Walthros: Renewal - Now available

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 10:22 am

I think it is okay. People sell games inspired by other games all the time.

The Wobbler · Post by **The Wobbler** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 12:38 pm

Yeah it's a close mechanical inspiration but the content is all original. There are games on Steam that just outright use resources from other games with no credit.

The Wobbler · Post by **The Wobbler** » Fri May 01, 2020 7:13 pm

And now, an ending. The Burpin' Bros mini game is finished! Time to get back to the main RPG.

The Wobbler · Post by **The Wobbler** » Mon May 04, 2020 1:14 pm

Messing with Gorgonzola features

Post by **TMC** » Mon May 04, 2020 2:10 pm

Always great stuff posted here!

I went back and replayed Don't Eat Soap. Are there any new enemy movements/types in Burpin' Bros?
I remember that Eat Soap used to slow down a lot with about 20-30 bubbles on-screen, but the engine has gotten faster.

The fog looks nice. Is that two map layers or one?
It looks like there are some seams between tiles in places. Unfortunately that's because of the dithering: each tile is drawn and difthered independently. (Disabling dithering would prevent it.) I hardly ever saw it happening in my testing, so I stopped worrying about. I expect the next version will have an option to switch to 32-bit color, which will fix that problem.

The Wobbler · Post by **The Wobbler** » Tue May 05, 2020 7:26 pm

No new enemy types or movements here, the level layouts are all new but enemies/powerups are reskins.

Thanks! That's two layers of fog and I'm going to see how three looks later on in thicker areas. Having lots of fun testing this feature!

kylekrack · Post by **kylekrack** » Tue May 05, 2020 8:24 pm

The fog is looking great with 2 layers. Really adds dimension to it and fits with the scene. Those glowing light things are cool as well. I've been thinking a lot about using transparency for a similar effect. I was wondering how far you could take it without getting too complicated to be worth it.

Animating the transparent sprite really helps it look like lighting, I feel. Other than that, the biggest issue is the shape of the light. When it's circular, it doesn't accommodate the 3D geometry of the area. Sure, it doesn't need to look super realistic to look good, but I've found it tough to make it mesh with the scene, rather than looking like an obvious overlay. I think you've done a great job making it mesh well!

Pepsi Ranger · Post by **Pepsi Ranger** » Tue May 05, 2020 10:51 pm

Yeah, the lighting and transparency effects really add to the scene. Makes it clear just how badly the engine needed it.

It does make me wonder how well it meshes with 256 color depth. Did you find it difficult to make it work in an aesthetically pleasing way? Do you find that it's easy to cut out fake lighting that we pixelate through tile art? Are you able to shape the lighting effect to stick to just the source (like the circular glow over the candle)?

This also makes me wonder if it's time to refresh our memory on how to create effective lighting by color. For example, the kind of light that bounces off of water would cast a bluish glow onto a target. Stuff like that.

The Wobbler · Post by **The Wobbler** » Thu May 07, 2020 12:08 am

I definitely want to work on some shaped lighting once I get a hang of it, just using circular of different sizes/dithering density now.

I'm adding one more playable hero to Walthros: Renewal. What kind of animal hero would you like her to be? We've already got plenty of fish, dinosaurs, and walruses.

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Thu May 07, 2020 12:46 am

Seahorse!

Also, I really like Roland's design

SwordPlay · Post by **SwordPlay** » Thu May 07, 2020 2:06 am

arthropod

Hedera · Post by **Hedera** » Thu May 07, 2020 7:08 am

A rabbit.

Pepsi Ranger · Post by **Pepsi Ranger** » Thu May 07, 2020 7:59 pm

Kangaroo.

The Wobbler · Post by **The Wobbler** » Thu May 07, 2020 11:23 pm

All good ideas! But the winner is Endless Mode LP on Twitter for suggesting a capybara for the next hero. Here's a first draft of Marella. She's a hero who uses different skills depending on who's in the party.

kylekrack · Post by **kylekrack** » Fri May 08, 2020 6:26 am

A worthy victor.

That's a good design, too. Love the nose.