Comic book type of game

Vxss57

Member
Im an amateur comic book artist who wants to make a game. I love the western genre, and i want to make a game through comic book panels, while still giving players a feeling of an open world game. I want to give players as much freedom of choice as possible. Visual novels are probably the closest but i really want players to feel like they are in a comic book. I love 12 is better than 6, and that definitely has some comic book feel to it.

here is my art page https://www.deviantart.com/vxss57

Im open to ideas and any help is appreciated, thanks.
 

Toque

Member
Im an amateur comic book artist who wants to make a game. I love the western genre, and i want to make a game through comic book panels, while still giving players a feeling of an open world game. I want to give players as much freedom of choice as possible. Visual novels are probably the closest but i really want players to feel like they are in a comic book. I love 12 is better than 6, and that definitely has some comic book feel to it.

here is my art page https://www.deviantart.com/vxss57

Im open to ideas and any help is appreciated, thanks.
Really nice art.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
The first thing that jumps to mind when I hear "comic book type game" is Comix Zone:

Some things to note is that they deliberately make each panel smaller than what fits on the screen so that you can see the surrounding panels, and there's no scrolling whatsoever - both of them add more physicality to the paper. If your strength is making art and not animating things, this hopefully makes things a bit easier (you can just use concepts directly instead of having to make them tileable and have perspectives make sense when scrolling, etc).

For more "open world" feel, you could have a "choose your own adventure" style thing where each choice has a label like "Wanna go to the Blood Gulch? Flip to page 23". (Though keep in mind that "choose your own adventure" is trademarked and the guys behind it have sent out DMCA takedowns at people using the phrase, so don't use it directly.)

Another game that could be an interesting source of inspiration is the SNES Jojo's Bizarre Adventure game: (timestamped to when interesting things happen, because it's slow):
It's pretty much seen as a kusoge (đŸ’© game) because there's very little effort going into it (e.g. this weird aspect ratio so you don't need to animate character's walking animations and they can just reuse scanned closeups from the manga) but the interesting thing here is that it uses a different perspective from Comix Zone's to make characters more expressive.

Actually, a better example would probably be the first few Silent Hill games: use different camera angles in different panels for more variety. (E.g. establishing shots and map screens would have dutch-angled, very zoomed out views of a large area, fight scenes would have extreme closeups of faces when someone's planning their next move, etc).

Since characters can move around inside a panel, you'd probably have larger gaps in time/space between different panels than in a real comic (since each panel accomplishes more). This means you'll need to create more assets to make panels more visually different from each other, so keep that in mind and try to make modular sets that are easy to reuse in new combinations.
 

ChrisC

Member
I am also a comic book artist by hobby, not as good as you are! Great work on Deviant!

First game that comes to mind for me is Snatcher, second game is Max Payne. Both very different games but both feel like comic book to me.
 

Vxss57

Member
The first thing that jumps to mind when I hear "comic book type game" is Comix Zone:

Some things to note is that they deliberately make each panel smaller than what fits on the screen so that you can see the surrounding panels, and there's no scrolling whatsoever - both of them add more physicality to the paper. If your strength is making art and not animating things, this hopefully makes things a bit easier (you can just use concepts directly instead of having to make them tileable and have perspectives make sense when scrolling, etc).

For more "open world" feel, you could have a "choose your own adventure" style thing where each choice has a label like "Wanna go to the Blood Gulch? Flip to page 23". (Though keep in mind that "choose your own adventure" is trademarked and the guys behind it have sent out DMCA takedowns at people using the phrase, so don't use it directly.)

Another game that could be an interesting source of inspiration is the SNES Jojo's Bizarre Adventure game: (timestamped to when interesting things happen, because it's slow):
It's pretty much seen as a kusoge (đŸ’© game) because there's very little effort going into it (e.g. this weird aspect ratio so you don't need to animate character's walking animations and they can just reuse scanned closeups from the manga) but the interesting thing here is that it uses a different perspective from Comix Zone's to make characters more expressive.

Actually, a better example would probably be the first few Silent Hill games: use different camera angles in different panels for more variety. (E.g. establishing shots and map screens would have dutch-angled, very zoomed out views of a large area, fight scenes would have extreme closeups of faces when someone's planning their next move, etc).

Since characters can move around inside a panel, you'd probably have larger gaps in time/space between different panels than in a real comic (since each panel accomplishes more). This means you'll need to create more assets to make panels more visually different from each other, so keep that in mind and try to make modular sets that are easy to reuse in new combinations.
Thank you for taking your time to write all that up, I appreciate it.
You have given me lots of ideas.
Still establishing town shots, populated with interactable people, interactions can be in form of comic book style panels. Walk into a saloon, and walk out, same establishing shot but different towns people to interact with, fake the time passing.

thanks
 

Toque

Member
Oh I see. It’s just a choose your own adventure type of thing?

But the percentages mean there is random outcomes to your choices?
 

Zizka

Member
Have you considered having a panel by panel progression until a choice is made, leading the player through different paths in the actual comic? This is an example using one of your comic pages (tu dois ĂȘtre EuropĂ©en, ce n'est pas du comic amĂ©ricain ça (et tant mieux!):

Exam.png
 

Vxss57

Member
Have you considered having a panel by panel progression until a choice is made, leading the player through different paths in the actual comic? This is an example using one of your comic pages (tu dois ĂȘtre EuropĂ©en, ce n'est pas du comic amĂ©ricain ça (et tant mieux!):

View attachment 36877
My idea was to have a single image as a room. A block of text would describe the situation, in the case above, “the area, player rode into, is too quiet” player has a number of choices. If player chooses to ignore this and just keep riding, there is a 50% chance he will get killed, and this will be represented as an inserted image resembling a comic book panel.
I do like your idea of panel by panel progression, rather than have one single image with text, ease into the situation with number of panels.
thank you so much
 

Rayek

Member
Your idea, or at least how you describe it in terms of execution, reminds me of Hauma:

The developers used Ink to separate the story writing from the game engine. I think you might like that approach as well.

There is an Ink extension for GM: https://marketplace.yoyogames.com/assets/5852/gmink
 

Vxss57

Member
Your idea, or at least how you describe it in terms of execution, reminds me of Hauma:

The developers used Ink to separate the story writing from the game engine. I think you might like that approach as well.

There is an Ink extension for GM: https://marketplace.yoyogames.com/assets/5852/gmink
I would say that is a 90% match to what Im trying to do, thank you
 

Zizka

Member
I find the options in Hauma lackluster compared to the quality of the rest. I hope you provide choices alongside drawings, it would look even better.

(I also find your art better both in quality and style).
 
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Zizka

Member
Is the game going to be black and white? If so, I wouldn't use color for the U.I. either personally. I find it clashes a bit. You could have something entirely in black and white still look good I find. Just my opinion.

It's still early design so I'll wait and see what you have in mind.
 

Vxss57

Member
Is the game going to be black and white? If so, I wouldn't use color for the U.I. either personally. I find it clashes a bit. You could have something entirely in black and white still look good I find. Just my opinion.

It's still early design so I'll wait and see what you have in mind.
I have thought about this as well, my reason behind UI colored vs inserted panel black and white, is to seperate the two. I agree with you, it doesnt quite work, i might play with colours and tone them down a bit more
 

Zizka

Member
I don't know if you know the Fighting Fantasy Books but they had simple adventure sheet so I just did a mockup as some suggestions:
Mockup.png
I imagine you'd like the center area for drawings only but since there was space I just put some boxes there. You get the idea.

You could also use a wanted poster aesthetic:

Some ideas!
 
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