[WIP] Creeping Me Out!

[Mixel]

Originally Posted by saimon69

A bit OT but i finally found the webcomic online [was under archive] to get a better overlook of the story and will tell you what i think:

Ah, thanks for reading! It's pretty strange for me to look back at it all, as I'm having to do when I'm revisiting it for the print version. A lot of things I'd do somewhat differently now..!

The game is not heavily tied to the comic, I desperately want it to stand on it's own. So anyone reading this who isn't interested in the comic at all, just ignore this whole post, haha.

You soon will NEED to do a prequel game linked to it also to fix narrative holes in the comic

That's a very forceful NEED, haha. I wonder which narrative holes you mean? There are so many! I didn't think anyone actually.. cared? So this is kind of interesting, hehe. I actually have various one-shots in progress that clear some things up.. One about the gang before Anna turns up, one about Gogo, Lexima, etc, one about Sophie and one that's half Anna "present" (immediately after the original run) half Anna flashback (immediately before it) so if the things you want to know about would be covered by any of those.. You'll hopefully eventually be in luck, haha. I can maybe answer some loose questions too. (the situation with Eleanor would have been explained quite soon after when the original run wrapped up...) Everything is accounted for - in my head anyway.

If you mean a prequel game filling in the substantial stuff between CMO's original run and Hex Night - I probably can't do that in a game, that'll likely have to be in comics too. CMO never 100% officially "ended". It just got really trippy and looped back on itself. I need to leave those stories tellable - I've hinted at various of them in random seeming pieces of art in the past. There's a whole lot of time between the comic and this game though, and it could easily have multiple other games slotted in there that don't cover the broad strokes.

The Visual Novel Auburn Fields will take place in the same sort of time period as Hex Night too.. And as I'm getting more and more familiar with Scorpion I think it would actually be a much quicker project to complete after CMOHN is done.

Lets worry about one game at a time though, haha.

The whole point of Hex Night being so far after the events of the comic is so that people don't have to know about the comic at all, or read anything that (maybe) took place. It might be fun, but, I don't vouch for all of it anymore. (until I get a chance to smooth it over in the prints and beyond) - The comic is really just supplementary. For now. Likewise, Zombie Holiday - Hex Night's spiritual successor (for old Macs, inexplicably) is kind of it's own little bubble of maybe/maybe not canon.

and if you plan to publish commercially is a good idea to bundle things like short comic books to it! (btw am doing a test mod with several tunes to give you an idea of the soundtrack mood and style i built in my own head - may differ substantially from yours though)

Neat! Would be interesting to hear what plays in your head.. Note I'm really quite excited about the music, so I'm not actually asking for any help for now. Though I'm not ruling out asking for help later if I don't progress satisfactorily.

It's always been a tentative idea to include a mini comic with the boxed version but I don't know anything about that for sure yet because a) the game will take ages to complete and b) comics also, generally speaking - take ages to complete, lol.. So I wouldn't want to hold the game up, but it does make sense to occasionally take breaks.. Sooo.. If I can make including a comic make sense it's definitely something I'm very interested in.

Happy someone's asking questions about it, but I hope this isn't in cross promotional badness territory.

[saimon69]

Is because i see the story with a good potential so to get more audience a game based on the comic events would be interesting too, with a between zelda and metroidvania mood and dynamics - most assets are already there; Am a "computer first other media after" person for what concerns media consumption

[Mixel]

Originally Posted by saimon69

Is because i see the story with a good potential so to get more audience a game based on the comic events would be interesting too, with a between zelda and metroidvania mood and dynamics - most assets are already there; Am a "computer first other media after" person for what concerns media consumption

Most assets are already there? ... Huh?

Most of the assets for the game I'm actually trying to make aren't even there yet, I've barely done like.. 5% of a game, how are the assets already there for a completely different game? I'm so confused. (but curious as to what you would make here!)

I'm glad you see potential, that's really encouraging, TY..

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Anyway.. Here's the significantly denser world map as of tonight. Still a lot of detail to go but really think I've broken it's back now.

[saimon69]

Most assets are already there? ... Huh?

Ok, you have Francis and the barge, once you did most of assets you could have a "simulmondo" approach and reuse most assets for other games in the serie; think at sets for a TV movie

I can recognize several place from the comic: Francis home on the left, the Barge, the home of Anna, the discotheque and the zombified school ^^

Btw when i like a project i become kinda enthusiastic and like to give feedback and suggestions and i like this so you are kinda in trouble now.... ^___________^

[malko]

I do like your "pencil line". A good atmosphere emanates from the graphics

[Mixel]

Originally Posted by saimon69

Ok, you have Francis and the barge, once you did most of assets you could have a "simulmondo" approach and reuse most assets for other games in the serie; think at sets for a TV movie

I can recognize several place from the comic: Francis home on the left, the Barge, the home of Anna, the discotheque and the zombified school ^^

Btw when i like a project i become kinda enthusiastic and like to give feedback and suggestions and i like this so you are kinda in trouble now.... ^___________^

I see! By the time I’ve made Hex Night I will have covered 90% of the important locations. You’re right. Some will be more reusable than others for reasons that’ll become more clear as the game progresses. The hand drawn ones are definitely made with further games in mind, be that a point n click adventure game or more VNs. Whether I do another action/platform game kinda depends how this one goes really. Interesting thought though.

Enthusiasm is good, haha! ty! I’m happy you can recognise all those places.

Originally Posted by malko

I do like your "pencil line". A good atmosphere emanates from the graphics

Thankyou v much!

[nikosidis]

The gfx is very nice!! What I do not like in the game is the white colour in the hair. At first I thought the character was bold in front. Kind of like an old guy With the animation it is easy to see it is hair but I still do not think it looks good for some reason.

[Mixel]

Originally Posted by nikosidis

The gfx is very nice!!

Thankyou.

What I do not like in the game is the white colour in the hair. At first I thought the character was bold in front. Kind of like an old guy With the animation it is easy to see it is hair but I still do not think it looks good for some reason.

Haha! Francis is very sensitive about his weird hair.

Here's Francis in various different styles, the only of these that have had complete animation sets are Zombie Holiday 0.5 and 1.0, CMO Black, and the current HN one. The early 64px Hex Night version was initially made with something like Pixel Game Maker MV in mind but when I tried it at real Amiga resolutions he took up FAR too much screen space. So I looked at other amiga games for size reference.

(CMO black was a vertical slice of ZH spinoff I made as a uni project, simplifying the gameplay and making everything in silhouette to speed up asset creation. The main enemy was evil bouncing mushrooms)

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Mixel

Anyway.. Here's the significantly denser world map as of tonight. Still a lot of detail to go but really think I've broken it's back now.

Absolutely beautiful

[saimon69]

This makes me think that since am starting to investigate a (sort of) established franchise from the end i might have screwed up the audio part, but am not new to this: i tried to make the soundtrack fof the Z-treme homebrew on saturn [a take on sonic x-treme assets] and is as far as different from any other sonic game you might ever heard...


[ Show youtube player ]

[Mixel]

Nice! I like the snow level music most. I keep alternating between sounds and am probably going with chippy sounding stuff for in game music with more traditionally Amiga-y sounding mods for game over, title screen etc. - if I end up with spare memory I’ll de-chippy the songs adding more substantial samples probably.

Originally Posted by DamienD

Absolutely beautiful

Thanks again

[saimon69]

check your PM

[Mixel]

Originally Posted by saimon69

check your PM

TY for that.


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[ Show youtube player ]


Couple of bugs to iron out and havent tried it in the latest version of scorpion yet.

Abusing the panel system a bit.

[Mixel]

MAXIMUM 80s!



I've been meaning to "finish" francis for a while, tidying up his animations, but I had to rethink it slightly because I axed one of his main colours (for use in exteriors at least - I can still use it indoors.. But Francis has a habit of going outdoors, haha.) So ditched the blue jeans and introduced blue highlights on his jacket, resulting, I think in a much more dynamic looking player BOB.. I've completed about 50% of his graphics, he has ~50 frames of animation so still a bunch to do.

Experimental copper backdrop there.. @earok is doing absolutely amazing things with Scorpion Engine.

[malko]

Originally Posted by Mixel

[...] I've completed about 50% of his graphics, he has ~50 frames of animation so still a bunch to do. [...]

That's for sure the reason his mouvements are so smooth

Originally Posted by Mixel

[...] @earok is doing absolutely amazing things with Scorpion Engine.

+1

[viddi]

Fantastic work!!

[Mixel]

Originally Posted by malko

That's for sure the reason his mouvements are so smooth

I'm glad it reads that way. I could have been more economical with it (originally I tried for a more castlevania 3 limited style animation but I ended up with a more Turrican-like one instead) There are a few things requiring a lot of animation nobody's really seen yet so it's good to stop myself around 50.

Originally Posted by viddi

Fantastic work!!

Thanks! Making backdrops with such strange technical limitations is super fun. I think I can get all sorts of use out of this.

[Mixel]

Woo! Earok added a very neat new feature to scorpion which makes all sorts of dynamic platform stuff possible..

Makes it very easy to make things like these sliding platforms with zero codeblocks! Just plop them down in Tiled! (The map editor)

[ Show youtube player ]

It’s going to make collapsing platforms a bit simpler too, though I don’t have plans to add those for a few levels .. probably?

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Mixel

Woo! Earok added a very neat new feature to scorpion which makes all sorts of dynamic platform stuff possible..

Makes it very easy to make things like these sliding platforms with zero codeblocks! Just plop them down in Tiled! (The map editor)

[ Show youtube player ]

It’s going to make collapsing platforms a bit simpler too, though I don’t have plans to add those for a few levels .. probably?

Very cool

[nikosidis]

Ah, cool. Scorpion makes it possible