Razzia - Cinematic platformer

I would really like a tutorial on those climbing mechanics!

Epic prince of persia smoothness in the gameplay here.

Congrats on this great work.

Thank you Savvy001, unfortunately I don't think I will have time to make a tutorial for any of the mechanics in the game. But in short it's basically boxes and trigger areas, nothing too special. To be honest it's probably the animation that does it all as mechanically it's just sliding boxes with images ontop.

I have now implemented hacking into the game. There's no minigame or anything but rather a device you use to activate/deactive panels/controls etc. that is linked to a door, trap, robot or something. Your device have a number of charges and you use a charge by hacking a device but you can regain charges by un-hacking machines.

I also updated and cleaned up the interface a bit.

This looks awesome good job!

Thank u for explaining!

This seems like a really cool game!

I've been iterating on some of the areas for my game and recently I've been taking a look on one in particular. When I design the levels for that area I find myself filling in a lot of detail in areas that are not used or focused on when playing (blank spaces around the geometry that the player will move about), I also noticed that breaking up the repeating tiles eat up a lot of time designing the actual levels. A few days ago I did a mock-up for a new style to try and get rid of this problem but before I commit to something I want to ask you guys for feedback, which one do you perform, what are potential problems with one approach over the other and so on.

Here a comparison picture:

If I had to choose between the two I'd buy the game with the graphics shown on the second picture. Just because it has more athmosphere and is - in my view - more retro for they used in the 16bit era those kind of elaborated artwork with many details and eyecandy. Of course this means more work. So maybe I'd keep the foreground tiles of the cliff with the vines and the flowers and leave off the background. I'd also reuse the drawn tiles more often and turn some upside down to give the impression of more details.

Also back in the 90s they often only hinted at the background which gave a better focus on the player character and meant less work for the artist. Here are some screenshots of what I mean.

Thank you for your feedback Liquid.

The reason I'm not sure about the former background (the bottom one in the picture) is that it feels more cluttered than detailed. Busy rather than well composed. The repeating patterns add monotony to the environment and can end up making the player feel like the level is repetetive when it is in fact the background that is feeding the player repeating patterns, like how a short annoying music loop can make a scene feel dragged on when it is really not. Even worse when the backgrounds don't move around, which they don't in my game.

Which image do you feel is more focused?

Hmmm... hard to tell since the the pictures don't include the player character or some enemies. Also they are cropped so I can't tell you if it feels to repetitive for me. Maybe you could upload two complete game screens for comparison.

I've done some work since yesterday, added a backdrop, scaled back on the dark areas and added a bit of vegetation. I also split the images in half to show greyscale values, it's easier to see constast that way.

Pretty cool! To tell you the truth: I would use them both. The first one for the earlier sequences to give a wider outlook on the game world and to communicate the sensation of a vast world ripe to explore and the second one for mid-/ endgame giving the game an aesthetical highlight.

The first picture creates the impression of tranquility and clear air whereas the second one implicates a humid climate. I can't help but the second picture looks to me like the base of exactly that mountain that is shown on the first image in the background!

So the first picture is more focused - that is out of question. But I would use the sprites from the second one for special portions of the game where dense understory or thickets of young trees would block visibility. I would also tone down the colors of the background plants a little bit to distinguish the background from the foreground.

Thanks Liquid. I've done some additional work and I think I'm finally happy with the new style.

Yeah, thats it! It suggests real adventure in exotic locations. Very good work! How many single screens will your game have?

I don't know, each level have 30 screens standard, though some levels take less and some more.

This looks great man! Love the Prince of Persia-ish mechanics! Also great to see fellow Scandinavians in here.