#kaolink

[miloscat]

[Review] Spyro the Dragon (Mobile)

My final Spyro handheld game to cover is this poorly-titled java phone release. It was released alongside Shadow Legacy and uses the same light/dark world mechanic, and it’s an OK game.

First off, I like the graphics here. Apart from the “dragons to rescue” icon, which looks to be ripped from Shadow Legacy and doesn’t match. The backgrounds are nice and lush, the enemy sprites appropriately cute/creepy respectively in the light/dark world, and Spyro himself is a nice little pixel guy. Sure the sprites and backgrounds have different levels of detail but I think it works.

I had a bit of trouble with the controls, since I was running this in a phone emulator inside a Windows XP virtual machine. Buttons stuck sometimes which got me in hot water, and I had to use a virtual keypad to hit asterisk. Otherwise it was fine; I like that Spyro automatically flap-glides after a jump. Awkwardness arises from the “action” button which is used to attack and activate portals. Spyro also has three attack modes: one for breaking baskets and chests, and one each for light and dark world enemies. This means lots of toggling. They’re also upgraded separately, which is the role of different coloured gems in this game.

There is some backtracking since the upgraded headbash can break stronger containers, but it’s optional. The game’s short too, only six levels plus a basic boss fight against the Sorcerer, but the last few levels become quite large. There’re two themes, the dragon city and the snowy mountain.

And that’s the game in a nutshell. There’s a fair bit of blundering around the levels, getting stuck and then shifting between worlds, which then requires toggling moves. But it’s inoffensive. It’s weird that Spyro has no breath attacks at all, but that was shafted in favour of the chi/kata theme of Shadow Legacy. It also cuts out all the NPCs, which was one of the things I liked from SL, and can’t be completely attributed to the format. Eh.

[miloscat]

[Review] Spyro: Ripto Quest (Mobile)

As a quick postscript to Spyro Adventure, I played this mobile game that was released as an accompaniment. It’s not good, but it’s short!

To be fair, I’ve played worse mobile games. I’ve seen it surmised that Ripto Quest is ostensibly a follow-up to Adventure, with Ripto having broken a machine that’s holding him at bay... presumably the peephole machine from Adventure? To repair it, you need the four machine pieces. There are six levels, two for each of the palette-swapped Ice, Grass, and Fire environments, plus the Snake boss level and the hub. You rescue fairies in crystals much like in Season of Ice, and get coloured keys much like Adventure. The fourth machine part is bought from Moneybags for every gem in the game... which is 500, and they’re not very well hidden, as most levels are reasonably linear. It took me an hour to completely clear the thing.

Spyro has all his Spyro moves... sort of. The charge only lasts for one tile, so once you get the upgrade to flame breath to break jars, the latter is all you’ll ever use. You can glide... in one level only, but it’s a powerfully stable glide. Basically it has all the limitations of a mobile game, including very limited sound and basic graphics. Spyro looks OK, but as you can see in the screenshot Moneybags didn’t come off so well. Enemies are mainly reused from Adventure, including the game’s sole boss which was a de-Rhynoc-ised take on the segmented snake-like minibosses from that game.

I’m glad I played it, because overcoming the technical hurdles to actually get it running was satisfying, and it was also short. All the level designs are new! It’s got Douglas the yeti from Adventure in it! It’s a competent if truncated attempt at approximating what made Adventure fun, for systems that were much less capable. And hey, only a little backtracking required! I like that! 

[edouardalbert]

2004 - Crash Twinsanity - J2me

My role on this project: Pixel Art, Animation, Level Design

This project was my first collaboration with Kaolink studio. It was an adaptation of the console game. The game was inspired by one sequence where Crash, controlled by the player, must look after Cortex who is walking forward like a lemming. The whole gameplay is about triggering mechanisms in time to protect Cortex from being caught by traps.

SCREENSHOTS

I was in charge of creating most of the graphics of the game in several resolutions. Cortex and Crash sprites were already animated and almost done in terms of pixeal artwork, I only add to tweak them a bit. I was also involved in creating level design patterns and mount levels in the editor.

Some of the level design patterns I made for the game.

  VIDEOS

Gameplay sequence from the console version and taken as reference to make the mobile game.

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✪ TEAM ✪  

Code: Romaric de Perier, Olivier Richez Creative Direction: Philippe Tesson Game Design: Philippe Tesson, Eléonore Gaczol Level Design:  Eléonore Gaczol, Edouard Albert Art Direction: Stéphane Arson Pixel Art: Stéphane Arson, Philippe Tesson, Edouard Albert Producer: Eléonore Gaczol

© Vivendi Games, Wonderphone Developed by Kaolink

[edouardalbert]

2008 - Adi l'entraîneur - Nintendo DS

My role on this project: Pixel art, Art Direction, Storyboard

Adi l'entraîneur was an educational game on DS I have worked on for Kaolink as a freelancer. The game was published by Mindscape who later took Kaolink studio over. Adi is a collection of educational titles that started on PC in the 90's and this project was its first adaptation on Nintendo DS.

ARTWORKS

The upper screen was dedicated to the dialogs between Adi, the main human character and his fluffy fellow Woops to guide the player throughout the lessons. The bottom touch screen was logically dedicated to all the interactions to do by the user, like connecting elements together or checking numbers.

Some animation mockups I made.

My first duty was to design and adapt the lessons based on the PC cinematics on dual screen of the device. Due to technical limitations and time production, it was quickly decided to not go for full animation cinematics but rather slight animated scenes made of key poses and facial expressions. Also I had to adapt the dialogs and cut them into digest sequences. In total I drew 12 storyboards to adapt the 12 lessons.

Storyboard sample.

Art-wise, I was in charge of Woops character. I made a set of elements for each parts of the body, focusing on the face elements. By enabling or disabling the elements as layers, we could create a wide range of expressions and poses. I had to do a bit of art direction too, but it was not my primary role on the project.

SCREENS

PACKAGING

VIDEOS

Trailer.

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✪ TEAM ✪  

Code: Thierry Costa, Kyrié Humphrey, Maxime Crusson Creative Direction: Philippe Tesson  Art Direction: Stéphane Arson, Edouard Albert Art: Stéphane Arson, Philippe Tesson, Laetitia De Mesquita, Aurélie Lemaire, Edouard Albert Producer: Walid Miled

© Mindscape Developed by Kaolink