Watergun Alien

This week I have put focus on drawing sprites. As I have not really done top-down sprites before, I had to learn some new techniques. I googled around to find some reference images for top-down sprites and stumbled upon the classic title Alien Breed for the Amiga.

Alien Breed’s player sprites’ has served well as references but I felt like it would look weird  if the player character had the weapon straight in front of the face. I mean; who the heck holds a rifle like that?! The result looks pretty good. It is far from flawless but I am still quite satisfied with it.

The first player sprite I made was a bit dark and grey as you can see in this gif (I do not have the original image left):

This particular sprite was made to serve as a place holder as our coders’ wanted a place holder that actually resembled the final product.

I have re-worked the sprite and have changed the weapon in to something that more or less resembled a water gun. By giving the rifle more rounded shapes and adding bright colors like green and yellow I have created a more plastic feel to it and lowered the tone of ‘serious combat’.

Still it is far from flawless. My next step will be adding a little bit more depth to the character by adding shadows and reflections.

I have also made a sprite for the slow kids but it is currently serving as place holder.

Not all my focus has gone in to making sprites as I have the producer role this week it is my responsibility to fix the remaining problems with our SCRUM-document i.e. I have to redo the deadline section of the product backlog. This will consume some of the time I could have put on the sprites but it has to be done and I will not rest until everything is done. No, wait, I should probably rest at some point or else nothing will be done.

Before the week is over I will have to fix the SCRUM, make idle sprites for all the enemies and the male player character, and start animating the player characters’. This will be a busy weekend but it will be worth it because I have a good feeling about our game and I trust that everyone else on the team are doing their part.