push direction" thing. That's something that really dragged amiga games down a little. Pushing a direction feels a lot different than pressing a button, and IMO doesn't work very well. I was expecting holding button for blocking, but not for the low attack, grabbing, special moves, etc.
I also don't think some of the conventions of the genre you guys are messing were really a problem... having a grab command for example, I'd have to try it out, but I really don't like this for now.


As for the "Escape from grab" movement... do you really need an option to it? Why don't keep both working at the same time? Player may do both waggle the stick AND press both buttons. That's what I would do instictively anyway, it would work for anyone without the need to choose it on an options menu. I'm pretty sure other games were made like that.

[Retro1234]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

I really don't like that "Hold button and push direction" think. That's something that really dragged amiga games down a little. Pushing a direction feels a lot different than pressing a button, and IMO doesn't work very well. I was expecting holding button for blocking, but not for the low attack, grabbing, special moves, etc.

Body Blows used that and was not good

[Shatterhand]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

Body Blows used that and was not good

Lots of Amiga games did it actually, and many times it wasn't needed. Body Blows is a good example, as is Shadow Fighter but, in those cases, I can't see a working solution for 1 button controllers. (Don't get me started on that "Hold button to special attack - Bar gets bigger the more you use it" from Body Blows which I find completley idiotic)

Lionheart is an example where it was not needed... I understand when it does with 1 button controllers... you want to have the normal attack and the up attack, as up is used to jump, you make the player first hold button to tell "Ok, I am attacking" and then pushing a direction to know what attack is being done. But with 2 buttons there was no need as UP is not used for anything. If I just press the attack button I want to attack, I don't want to also push a direction. And if I am pushing UP while pressing the button, I am telling the game I want to do the "up" attack.

IIRC correctly Ninja Spirit was also like that and for no reason at all (But that port was so awful this wasn't even its main issue )


Here with Metro Siege, from what I got (and obviously I may be wrong), the only moves that would really require the "Hold" button are the Block and Back dash moves. All other moves could be done by just holding direction and then pressing button (which is faster, more dynamic and more instinctive). Even the back dash could been worked in a way that it doesn't need to hold a button to be done - but I can understand you want the player to be able to tell specifically if he wants to do a forward dash to the opposite direction he's facing or a back dash.

EDIT: Oh, and probably for the grab movement. I think it would feel weird to have to put the stick on neutral to do the normal attacks, because "Forward + attack" is the grab movement. But I still would prefer an automatic grab I guess

[Retro1234]

LionHeart is the only exception I can think that I don't mind also I don't mind for block.