SyntaxBomb - Indie Coders

Yes I have all the sprites as "layers" or "forms" - so I can extract them without much trouble.

@ image
I took your screenshot, rescaled it up to 1280*1024 (after deleting the OS X-Titlebar). Then I cut the "room" and moved it down 10 pixels.

This would mean that all elements (items in the room) would have a 10px higher Y-value. I cannot imagine that this would be that creates big trouble. I did not "scale/stretch" stuff. I just moved the "room" 10px down - so that the top area got a bit taller and the bottom area a bit less tall (it does not need so much space).


@ highlight/disable/...
What states do your buttons need to be? I could prepare "hover", "disabled", "down" ... most of them could be done "ingame" (lowering alpha when disabled, move by 2,2 when "down", ...).


@ icons
What icons do you need: SFX, Music, Quit ?

what about the "safe"-thingy (and the other one) in the top of the game? What is supposed to get displayed there? If you do not want to disclose that here, feel free to write me an email: ron at gamezworld.de

bye
Ron

I copied the sprites into new images and saved them.
Each "button" thing has a "name.png" and a "name.hover.png".

For "clicked" (or more suited "down") you could simply move the image 1-2 pixels down/right and/or lower color/tint it a bit. If desired I can come up with some images for that too.


To properly "align" them with what I designed you can either measure it out - or just draw the "image with buttons" as one image - and the other elements on top, then move accordingly until they look "fitting". Then you can remove the "image with buttons".


@ icons on top
I prepared some already but I am not sure if you want to keep it that way or if you are able to code a proper "hamburger menu" (these three lines).
Click on it and a simple brownish (styled...) rectangle appears - with the entries:
Disable Music (if enabled - or "Enable Music" if it is disabled)
Disable SFX (....)
--------
Exit Game

You then wont need that much space for elements which you only use _once_ or twice in a game, not regularily (like the compass or inventory).


bye
Ron

I've emailed you, Ron. Not because I want to be secretive but I don't want to give any more spoiler information about the game away until people have had a play on it.

Graphics guy has come up with another six room backgrounds today so there's a list of amendments and four rooms still to do now. I'm a bit less apprehensive now :-)

So Team Xerra/Derron/Artist!!  No problem with this at all, because it should result in a better game.  But clearly when it comes to voting Derron can't vote for this project.  Just saying 

If some others needed some simple assets - they could drop a line too. Of course it will get harder if I was left with only one game to vote for *hah*.



@ xerra
got your email and replied already. If it is really tricky for you to move stuff ("game screen") you should consider packaging stuff into "containers". So instead of positioning room elements at "x=10,y=20" you position them relatively to the "rooms origin" so this "10,20" gets then interpreted as "room.x + 10, room.y + 20".
That way you could move the "room" without hassle. You could even add "earthquakes" without having the interface receiving the shake too - you just move the origin of the room.

But keep that for your next project - and I also do not know in which language you code in and how easy stuff is done there or not.



bye
Ron

Quote from: Steve Elliott on December 11, 2018, 21:55:50
So Team Xerra/Derron/Artist!!  No problem with this at all, because it should result in a better game.  But clearly when it comes to voting Derron can't vote for this project.  Just saying 

Completely agree. I said that it would have to be the case earlier on when Ron first suggested that he could help me out a bit.

Quote from: Derron on December 11, 2018, 22:05:37
If some others needed some simple assets - they could drop a line too. Of course it will get harder if I was left with only one game to vote for *hah*.



@ xerra
got your email and replied already. If it is really tricky for you to move stuff ("game screen") you should consider packaging stuff into "containers". So instead of positioning room elements at "x=10,y=20" you position them relatively to the "rooms origin" so this "10,20" gets then interpreted as "room.x + 10, room.y + 20".
That way you could move the "room" without hassle. You could even add "earthquakes" without having the interface receiving the shake too - you just move the origin of the room.

But keep that for your next project - and I also do not know in which language you code in and how easy stuff is done there or not.



bye
Ron

Just noticed that your reply got thrown into junk folder. Fixed that now. Sorry.

You've misinterpreted what I meant by move stuff. I would use an origin system for stuff like text anyway as it makes moving lots of info much easier. With the pictures I meant I could move them easily but I'd possibly have more work to do if the image sizes were changed so other things had to be adapted around them.

I've sent you another email now.

Nah, I think I did not resize stuff. Tried to occupy the given "borders" with some wooden panels and moved the content areas (room,  bottom and top interface). So only "x,y's" need to change, no "width,height's".
Top interface parts move down by height of the bright wooden panel.
Room moves down some pixels too
Bottom interface moves down the same amount. Bottom interface lost some height as the bottom bright wood panel subtracts some pixels.

Have fun adjusting it to your needs - and if you have access to Photoshop (CS1 is what I used) or Affinity Photo designer (might be compatible?!) you can even have the corresponding PSD file to adjust stuff on your own - if you desire.


bye
Ron

This is a rejected logo that my graphics guy sent to me earlier this evening. What do you guys think? I've asked to retain the background style but the lettering needs to be bigger, snow covered and different letters style.

This will be used on the title screen once I'm happy with it.

Still am excited to see with what he/she comes up regarding your ghost - for now it looks as if he/she is exercised in photoshopping stuff together instead of creating something "out of nothing".


@ logo
Yes, it looks a bit hmm ... rejectable.


bye
Ron

Quote from: Derron on December 13, 2018, 22:34:50
Still am excited to see with what he/she comes up regarding your ghost - for now it looks as if he/she is exercised in photoshopping stuff together instead of creating something "out of nothing".

He's working on the ghost at the moment. I've made sure he understands exactly what kind of look I want from it. I've been working on the code for the ghost yesterday using a place holder image. If I have time then I've got plans to make it more interactive than what it does at the moment. Presently the ghost is wandering around different rooms of the house either on a timer or maybe a certain number of moves. I'm having it so he can be removed if you work out how and you also have a way of persuading him to come to you, which is going to be handy in case he moves rooms when you need to move to his location. Currently the idea is that he saps your score points over time while he's in a room with you so it's in your interest to either get away until he moves or deal with him properly. Naturally "dealing" with him will give a reward which i'm thinking should be a score multiplier on any scoring actions you perform afterwards.

Still a bit of thinking on how to use him a bit more at the moment but it's going to be relatively quick to have him functioning completely once I am done with the rest of the room scripts (17/20 now).

I've now got 19/20 finalised room backgrounds in the game so I don't have to worry too much about being thwarted by the lack of graphics at deadline now. Nobody else to blame if I don't get the game finished, however :-)

Hopefully this little video shows the ghost of Scrooge at work haunting me in the house driveway.

Old Scrooge looks a bit jumpy but that's just down to the video recording.

I've kind of decided to make him a bit useful by having him make random comments which the player can hear, even if he's elsewhere in the house. Maybe the odd hint or two, but mostly just moaning as usual.

I should add that the game hasn't had any of Derrons artwork in it yet so that UI is still showing all my crappy background bits. I'm planning to start implementing all that tomorrow as the ghost is almost finished now and I only have four room processing scripts to go. All of the complicated ones have already been done, phew!

Dunno about the licence of the audi car - but I am pretty sure that the picture is done by someone who got paid for this and isn't willed to "give it away for free":

img: https://www.netcarshow.com/audi/2013-a8_hybrid/1600x1200/wallpaper_25.htm
source: https://www.netcarshow.com/audi/2013-a8_hybrid/
...
(dunno about the licences of the audi press kits but at least one might have a closer look about potential legal issues)

Same for scrooge - dunno if the image you gave him is useable / has an open licence.


He could at least have faded out the bottom of the image to make it look like a "ripped part" of a ghostly body or so ...


In most cases: do not use commercial brands - especially if they are in the "foreground", or if they help to improve "realism" (then your game "benefits" from these brands ...wich _can_ create issues).
As said times before: if your artist asked for permission and you have a contract making him liable instead of you when it concerns infringements then continue.


bye
Ron

Quote from: Derron on December 15, 2018, 22:02:58
Dunno about the licence of the audi car - but I am pretty sure that the picture is done by someone who got paid for this and isn't willed to "give it away for free":

img: https://www.netcarshow.com/audi/2013-a8_hybrid/1600x1200/wallpaper_25.htm
source: https://www.netcarshow.com/audi/2013-a8_hybrid/

Shit. I've asked him to change it to a generic kind of car picture now.

Ghost Scrooge is an image that's been jigged with a completely different colour scheme and changes for animation of the mouth so I'm not worried about that one.