Powerup Projectiles
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Hello everyone! This week I will talk about two different assets I created for the game. I am aware I should only write about one artefact, but these assets were created basically at the same time, therefore I will talk about them both. Here are the two assets I created:
First out is a projectile for the EMP powerup. This projectile is shot out of the main cannon and after a short travel time it explodes, creating a massive shockwave. Since the projectile is so small ingame I only used 64×64 pixels for it. More data would not be necessary for this sprite. I used the pencil tool in Photoshop to draw with pixels. At first I used the brush tool but it resulted in a mess of brush strokes and low opacity smudge. I highly recommend using the pencil tool for people who want to create art at lower pixel dimensions.
And the second one is for a powerup called GPB, which is an acronym for Gravity Propulsion Bomb. It gets shot out of the main cannon, travels for a short period of time, then explodes and creates a massive black hole. It pulls enemies into the center and irradicates them. I wanted these sprites to have a similar look. I was thinking that these could be mass produced ”alienified” barrels containing powers not known to mankind.
This is how the EMP powerup looks like. Once dropped by aliens, they will appear in the game world as seen above. When the player clicks the ”bubble”, he or she receives the power up and can use it at any given time. The ”bubble” is also animated. Its glow varies, and thus we make the player WANT to pick it up. ”Oooh, shiny!” Because of technical difficulties I had to let one of my other artists render out the animation. That means I do not have a ready .gif to show you guys. What I can show you is the sprite sheet, so you get an idea of how it looks ingame.
Here we see the sprite sheet for the GPB. We actually had to remake this animation quite recently. At first we had a yellow ”bubble” for the GPB powerup. It looked like this:
It was clear that playtesters found this to be confusing. a yellow bubble around a purple powerup that creates a purple black hole. We obviously had to change this. And that really shows how important playtesting is. It truly helps the project when a fresh pair of eyes looks at the project. That is all from me, have a great day!  |
