TH_AVOCADO MAYHEM

[erico]

4.5 billion years have passed since this project creation...

This is a COCO II basic rescued project from my youth. Taking more time then it should
I will blog around here, the outcomes.

[erico]

Some good old production design.

[erico]

Sketches came a good way, outlines and hard shades only.
It is a single-screen-action-adventure-casual-arcade game. Lots of work must go to have an ok single screen.

[erico]

Pictures of close texture and attempts to transform it into a good ol´ amiga day´s tree.
The enormous huge ancient tree that lies in front of my house (and owns the neighbourhood) helped a lot, there had to be a way I pictured her somehow.

[erico]

Back on the 320x240 idea, so to also fit the Caanoo´s resolution, this was one of the first ´good´ outcomes...way too blue, but heck!
Too much ´using other people´s work on the leaves´ but it was just a layout.
The trunk itself here took a good 2 days 8hs.

[erico]

Main hero´s sprites are way important! I dug a lot of references to catch an idea to improve them, specially as they were sketched way too small and such did come to interfere on the gameplay. This is an example comparing the old player´s sprites with a few externals I come to enjoy. there are waaaay many more screens like that so to come up with an ok one in concept.

edit: the BW ones are my first attempt to get to something haha, not quite it but I like them! 

[matchy]

That's cool and I like the idea that is was designed for the Coco. 

[erico]

Tks Matchy, it is actually based on my very first original game on the COCO.
By the time, I was living in a place with a huge (really huge!) avocado tree and we used to play under it.

My coco game got lost forever on tapes and I never finished it, It was my very first attempt on get/put and I got pissed about not being able to handle memory.
...I think it is about time I revive it on concept, so hence this is going on.

edit: But this time it is more a pc/linux/android/mac attempt..I just can´t have that old idea go away.

[erico]

Here is the very first action going...

[erico]

Those colorful bkgs had a hand from a few friends already
It is hard to wear many hats.

Here are the new player´s concept based on new sizes for gameplay. They are to be the final ones.
PS: not quite final yet, but the very first set that was acceptable in shape
Yeah the super deformed style did come handy.

[erico]

While sprites get charisma boost and gameplay enhancements... It is hard not to think back about them.
They served a purpose, place holders till they were not good enough. Now they are gone.

There must be a cemetery or limbo where they once can be again.
It is horrible for an art guy to let any sort of art behind, I already have soo many
It kind of 'dosen´t feel right´.

Some of the once to be alive monkeys that will now, never be...

[Marmor]

Just wow !

The story from the idea to a real  is great !
Also the Art and the process behind .
Looks like fun ...

[Ian Price]

It's always great to hear the stories about game development and the difficult journeys that some games have. This looks like it'll be a fantastic and fun game - let's hope it does finally arrive in this digital age.

Excellent work erico 

[erico]

Tks guys.

I hope it arrives in this digital age too hehe.
What was supposed to be a simple 3-6 months project, got dragged for about a couple years if not a bit more.
The bad part is that there is only me to blame .

But finally I see the light at the end of the tunnel, I just have to add another boss, music, frontend and endings. Core game is done.
I now feel confident to start posting about.

If I compute the hours on it, it is still under 3 month´s work.

Here is an enraged monkey!
Ended up having to hand draw them. I´m really horrible on computer drawing creatures...I almost resorted to render.

[erico]

Talking about "resort to 3d render"...

Unfortunantly, I could not handle pixel art for a few visual aspects of the game, so instead of hand drawing and pixeling, I had to 3d render and pixel it.
The very first one were the tree´s leaves. It would take a monstrous amount of time to hand draw them and it has to be done twice since they shake over the winds.
The animation would also be of the rotating style and with a very small angle, again, rotating small angles on pixel art of low res is an herculian labour.

The idea then, was to draw a couple pixel leaves kind of like the way the avocado one´s are, generate about 500 instances(clones) with a controlled random rotation and size. Then, on the next frame, slightly change its angle threshold.

It worked wonders and the amount of work after the render was quite minimum.
Here is the 3d project and the final output (after that final retouch).