Phoenixan: Fire Under Siege - CD Cover

[Tobbe]

I'd love to help you out, mate, but I'm afraid the only thing I'm really good at when it comes to game development is to come up with concepts and ideas and let other people carry them out.

[Holy Crap]

Yeah, I'm no good at spriting really. I've tried, but... no good.
What do you need sprites for?

Right now, just characters and environmental stuff.

You know, plants, trees, random thing-a-ma-bobbers to make the game seem more populated and alive.

Kelvin already made a bird and a frog for me, and those really helped out.

Even if there are things I'd have to adjust the colors for, it'd partially help me out with time.

Right now, I'm using Graphics Gale, which is making the character art tons faster for me though, when before, I used Paint for everything. XD

I could give it a shot... but I'd just be using paint.

Do you have any shots of places you need stuff for? Just so I know where they're going and stuff... On the odd chance I come up with something decent It'd be best if it actually fit in the game.

[Phoenixan]

Sure, I'll get some samples from each world for you at some point.

But as for how my plants generally look in my style, here's a taste. Personally, I don't like them all that much, so if you want to add your own flare, I don't mind. Just keep at 16 colors or under, really without a lot of dithering involved.

[Holy Crap]

16 colours? I doubt I'd ever need more than that.

[Phoenixan]

Few more sprite updates, plus how exactly the shadow attack looks, since I haven't shown it off yet.


Iris, one of the characters you will meet and work with on your journey.


Well, rather a teaser of it. It actually does stop when it hits walls for a change (points at the very old demo) and also jumps from one enemy to another when it's fully charged. Essentially, you can zap up to 2 enemies at once... If they're weak to electricity, that is (ROBO PIRATES).

I originally used kx-tesla, but I shifted to a sprite-based code, since it looked better on the game's tiny 320x240 screen. Plus, this way is a lot easier on hardware.

[Phoenixan]

Trying out the blogging thing. http://phoenixan.livejournal.com/ Some new updates will be found there.

*edit*

I added in a few more screenshots to the front page.

[Droolie]

Hey there! I really love the new gameplay video you uploaded on youtube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZt-ab1hf38 for who doesn't know )...
BTW: See? Pirate-Community isn't down at all.

[Matyuv]

BTW: See? Pirate-Community isn't down at all.

You can access it because you have mod powers in Raytunes

I have mod powers in pr0oO

[Phoenixan]

I'm going to edit the first post now to include it. Either way, here's the youtube code for it as well. Feel free to leave comments and concerns on Youtube as well.


Also, visit the page if you wish to watch in high quality.

Because of the way the recording software is though, some animations are missing (such as the lum wing animations and flashing computer screen). I have no idea how to fix it at the moment, but it might get better as I get used to using CamStudio more.

[Tobbe]

The most anticipated game since Duke Nukem Forever!
Great video, very impressive, especially for a one man project!

[Phoenixan]

Only takes forever because I am a sort of one-man show.

Thanks anyways.

[PluMGMK]

Hmm, the dialogues are much too fast.

[Tobbe]

Hmm, the dialogues are much too fast.

Q: Is it possible to play FUS with a gamepad?

[Phoenixan]

If you can plug it in, and Windows recognizes at a gamepad, yes, it'll work. In fact, I'm playing with a gamepad (XBox 360) in the video.

Hmm, the dialogues are much too fast.

That's just me pressing the action button a little too fast. I'll slow down a little next time.

[Adsolution]

I just saw this now, and I can say it's pretty awesome. I hope to learn Game Maker.

When I tried to run the demo, it crashed instantly. I hope you might be able to fix this.

Also, just curious, why only 16 colours at a low res?

[Phoenixan]

Well, as far as the sprites themselves go, I decided to go with 16-colors per sprite as a sort of general guideline.... which I occasionally don't follow.

As for 16-bit, it'll be an option for the game itself. It's native screen size is 320x240 (went with a lower one just because of all the pixel art I'm doing), but there's options for it to be stretched, ran at 2x resolution, or native. 16-bit or 32-bit is available.

The lower screensize just makes it capable for me to pack more detail into the sprites and worlds in the game. Making the game native at 640x480 was trouble enough for me, because I'd have to make bigger sprites.

As for the crash.. You could try out the one at Yoyogames' InstantPlay too. I used a rather old lighting engine in the early demo too, which doesn't even use surfaces (GearGOD's first lighting engine).

[Cairnie]

I just watched the vid and I'm just honestly gonna say that this looks and plays better than some commercial Amiga games that are out there, and please take that as a compliment.

[Adsolution]

Well, as far as the sprites themselves go, I decided to go with 16-colors per sprite as a sort of general guideline.... which I occasionally don't follow.

As for 16-bit, it'll be an option for the game itself. It's native screen size is 320x240 (went with a lower one just because of all the pixel art I'm doing), but there's options for it to be stretched, ran at 2x resolution, or native. 16-bit or 32-bit is available.

The lower screensize just makes it capable for me to pack more detail into the sprites and worlds in the game. Making the game native at 640x480 was trouble enough for me, because I'd have to make bigger sprites.

As for the crash.. You could try out the one at Yoyogames' InstantPlay too. I used a rather old lighting engine in the early demo too, which doesn't even use surfaces (GearGOD's first lighting engine).

If you want I can upscale your sprites to a higher res while keeping all the detail. It's just some photoshopping of the sprites, unless it's too much trouble for you and you have to change how it works.

Although you already said it doesn't look right so you might not want to.

[Phoenixan]

Well, you also have to take into account that the animations would need more frames, and it'd actually quad the amount of video memory needed to run the game.

It already runs on fairly older hardware at full 60 fps speed (tested on Pentium PC with ATI Rage II), so I intend to sort of keep it that way.

Thanks for the offer though. Maybe it can be done later when I hand out the GMK file after it is finished. That could always be a possibility if anyone wishes to do such a thing. Either way though, it'll have to be something someone else does as a mod of the original game file. I'm moving onto other projects after this (non fan-game ideas, I might add).

@ Saffya: Thanks for the compliment. I I've always been inspired by Amiga games such as Shadow of the Beast or Turrican.

[Holy Crap]

It looks rather good. Where'd you get all the sound effects and music?