Dev Log: Arranging Pixels
I've been taking kind of a longer break from coding than I would like, but I suppose while I'm able to I can just roll with the punches and do whatever my weird brain wants to do. I've tried to refocus on my dice RPG like game by trying to figure out some art stuff for it.
I've been drawing from some Zelda games as inspiration for this top downish kind of view. My idea is that there will be an overworld area and when you encounter an enemy it goes into the dice battle. The overworld will also have other neat interactions with the dice that I haven't totally figured out yet, but I have some rough ideas.
One thing I'm stuggling with is just the overall screen size of the game and trying to do pixel art. I need a high-ish resolution for the dice, I feel, because I want them to have large icons and be very readable, and I also need room for a lot of UI stuff... but this big screen resolution means the overworld can look pretty zoomed out. Right now each movement tile size is 32 pixels, while each art tile is 16 pixels.
I'm trying to put the overworld "game" into a smaller portion on the screen of 640 x 480 because I actually like 4 x 3 way better for 2d games, and I'm trying to compensate for the "zoomed out" feeling. I could try increasing the tilesize, but 64 pixels is too large, and 48 pixels feels weird (it's not a power of 2, blasphemy!)
I think I'll roll with this idea for now, and put a bunch of hud and menu stuff over on the left. I kinda think back on how Desktop Dungeons did it with a square game view and the side of the screen being all HUD, and I think that works out nicely.
The size of your screen and how many "tiles" fit across horizontally and vertically can very heavily inform the feeling of your game! Limiting how "far" the player can see is a very important thing to consider, as it will then inform all of your level design and art choices. That's... probably a rant for another time though.
I've been drawing from some Zelda games as inspiration for this top downish kind of view. My idea is that there will be an overworld area and when you encounter an enemy it goes into the dice battle. The overworld will also have other neat interactions with the dice that I haven't totally figured out yet, but I have some rough ideas.
One thing I'm stuggling with is just the overall screen size of the game and trying to do pixel art. I need a high-ish resolution for the dice, I feel, because I want them to have large icons and be very readable, and I also need room for a lot of UI stuff... but this big screen resolution means the overworld can look pretty zoomed out. Right now each movement tile size is 32 pixels, while each art tile is 16 pixels.
I'm trying to put the overworld "game" into a smaller portion on the screen of 640 x 480 because I actually like 4 x 3 way better for 2d games, and I'm trying to compensate for the "zoomed out" feeling. I could try increasing the tilesize, but 64 pixels is too large, and 48 pixels feels weird (it's not a power of 2, blasphemy!)
I think I'll roll with this idea for now, and put a bunch of hud and menu stuff over on the left. I kinda think back on how Desktop Dungeons did it with a square game view and the side of the screen being all HUD, and I think that works out nicely.
The size of your screen and how many "tiles" fit across horizontally and vertically can very heavily inform the feeling of your game! Limiting how "far" the player can see is a very important thing to consider, as it will then inform all of your level design and art choices. That's... probably a rant for another time though.
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