[Java2D] Izzy's Revenge

[The-Next]

Hi all!

I want to indtroduce you Izzy's Revenge, a 2D HD platformer based on a steampunk environment. I'm making it using plain Java2D. Yes, yes I know most of you recommends not to use it, but I take it as a personal challenge .

I'm very thankful to this forum for several tips I learned from it, speacially how to make some fake lighting (http://www.java-gaming.org/index.php?topic=26851.0).

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Phov5OJjwiE?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/Phov5OJjwiE?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=</a>

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any comment will be appreciated, thank you!!

[deathpat]

seems to be nice !

The animation of the character is really cool and the dynamic lighting will certainly help a lot to build a cool mood for indoor levels

keep up the good work ! I hope to see a playable demo soon

[Pickleninja]

Great work!  I really like the parallax backgrounds, you did a good job on those


-Pickle

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[The-Next]

Thank you very much for your comments.

Once we have new gameplay/demo I will upload it.

[StumpyStrust]

Nice lighting 

Biggest gripe I have with java2D is the fact you can't get accelerated additive blending...

[The-Next]

Hi! while the artists are reworking Izzy's animations and designing the first level. I've been working on a trigger system. We want to add several features via buttons and invisible triggers like objects movement, lighting effects or monster spawning. I 'm working on some type of trigger that allows any combination of such events:

We have some of them already implemented:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/qudTf59hGiA?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/qudTf59hGiA?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=</a>

[The-Next]

While I'm adding  new features into the game, one of our artists is having fun making death animations!

[Gjallar]

Pretty good, but the first frames seem quite fluent to me whereas at the end it jumps to the final one.

[sproingie]

*Fluid.

And I agree, it needs an extra frame before the last one.  Plus it looks incomplete, like she should be falling over on her side instead of holding that kneeling pose.

[The-Next]

Thanks!! I personally agree with you! The artist wanted to speed up the final part, but she has to add at least one extra frame.
About the final position, good point, maybe we have to thing about it a little bit more.


P.S. Beheading is also being considered, I'm figuring out how to implement this:

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[Thesisus]

I agree, there is something odd in the direction she is facing at the end.

[The-Next]

I convinced the artist to improve the animations , meanwhile i've been working on a configurable particle system. We want to use them for many effects, like smoke, fire or blood:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/yvo5RbQQ4u0?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/yvo5RbQQ4u0?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=</a>

We tried to add as many configurable parameters as possible, like disperssion, external forces, or random selection of different particles:

[The-Next]

Hi all! Today I want to show you some artwork of our level artist. The first level of the game is Izzy's house, wich is will be used for introducing the game history and gameplay.

It was quite hard to decide the art style, specially if we should do a pure 2D (side view) game or add some perspective to the levels. At the end we decided to choose the second option, although it forced us to do some modifications in the game engine.

You can see full post here: http://www.indie4fun.com/post/39200643151/backgrounds-izzys-house-pablo

[The-Next]

I just finished a simple way of doing hot air or water distortion effects in Java 2D. It is made with a particle generator, where the particles are portions of the original screen slightly translated and very transparent:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/tpKI_l8OgI4?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/tpKI_l8OgI4?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=</a>

[Jimmt]

It was quite hard to decide the art style, specially if we should do a pure 2D (side view) game or add some perspective to the levels. At the end we decided to choose the second option, although it forced us to do some modifications in the game engine.

I'm considering this for my own upcoming game, and I just wanted to know how difficult it was to implement. Was it difficult to make the hitboxes for the obstacles?

[Pickleninja]

awesome effect! I love it

[Sparky83]

In my opinion this project is outstanding!! It looks adorable and you seem to be moving into the right direction with it. At least the artworks look fantastic. And the whole technical stuff with the real-time-editor and the effects. And all this in Java2D? I can hardly believe it. Keep up the good work!

[The-Next]

Thanks all for your comments! The two artist are quite talented, but they don't work as much as I would like

Jimmt, the problems related with perspective were due the lighting system. I had to remake the shadowing part. Also, I added oval shadows at the bottom of the objects. Also, the builder is still pure 2D and (more or less) tile-based, so we have to fake the perspective.

For example, the floor is divided in two parts, the top part is just part of the background and the bottom part collides with the character:

Anyways, we are just starting to map the levels, I'm sure that new problems will appear!!


About the distortion effect, it is made in a quite easy way. Even java 2D can handle it! It is just a particle generator (origin at the cyan square). The particles are fragments of the background image, with some shift. With a low alpha value they mix very well with the background:

[The-Next]

Hi! we added sound capabilities inside the game thanks to the Tynisound library. It worked great! We added environmental sounds.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/JDQMgKrNmbw?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/JDQMgKrNmbw?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=</a>

[The-Next]

Jimmt, you gonna love this update!

We have been working all this month trying to figure out how to use perspective correctly. We wanted to do a modular scheme: create any room size from a few tiles.

The first attempts gone quite bad: everything was too complicated and looked broken:

After a while, we tried to simplify the idea as much as possible:

With this new set we finally managed to get nice results:

Also, we have updated the map builder with several tools that we realized they are very useful like undo/redo, add invisible colliding elements, dragging elements or copy/move big level areas:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/QXSJQjKMnJg?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/QXSJQjKMnJg?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=</a>

PS. Maria is still working hard trying to improve Izzy's animation as much as possible. As we are not rich she has to use cheap, not orthodox methods:

[Jimmt]

Nice work with the faked perspective, works well in the map editor!
If you need 2d animation there's Spine (http://www.java-gaming.org/topics/spine-2d-skeletal-animation/27914/view.html) developed by one of the makers of libgdx, which hit over $50K in kickstarter. It's not free but still pretty cheap for a professional level animation tool.

[The-Next]

Hi!

Thanks! if you have any question anytime please ask me!

I discovered Spine a few days ago and it looks awesome, it a really professional tool. We have been talking a lot about that: should we draw all the frames or use a skeleton system?. Maria thinks that the movement can appeal more natural by drawing all the frames. Also, she is learning a lot about animation .

[hvince95]

To me, the perspective that you have used in drawing the walls does not look right.  In the purple picture, it seems that the perspective for the hole in the centre platform and the lowered ceiling above it have been done incorrectly.  For the rest of the scene, the perspective lines are drawn back to one point, like in one point perspective, but for these two parts something has gone wrong!  You should not be able to see the sides of the walls for the lowered ceiling, and the ends of the floor in the centre platform should be reversed.
Just something to consider.

[The-Next]

Yes, I agree with you, but realize that if you try to fake 3D perspective with 2D drawings, you will have that problems allways at some point. We inspired ourselvels in games like treasure adventure world or a boy and its blob. They have that type of "bad perspectives", but the final result is fine enough:

(second 45)

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/AOgwi0w7O7w?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/AOgwi0w7O7w?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=</a>

[The-Next]

Finally, we have some extra artwork!!:

Izzy in a killing spree:

City where Izzy lives:

We are still fighting with the house mapping:

click here for full size image!
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/96150028/blog/update_maraton/img4.png

[Sparky83]

The artworks are so ultra nice!! O_O I really love them because of their style. The first one is really cool, but the skintight dress maybe makes her a bit too sexy. *g*
I also really like the rooms! The graphics look awesome!

[The-Next]

Hello! We're not dead!!

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/JT2JzMF168o?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/JT2JzMF168o?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=</a>

After several months of silence, we are back! Many things happened during this period. Maria and Néstor moved from the north of Spain to Valencia, so the full team is now together. We just set a small office and we spend a few hours everyday in the project.

The detail of Izzy’s animations has been increased.  Izzy was too small, all the animations have been redone, and a few ones like ladder climbing and sliding have been added. Finally, the graphic engine has been improved with many bugfixes and some new features like a tween engine.

We decided to rework the whole graphic style. The previous house looked too depressing and we wanted a more cartoonish style.









Also, we wanted to show some of the new designs we've been making, not in-game images but you can see all the new background style we are creating!







From now, you will hear very frequently from us as Izzy’s Revenge just became a serious project for us.
Kisses!

[sproingie]

The cut-out on her outfit just looks weird now.  Either show more or less skin, but as it is right now, it looks like she's wearing a cleavage decal.

[indie4fun]

Hello everyone! We've been talking about the cleavage issue and we've sketched a new design for the main character of our game. At first we started with some braces:



And then we added a t-shirt. You can see the comparison between the two designs here:




Thank you for your feedback! it's really valuable to us!

[sproingie]

That looks a little more realistic, and the shirt gives a little extra definition too, so she can stand in front of white backgrounds without being mostly camouflaged