Assignment 3 Progress
My task this week for our game was to improve the sprites we were using. Originally the game was using simply geometry shapes as asteroids. In photoshop I drew up nine different proper game ready asteroids and floated them around our GDevelop environment. This instantly changed the look and feel of the game to give it a more consistent flow and art style. I also edited the sprite for the ship to give it 3 animations. A take off animation, a flying animation and a engine shutoff animation. Although in the scheme of things, these were only small implementations, they really brought the game together more. Sometimes its the little things that count.
My focus on the assignment was mostly to do with the visual aspects of the game. It was my job to immerse players in the game with captivating graphics and animations. However during our first playtesting session I realised there was a more important aspect to my role than this which I initially overlooked. My sprites needed to also convey key peices of information back to the player, they should have a look that players can form immediate assumptions about. I redesigned the powerup cannisters so they looked exciting and relevant. I made the shield generator sprite a glowing blue that players immediately associated with their shield. And I made the rapid fire an electric yellow that demonstrated power and speed.
I also redesigning the gems, I gave them a shiner look and a bit of a glow. I also gave them a flickering timer effect so that players were enticed to chase them down before they disappeared.