Sweet As! glad you guys dig the Trooper Test shot animation
Currently, I'm on the other side of the world.So I hope no one feels like I'm ignoring feedback, it's just hard to find time to get to the computer to reply properly
i personally do not like the style of the main characters, but they are well made none the less, and the animations you were testing are stellar. The aliens are absolutely amazing.
fantastic art but if Im honest I have to agree I dont feel warmed to the characters heads, they are just too different to everything else in the game and the white eyes make me feel like Im looking into holes rather than eyes its rather unnerving.
Enodmi: I'd say we're going to release this year for sure. Closing in on a few months from now.
Ged: Thanks for the kind words, the characters are meant to be unnerving, that's the exact look/word I wanted for them, unnerving. Thank you so much for saying that.
Honkey: Thanks man
raul: I appreciate it mate! The team is making me proud.
You guys should check out the youtube channel, we've got some videos there already, but we plan to keep adding more mj12 stuff: http://www.youtube.com/exisinteractive/
I feel the need to say that while both the enemy models and the Potato Men look amazing. It really looks like the aliens and main characters are from two completely different games. The styles of both are very cool on their own but they simply don't fit together at all, its very jarring.
Words fail me looking at this stuff. Brilliant texture work, animations, art style... You guys have the whole package going for you. Can't wait to see more of this.
I feel theres quite an art direction break between the main egghead characters and everything else tho. Everything looks cool for what it is, but put together it starts to be odd. What about adding some more facial features to those guys ? Along the lines of anime SD characters maybe. I feel it could help making the style more unified.
(or maybe, their execution just needs more depth to the texture and some subtle added geometry to thicken the existing features - like, carving the mouth in a little, suggesting eye sockets, and so on.)
Pior, some enemies keep the potato style but not really in proportions, that may be the odd thing. If you see the "lady potato" you can appreciate she is not like the other 3 characters, nor in the proportions, nor in the head.
I think you have a point, but too much work is already done
While i loved all of your character work (models, textures, animations) I was pretty let down by the environments displayed in the video.
Textures, lighting, background, harsh color contrasts in general - it kinda doesn't fit and blend together nicely, in my opinion and can't keep up with the characters. Hope there is some WIP-ness in the scenes and you'll work extra hours to get it nice and cohesive - would be a shame if this will not be AAA in every aspect !
I have to agree with acumen about the background environments, some of it was just burning my eyes, eg very red floor, very blue sky, very orange moon in sky, purple characters and brown main character...just really really clashes. Will there be like a 4 tone colour palette for each background theme like something from http://kuler.adobe.com/#themes/rating?time=30 ? that would sort out the problem in my opinion.
Sean_eg: We're really thinking hard about co-op; so there's a good possibility.
Everyone else: Thank you for the kind comments, we appreciate your support very much. The team has been working very hard, and we're going to keep at it.
A side note regarding the levels and lighting and so on. We don't have a lighting system, everything is 100% self-illum. The engine is C#/XNA, so, garbage collection becomes a real issue on the 360 if it wasn't one of the primary things you had in mind when you started making the tech. The issue is that we started from baseline tech that was provided to the community, and if we'd made the mistake of adding a million visual features, we would never have made any progress on gameplay.
I appreciate the comments, and it's my sincere hope that we'll keep doing better, on this, and hopefully on future projects. Thanks again for all the support and kind words. More media coming soon !
I really dig the movement / animation of the main characters. The z-depth gameplay is nice thus far too.
To add my thoughts on the enviro work - I think right there is just a strong disconnect visually between the characters and the world. You can do a lot with out a super lighting engine to make the enviro work look great.
Sorry if it has been asked - but why the floppy disks?
Hi Blaizer, Yep I can totally see that it might be too late to adress that. Im sure you guys will have opportunities to work on that further on a later title/sequel!
As for the gameplay - the motion looks very fluid and playable, congrats!!
But I hope you guys wont mind a huge crit. The core shooting gameplay seems to be based on left right / forward backwards motion (in screen space), with the jump being secondary (to jump over some obstacles, and, I suppose, to shoot down certain ennemies.) With that in mind, why dont you tilt the camera down much more, taking more of an aerial view ? It was kinda confusing in Castle Crashers, and since here you got much more firing going on I suspect it would make it harder even.
It would also open alot of level design oportunities - since the game really isnt a platformer at the moment, more of side space shooter, but seen from an odd angle.
Axelay stage 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyttPDOQVM
(imagine that with a guy instead of a ship, with a slightly angled cam, and some crates to jump over - its basically the same as m12 in structure)
pior is spot on after i watched the gameplay video. Also some art direction to distinct environments from characters. There's so much variance in palette and levels, that I can't make out what's what on the screen. Gray characters on gray background, blue bullets on blue floors. One level the the next having dramatic high contrast controlling the visuals of the scene. ee-gads.
Not sure i like that enemies fire streams of bullets *shrug*. I wonder if it'd be more fun if they fired single bullets in slower rates (similar to the missles later in the video), making each bullet more dangerous, and making it more fun to roll and dodge. Just in watching it, dodging looked fun, but didnt seem that effective since dodging went right into a new wall of bullets, and i was getting annoyed just watching it haha. The missle section seemed like the most fun (if not a little over the top) because of the staggered projectiles.
The pickups are also very obtrusive, not sure of the floppy discs, and gigantic orbs. Think you could get by with smaller glowy cylinders or icons - felt cluttered.
I'll admit too, i never really liked the main male character design compared to the aliens - until this video. They really look awesome at that scale & shape. Fun!
awesome stuff! definitely looking forward to playing it, this looks fun
Big news for Exis! After months of development, adding a new lighting engine, and overall gameplay improvements we’re headed to PAX East 2012 to show off our hard work. Come visit us from April 6th to 8th at the Reverb Communications booth #808! With all new 4 player co-op and Versus modes, Majestic-12 is better than ever. Check out these new shots of our game in action (PC):
Replies
Currently, I'm on the other side of the world.So I hope no one feels like I'm ignoring feedback, it's just hard to find time to get to the computer to reply properly
Cheers
-Taco
playing with multiple variations...
the fishes are not much to my liking but hey
the animations feel so fluid and with great character!
the latest touch on the potatoman is awesome! everything looks really pro!
good job!
If you want to follow the fan page on FB:
http://www.facebook.com/ExisInteractive
Ged: Thanks for the kind words, the characters are meant to be unnerving, that's the exact look/word I wanted for them, unnerving. Thank you so much for saying that.
Honkey: Thanks man
raul: I appreciate it mate! The team is making me proud.
You guys should check out the youtube channel, we've got some videos there already, but we plan to keep adding more mj12 stuff: http://www.youtube.com/exisinteractive/
also, sign up for the youtube page for video updates! http://www.youtube.com/exisinteractive
The in-game one will be a bit less cybernetic, due to various design stuff, but basically it's a bear controlled by aliens! AND ROCKETS!
Zack Actionman
Guido Slickman
and Junk Trunk Jenny
Words fail me looking at this stuff. Brilliant texture work, animations, art style... You guys have the whole package going for you. Can't wait to see more of this.
Here are more concepts i did:
evilblah, i only did a few and the majority were posted. For the character i only did various studies and that's all.
more content soon
this vid needs to be set to the tune of "steady as she goes"
I really like the art style (looks cute but well made)
I feel theres quite an art direction break between the main egghead characters and everything else tho. Everything looks cool for what it is, but put together it starts to be odd. What about adding some more facial features to those guys ? Along the lines of anime SD characters maybe. I feel it could help making the style more unified.
(or maybe, their execution just needs more depth to the texture and some subtle added geometry to thicken the existing features - like, carving the mouth in a little, suggesting eye sockets, and so on.)
(OR! giving the monsters blocky heads too hehe)
Good luck!
Pior, some enemies keep the potato style but not really in proportions, that may be the odd thing. If you see the "lady potato" you can appreciate she is not like the other 3 characters, nor in the proportions, nor in the head.
I think you have a point, but too much work is already done
Anyways, it's something to think of.
Here's another enemy with some color variations.
Also fucking great baked in lighting/fake sss!
[ame]
Will there be any type of cooperative mode?
While i loved all of your character work (models, textures, animations) I was pretty let down by the environments displayed in the video.
Textures, lighting, background, harsh color contrasts in general - it kinda doesn't fit and blend together nicely, in my opinion and can't keep up with the characters. Hope there is some WIP-ness in the scenes and you'll work extra hours to get it nice and cohesive - would be a shame if this will not be AAA in every aspect !
Everyone else: Thank you for the kind comments, we appreciate your support very much. The team has been working very hard, and we're going to keep at it.
A side note regarding the levels and lighting and so on. We don't have a lighting system, everything is 100% self-illum. The engine is C#/XNA, so, garbage collection becomes a real issue on the 360 if it wasn't one of the primary things you had in mind when you started making the tech. The issue is that we started from baseline tech that was provided to the community, and if we'd made the mistake of adding a million visual features, we would never have made any progress on gameplay.
I appreciate the comments, and it's my sincere hope that we'll keep doing better, on this, and hopefully on future projects. Thanks again for all the support and kind words. More media coming soon !
I really dig the movement / animation of the main characters. The z-depth gameplay is nice thus far too.
To add my thoughts on the enviro work - I think right there is just a strong disconnect visually between the characters and the world. You can do a lot with out a super lighting engine to make the enviro work look great.
Sorry if it has been asked - but why the floppy disks?
As for the gameplay - the motion looks very fluid and playable, congrats!!
But I hope you guys wont mind a huge crit. The core shooting gameplay seems to be based on left right / forward backwards motion (in screen space), with the jump being secondary (to jump over some obstacles, and, I suppose, to shoot down certain ennemies.) With that in mind, why dont you tilt the camera down much more, taking more of an aerial view ? It was kinda confusing in Castle Crashers, and since here you got much more firing going on I suspect it would make it harder even.
It would also open alot of level design oportunities - since the game really isnt a platformer at the moment, more of side space shooter, but seen from an odd angle.
References :
Loaded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS3VOJ-d3HU
(mostly up/down but you get the idea)
Axelay stage 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGyttPDOQVM
(imagine that with a guy instead of a ship, with a slightly angled cam, and some crates to jump over - its basically the same as m12 in structure)
Hope this helps! Cant wait to try it out!
P
Not sure i like that enemies fire streams of bullets *shrug*. I wonder if it'd be more fun if they fired single bullets in slower rates (similar to the missles later in the video), making each bullet more dangerous, and making it more fun to roll and dodge. Just in watching it, dodging looked fun, but didnt seem that effective since dodging went right into a new wall of bullets, and i was getting annoyed just watching it haha. The missle section seemed like the most fun (if not a little over the top) because of the staggered projectiles.
The pickups are also very obtrusive, not sure of the floppy discs, and gigantic orbs. Think you could get by with smaller glowy cylinders or icons - felt cluttered.
I'll admit too, i never really liked the main male character design compared to the aliens - until this video. They really look awesome at that scale & shape. Fun!
awesome stuff! definitely looking forward to playing it, this looks fun
[ame]