Saturday, April 4, 2009

Game Design

Hi! I just wanted to see if you guys have any feedback on this problem I'm having while designing my strategy game. I showed this screen shot to Mr. Pony:

















He said, "Litcube, this is poop. Here is why. It is because the perspective of the buildings do not match the perspective of everything else." Mr. Pony did not say exactly that, though. He said something far more polite and composed. I respect Mr. Pony's opinion, and I respect your opinion, too! So I changed it. Based on his semi-recommendation, I did this:

















This is what you call dimetric. It is not isometric. Isometric is a pain in the ass in video games for many reasons. These tiles are twice as long as they are high, and you can see the green tool-tip outlining on of the tiles, if you click on this image for full view. There is no vanishing point, and because we're working on a 2D plane, and the building of buildings is going to stay on one plane, we're ok with using this perspective.
However, the background image looks funny, and something looks off. I don't quite know what. Can you artist types tell me why the tiles look funny on this background?
Please ignore the "buildings", and the fact that the building panel overlaps the field. I'm in design stage, and objects are quickly slapped together to gain functionality.

If you dudes have any ideas, suggestions, or images, or you'd like to see your art in a game, it'd be sweet if you could submit with examples or a background that would fit this perspective better. I wouldd love it. If you want. I am not an artist. But you are!

7 comments:

Galspanic said...

My immediate thought is that the grid looks off in comparison with the background because the background is seen from a bird's eye view. The effect doesn't mesh with the grid, because I am conditioned to see that grid as being a tilted angle perspective, and that perspective does not coincide with the perspective my brain is receiving from the background. It is an interesting effect though, and feels as if I am upside down in a spacecraft, looking behind me at some sort of moon farm.

Litcube said...

I do not know how to get the overhead to match that perspective. That's a shot of the moon that was tilted 45 degrees and cropped.

Galspanic said...

I think you're going to have to cheat a bit. Use an image of the moon that is a bit more drastic in perspective, and definitely show the horizon if you can to give the idea that the grid fits on the same plane.

Mr. Pony said...

Here's another possible solution: Imagine the transformation used to convert a straight-on grid of squares into your dimetric view (H=100% V=75%?). Then run your background through the same transformation. Look at the large circular crater on the right and think: "Square is to dimetric square as circle is to dimetric circle."

I'm glad that you didn't take what I said the wrong way. I was hoping you could find a way to simplify your tasks on the graphics end, so you could focus on gameplay and lore, where your interests seem to lie. That's where real game design is won and lost, anyway; maybe.

Mr. Pony said...

Also, how can you say you're not an artist?

Galspanic said...

Yeah, what Pony said. Photoshop can do this very non-mathematically with the perspective tool. But I have the feeling you will be doing this in a very mathematical way.

Litcube said...

Yeah. Mr. Pony, I did do that, I thought. I took the background image, and I did what you said. However, I will also have to do what Galspanic says. I will have to cheat. As there is no vanishing point in any variation of isometric, I will have to cheat.

Cheating.