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Design Checkpoint needs much more juice.

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fxokz

Guest
Checkpoints in my game currently feel bland, unrewarding and just plain boring. Currently it is a box the player must destroy in order to activate the checkpoint (think of crash bandicoot). I want to keep the mechanic as it is but need a little help from you guys on what i could improve in order to make it feel AMAZING. So far i cant really imagine how I want it, but ill accept anything that isnt what i currently have.

Heres what mine looks like when you trigger a checkpoint:


LOOK AT HOW BORING THE TEXT LOOKS..


Ive always been struggling with making players look at the text without going blind or something. I dont approve of this one bit and its always been a problem in my past games and i just dont know how to juice it up and make it stand out and make it somewhat of a focal moment in my game.

Im asking all of you who are reading this right now: How would you improve this?
 

Bingdom

Googledom
To improve visuals and effects, take a look at these two videos! They will help.

To improve on the effect on your checkpoint, I would suggest making it transition to complete white and make it shake. Then explode into a cloud of smoke with text appearing flashing in colours saying 'Checkpoint'.
 
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fxokz

Guest
To improve visuals and effects, take a look at these two videos! They will help.

To improve on the effect on your checkpoint, I would suggest making it transition to complete white and make it shake. Then explode into a cloud of smoke with text appearing flashing in colours saying 'Checkpoint'.
Im still not sure.. are there any games you can think of that have good examples?

btw i watched both of the videos a while ago.
 
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fxokz

Guest
First thought, perhaps a particle burst of some sort - stars, flares or fireworks?
To improve visuals and effects, take a look at these two videos! They will help.

To improve on the effect on your checkpoint, I would suggest making it transition to complete white and make it shake. Then explode into a cloud of smoke with text appearing flashing in colours saying 'Checkpoint'.
Okay so after messing around with particles for abit i achieved somewhat of a cool looking effect.. Still a long way from what i would call ideal however its a start. What do you guys think? It creates 4 objects within a rectangular area of 100x100 pixels that burst particles.



It still feels so out of tune though and it doesnt fit the game at this point :(

this sort of stuff along with fonts is probably my weakest points in game dev :s
 

Electros

Member
It still feels so out of tune though and it doesnt fit the game at this point :(
Think it really depends on what the end style you are looking for is, and only you can decide that. Given the block nature of the game, perhaps try using pt_shape_square? Also maybe it feels a bit out due to it being quite a large area of effect - perhaps try one object (or burst), and create it directly at the checkpoint box being destroyed.

Play around, see what you like and importantly what you don't (it is great to care about these things)!
 
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fxokz

Guest
perhaps try one object (or burst), and create it directly at the checkpoint box being destroyed.
I tried that instead and it looks better than before :) Ill keep experimenting and see what i come up with
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
Right now it looks like all your game's graphics are placeholders, so it's hard to tell what'd look the best :p

I'd say you should look into making the box rotate into tons of rotating wooden debris that bounce on objects they hit a few times before breaking. Right now, the box itself just cease to exist with no effect whatsoever, and it just doesn't look right.

Another idea is to draw big text covering most of the screen's horizontal space that reads CHECKPOINT!. Kinda like the 1UP text from Super Monkey Ball or the YOU DIED / BONFIRE LIT message from Dark Souls. Make it part of the HUD and unmissable instead of a random splash near the object.
 

JackTurbo

Member
As Yal said it looks like you're still using placeholder art. Whats your game's theme going to be? Would help us suggest things that are correct tonally.
 
S

spiritualatombomb

Guest
There is obviously room for improvement, but you're getting there man :) I do like the particles you got in already.
Some quick "fixes" that in my view would spice it up:
- Change the shape of the checkpoint. Currently your game has a lot of blocks in it, an obvious way to make something stand out would be to deviate from that shape. Perhaps make it circular and semi transparent?
- The checkpoint's brown color isn't very nice to look at, especially against the bright golden floor tiles. I'd personally change it to a lighter more vibrant color.
- The font is very bland and boring. I'd look up some license free pixel fonts out there. Your aesthetic is simple so embrace that :)
- Make the font rotate as it moves upwards using draw_text_transformed.

Good luck with your project!
 
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fxokz

Guest
hey everyone, first off i want to say thanks for all of your suggestions... heres what my checkpoint currently looks like


If you couldnt tell, i added a little bit of screen shake to compliment the particle burst (i made a sprite for the particle rather than a built in shape)
Its looking better than ever and will still need many improvements to be awesome.

Right now it looks like all your game's graphics are placeholders, so it's hard to tell what'd look the best :p

I'd say you should look into making the box rotate into tons of rotating wooden debris that bounce on objects they hit a few times before breaking. Right now, the box itself just cease to exist with no effect whatsoever, and it just doesn't look right.

Another idea is to draw big text covering most of the screen's horizontal space that reads CHECKPOINT!. Kinda like the 1UP text from Super Monkey Ball or the YOU DIED / BONFIRE LIT message from Dark Souls. Make it part of the HUD and unmissable instead of a random splash near the object.
As Yal said it looks like you're still using placeholder art. Whats your game's theme going to be? Would help us suggest things that are correct tonally.
Yes every single graphic in my game is a placeholder (which is scary because i cant imagine the amount of money i would have to invest in order to make everything look good), im going for a pixel art sort of style. I dont know how to explain it really..

There is obviously room for improvement, but you're getting there man :) I do like the particles you got in already.
Some quick "fixes" that in my view would spice it up:
- Change the shape of the checkpoint. Currently your game has a lot of blocks in it, an obvious way to make something stand out would be to deviate from that shape. Perhaps make it circular and semi transparent?
- The checkpoint's brown color isn't very nice to look at, especially against the bright golden floor tiles. I'd personally change it to a lighter more vibrant color.
- The font is very bland and boring. I'd look up some license free pixel fonts out there. Your aesthetic is simple so embrace that :)
- Make the font rotate as it moves upwards using draw_text_transformed.

Good luck with your project!
I dont know about changing the shape of my checkpoint since it goes really well with the mechanics in the game and also compliments another object. The font is giving me nightmares man, i tried searching for a decent looking pixel art font that is free for commercial use etc etc but its hard to find, i also tried making my own but it looked like trash so i gave up. Would you know any good fonts i could maybe try out?
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
(which is scary because i cant imagine the amount of money i would have to invest in order to make everything look good), im going for a pixel art sort of style
You'll learn to draw properly really quickly if you just (1) have a good source material to learn from (tutorials, stuff in the style you want to learn you can study closely and imitate, etc), and (2) put some time into just practice drawing. Start with a "I can do it!" style attitude instead of a "nah, that's impossible..." attitude and you can get very far :3
Heck, just look at some of the stuff @aamatniekss or myself did a couple of years back and compare to the stuff we draw today... practice is underestimated :p
 
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fxokz

Guest
You'll learn to draw properly really quickly if you just (1) have a good source material to learn from (tutorials, stuff in the style you want to learn you can study closely and imitate, etc), and (2) put some time into just practice drawing. Start with a "I can do it!" style attitude instead of a "nah, that's impossible..." attitude and you can get very far :3
Heck, just look at some of the stuff @aamatniekss or myself did a couple of years back and compare to the stuff we draw today... practice is underestimated :p
yeah, its very time consuming and i still dont end up with something id want to see him my game.. I guess i need to start practicing inbetween programming sessions and hopefully start making some high qual stuff
 

JackTurbo

Member
For fonts, I recommend Font Squirrel. Its a portal dedicated to providing high quality free fonts for graphic designers.

They wont list stuff without having the license explicitly stated and generally everything on there is fine for commercial use. Double check the licenses though, because as I said its aimed at graphic designers so some of the licenses do actually limit digital/app/game applications, but the bulk are fine.

https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/list/find_fonts?q[term]=pixel&q[search_check]=Y
 

The M

Member
I would suggest adding something that shows that here is a checkpoint that you've activated. Making a break animation (or just throw debris) would help with the "pop" effect but once the particles are gone there is no way to tell the checkpoint was ever there.
 
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Nexusrex

Guest
Welp, the current one is good, you could also take a look at checkpoints in games like Metroid or Castlevania. I did like the one in Aria of Sorrow. So yeah.
About the art style, you can look at simple tutorials, I did start with the one by Crateboy/Smiv, you could take a look at it.
 

SnoutUp

Member
My suggestions would be adding a scale "bounce" before destroying the box. Set scale to 1.2, add a blast circle of particles, decrease scale of the box quickly until 0, then destroy object and add another, smaller burst of particles to compliment disappearance. I use basic white lines, which are created in a strict circle (that can be done by setting direction of each particle separately). Some dust bubbles going upwards might work too. You can also apply "squash and stretch" on attack hit (as well as to your main character jumps/landings) or object-only shake (keep x and y values for hitboxes, but apply shake offsets to coordinates in the draw event).

My basic script to create a circle of particles. Looks way better than what you get from uncontrolled burst.

Code:
/// ParticleCircle(particleSystem, x, y, particleType, count);

var ps  = argument0;
var pt  = argument3;

var px  = argument1;
var py  = argument2;

var pc  = argument4;

var gap = 360 / pc;
var i   = 0;
var dir = irandom(360);

for (i = 0; i < pc; i++) {
    part_type_direction(pt, dir, dir, 0, 0);
    part_particles_create(ps, px, py, pt, 1);
    dir += gap;
}
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
I would suggest adding something that shows that here is a checkpoint that you've activated. Making a break animation (or just throw debris) would help with the "pop" effect but once the particles are gone there is no way to tell the checkpoint was ever there.
Good point... I second this. Crash games don't do that AFAIK, and you got your inspiration from there, but it's probably a good idea. A lot of games pop up a little flag when you get a checkpoint, but anything that goes with the style of the game would work - a lightbulb, a stack of small colorful cubes, or so on.
 
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