atari2600land's Blog

uosipa llamxew · July 30, 2017

This is the stage I find the most tedious... stage design, bells and whistles, and polish. It is probably one of the biggest reasons I never finish anything. I get excited about an idea and, once I write and implement the stuff that is interesting to me, I often drop it.

There are some pretty cool walking/animation sprites that you could look at for inspiration. I think the guy's name was Adam Tierney who did some artwork for a game that was never finished... I might dig out some of my own animationed for some pixelated PC games that might help you with find a way with animating your own sprite. It's hard with an 8 pixel sprite width. Another idea is to use two overlapping sprites to create your character. You can get more color this way and added pixels to work with. I did that with No Touchy and a flappy bird demo I made. I once read that the player's character design/aesthetic is more important than enemy design because the player is looking at it the most.

On the other hand, I think even the most simple design with few colors and animations can be charming when done correctly.

Most of my games have never picked up much interest, so perhaps my advice is not really worth giving much thought...

Anyway, I admire your dedication to your work. I follow this blog and love to see what you are doing. I am hoping very much that you will inspire me to return to my own projects... these days I have little attention span though.

Anyway, I hope you are enjoying your weekend.

Cheers!