Premise for Tiny 16 Story
Sunday, March 23, 2014 - 11:39
Sharm made this really awesome and self-contained tileset with character sprites and monsters that begs to be used in something. I've decided my next complete game will be a mini RPG that uses this tileset because it's too cute to ignore. I'm starting with nothing (as far as game ideas) but can reasonably easily create a simple game with these assets.
http://opengameart.org/content/tiny-16-basic
I have some small ideas about game design but the goal is something I can make in 2 weeks with reasonable effort and that's fun to play. Please leave a comment if you have an idea or suggestion.
You can develop an RPG several ways ...
- Story based (the player will discover the story while they play)
- Puzzle/Quest based
- Item based (optimizing equipment is more important than the actual game)
And the everlasting question:
- Single PC or party?
And don't forget, skills. In IVAN you can get fighting levels in whatever you can hold in the hand. Someone actually gained levels in fighting with a banana, because they forgot to change the banana back to their real weapon.
Good luck :)
Let me know if you have ideas for what I should add to the set. People have been asking for me to expand it but since it was designed to be so very simple and flexible I'm not sure what to add without just adding everything anyone can think of.
Hey Sharm, your tiny 16 set is super aweseome. The useful additions that are generic enough to work anywhere might be some kind of treasure or valuable looking things. The chest is great but maybe a coin or some kind of gold/silver shiny stuff that looks like loot. If I had 2-3 loot tiles that could appear after killing an enemy or from destroying a pot it would work well. Thanks again for the sweet tiny 16 set! Suggestions:
Oh, and a death animation for the 3 player sprites would be great too!
Why not all of the above? I love Story, Equipment Optimization, Puzzles, and full Parties. Well, for Single PC or Party I always prefer Party; can't have both Single PC and a Party.
Granted, that kind of thing is hard to do in a simple game. Since this is a simple game, I'd say don't focus much on Story. Out of Story, Equipment Optimization, and Puzzles, I prefer the idea of making puzzles to solve throughout the journey. Maybe Equipment Optimization, too.
This is also why, out of all RPG's, I tend to consider Lufia II my favorite RPG game of all time. Lufia II is a combination of puzzles, items, and story, but it has a huge focus on puzzle-solving. The entire game, every dungeon is a series of puzzles to solve, a lot of which revolve around the movement types of different monsters (which aren't random encounters like the first one).
Its also about item customization, too, due to the special IP system where different weapons and armor can release special attacks or powers. Other RPG's allow equipment to teach skills, on the other hand, such as Final Fantasy IX and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (both games).
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Okay, I added a fallen pose, a sleeping pose, some piles of gems and coins.
Those new tiles look really awesome. Sorry I didn't get back to you yesterday, I was in Belgium at the NATO headquarters doing some work most of the week.
Don't worry about it, as long as I get feedback at some point I'm happy. Feel free to suggest more.
Not to bump my own dead discussions but this was a new development and directly related so it's worth mentioning.
I made a playable version of the tiny 16 mockups Sharm made. It's nothing more than a walk around demo but it looks cute and is worth doing as an exercise to work with HaxeFlixel.
http://www.will-thompson.net/tiny/
That's pretty cool! You need to change the credit though, I'm not Open Game Art after all. ;)
I'm not sure I understand how you want the credits. It has your handle and a link to your OGA profile, would you prefer your real name instead?
Okay, I feel dumb now. I played the demo first and then went to find the credits, and since there's no way to go back to the menu from there all I saw was the text at the bottom of the page. It's fine the way it is, I'm sorry.
Some critique for the Tiny 16 set:
These are my opinion. After looking through some NES tiles (Dragon Warrior is my favorite NES title) I saw several things that were great ideas. Here's a link to some of the DW tiles in case you wonder what I'm talking about:
http://www.dragon-warrior.com/Images/tileset.gif
Here's a link to page where I got this image link:
http://www.dragon-warrior.com/Images/Tile_Sets.shtml
No roofs, it's not that kind of tileset. I'll have to see about the sprites, they are not fun for me to make and I don't feel I'm very good at them which is why there are so few sprites and monsters in the first place. Thanks for the links, references are always good to have and I do plan to keep expanding this one.
BTW, here are some links to other sets that I think would work well with this one if you edit the palette.
http://opengameart.org/content/minimal-background-tubes
http://opengameart.org/content/16x16-fantasy-tileset
http://opengameart.org/content/blowhard-chronicles
http://opengameart.org/content/blowhard-2-blow-harder
No worries about the credits.
As far as the links, I've seen all those before and didn't think about the background matching this set. With a little recoloring that would do nicely. I really like the style you've made with your tiny 16 set; it's almost adictive to play with it. Man that sounds dirty...
Anyway, thanks for the links. I'll probably continue to tinker.
I can appreciate not wanting to make more sprites, I understand they take some work and time.
Since this is totally voluntary and you're doing this in your spare time, thank you. Maybe I could try to recolor the cloths you've given us already, that might get a little more millage out of this set.
As a side note, I think it would make sense to group sprites into one set and map tiles into a second set.
EDIT
The way you have it makes sense too by the way. Objects that can be animated in one set, map tiles in another, and sprites in a third does make sense. I guess I'm just fumbling my way through trying to say putting map tiles and objects together would make sense too.
I made a modified version of a town from Dragon Warrior I that uses the Tiny-16 tileset. The first is the original in the original tileset, the second uses the tiny-16 set and is altered. What do you think of it?
Hmm, comparisons like that are cool, it helps me see what is and isn't working for the set. It'd be easier to do a direct compare and contrast if the the mapping were the same though.
Same village, same rotation.
Hmm, okay. Seems like a visual upgrade all around so that's cool. I'll have to see about making those poplars and some signs for the basic shops. If you noticed anything specific that seems missing let me know.
Out of curiosity, why didn't you use the upper corner peice for the walls?
Why, whatever do you mean? Of course I used the proper wall tiles everywhere... (quick, hide the bodies!)
I think my bigest interest at this point is seeing some bridges and signs, that would make the set universal and complete enough I could make a full game given time and enough attention. Something for an inn, something for an armory/weapon vendor, and something for an item vendor, possibly something for a magic shop would be nice too but not essential.
Some quick feedback on the demo if you care for it:
looks awesome! You are definitely right about Sharm's tileset demanding to be used!
Player handles a little funny, seems to have a bit of momentum to him which feels off to me for some reason.
might want to add a little dead-zone to the scrolling, so the whole image doesn't shift if you turn around quickly.
layout of dungeon in house is backwards. On the world map the house is on the left and the outdoor entrance is on the right, but inside the cave the two exits are arranged right to left.
Love the corpse in the jail cell, instantly curious about his/her fate!
Some dungeons from Dragon Warrior that use the Tiny-16 tileset.
@capbros
You will be happy to know I've tweeked the movement so it has no momentum, it's purely like the old NES-style movement system. I've also added path finding so you can click where you want hero to go and they'll go to that tile. I've also moved the stairs so they make more sense logically just because you brought it up ;)
@Sharm
I really appreciate the tiny-16 set and I look forward to more updates in the future.
@anyone
Walk around demo is still here:
will-thompson.net/tiny
Updated. Requests fulfilled. :D
I am quite excited to hear about updates! I'll have to check when not on my phone. Thank you Sharm!
I put the source for what I've made so far on github if anyone is interested. As I make revisions I'll push commits. I'm going to use this project to learn how to properly make an RPG style game in HaXe Flixel. This is turning into a good training tool for learning how to make the RPG I started with, KUJASA!
https://github.com/williamthompsonj/TinyTown
http://opengameart.org/forumtopic/looking-for-game-story
Sharm, do you mind if I have a few sprites made with your base so you don't need to worry about that part? I like this set, it works so nice for prototyping.
I don't mind at all, that's why I included the base.
Thanks for the update Sharm. Like Will I also really like your tileset, and I will add your addition to my 32x32 remake (I like 32x32 tilesets more than 16x16). This set is very awesome from its unique looks thanks to the dawnbringer palette.
This tileset made me starting to do pixelart, but I'm not very good at it atm, must practice more ;) Hopefully I can contribute to this awesome tileset, I'm working on some basic items (mostly weapons and shields) but really need more practice.
Some additions I would really appreciate would be more characters in rpg style, like a Warrior with sword/axe and shield, a Ranger with a bow, and a Sorcerer with wand and orb. Ultimately with three different quality looks like maybe:
- first warrior with plain wooden club and wooden shield, no armor
- second warrior with chain mail, helm, metal shield and axe
- third warrior with plate mail, helm with feathers (or similar) golden sword and metal shield
to really support character progression with it outlooks. (this idea is inspired by classic Diablo, it had exactly that visual upgrades based upon the quality of your equipped items)
@Will: If you search for some additions based upon the dawnbringer16 palette look here:
http://opengameart.org/content/dawnlike-16x16-universal-rogue-like-tiles...
http://opengameart.org/content/gem-icons
http://opengameart.org/content/gold-treasure-icons
Also I would like to see your created sprites ;)
Let's keep working on this awesome tileset, it could become something great ;)
EDIT: Found some character sprites here as a rough direction http://opengameart.org/content/700-sprites
Those are some really good sprites to look through. I'll have to see if I can make use of those before I have more made. Thanks Grimfist!
I found this collection of JRPG stuff that's close to the same size (either 16x16 or 16x18) and seems to be in similar style. Please tell me if you think any of this can be used with tiny-16:
I'm curious about what you're seeing that I'm not because they're not a similar style to me. The color count is much higher, there's more detail and texture, and there's a different scale. Some things might be able to work with some recoloring but there'd be some some trial and error involved in finding them. Nothing jumps out at me as useful, but that doesn't mean it's not there.
I agree with you Sharm, the db16 palette makes the look of your tiles very unique, and most of the tiles in the collection William linked are with 256 colors or more. I think some tiles could be reworked into db16 palette.
As I had some time over the long holiday weekend I tried something out. I did some variations of the floor tiles and especially the wall torch from redshrikes tiles http://opengameart.org/content/16x16-indoor-rpg-tileset-the-baseline
The problem is that the limited color palette makes it really difficult adopting existing tiles with more then 16 colors. Especially when it comes to shading.
Maybe some of these tiles
http://opengameart.org/content/16x16-wall-set
http://opengameart.org/content/16x16-town-remix
can be reworked, but I don't see much of them fitting.
The main issue is the limited palette, which makes it difficult to rework existing tiles, but that is exactly the challenge behind such a limited palette.
Maybe a recoloring with the db32 palette would make more sense?
P.S Here are my tile iterations so far
I'm definitely not a graphic artist and severly lack the "artistic eye" when it comes to matching things. Maybe if some of those JRPG sprites were converted to DB32 pallette they would look more usable with tiny-16. They could also be different enough from the tiny-16 set that uses DB16 that they wouldn't run the chance of blending together. What do you all think?
They'd look closer but I don't think it'd be close enough. Having a low or high color count per tile is a rather specific aesthetic, you normally can't blend those together without it looking out of place. This is why I put Jerome's 16x16 tiles on my list of things I think are compatible, they have a lot fewer colors but per tile it's actually about the same number. For added fun, many of those tiles could be recolored multiple ways and still totally work.
@William.Thompsonj
Some more 'feedback', ok I'll be honest, some more nitpicking ;)
The movement does feel much better to me now, only bummer now is that the animation looks very unnatural when moving on the diagonal.
Click to move works real well, I prefer direct control but in case you needed a 2nd opinion on it, your implementation seems solid to me.
Ok, the nitpicks:
Character's collision box for player vs tile map collisions should be smaller and centered around his/her feet, such that you player's head and body are allowed to overlap with walls/etc. when approaching them from below. I do get this effect if I walk along the forest at the top of the town map, but not when walking next to the buildings/walls elsewhere.
Another reason to make the col box a little tighter is so that the player doesn't get stuck on corners as much or have to work quite so hard to line up the character when entering a 1 tile pathway (such as doors, bridge, etc.). Two alternate solutions would be not to use 1 tile wide/high paths (always make sure paths are at least 2 units wide/high) or to use the fancy path finding to help nudge the player into a path if they start pushing up against the corner of one.
Conversly, the player's col box should probably extend slightly lower so that the graphic for his shadow does not go over the edges as much.
Player should collide with the individual trees. Maybe that's just my preference but it feels odd to see the player walk over top of them.
X and y motion should be around .7 of their normal value when moving diagonally. This keeps the player's velocity constant, as opposed to moving faster when going diagonally.
bug? I can's seem to enter the house with the red carpet.
I think the forest tiles are a little off, seems like player is only stopped by the center/fill tile and not by any of the border tiles, except along the top border. Result is the player can walk over the forest trees along the left/right/bottom edges (as stated this actually looks fine for bottom), but can't get close to the top edges (moving down toward the forest). You probably want to re-work the tiles a little so the edge tiles fill a whole unit. Either that or let the player partially (but only partially) enter the edge tiles.
Ok, well let me know if this feedback is helpful. I know these are all just nitpicks, and you said this was a quick prototype, so maybe you know all this stuff is rough and were planning to tidy it up later, but since it is a 'walking around' demo, I thought I'd provide you feedback on the walking around. :)
@Sharm
any hope for diagonal sprites?
Ummm, maybe? I'll have to think about it.
Hello!
My English is very, very bad, sorry.
Thanks for tiny.
Cordially.
Bye.