Comments on: Retrofit Contest – Week 4

By: CaptSnaz

CaptSnaz — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:56:33 +0000

You’ve left out the Pearly White&Blue Block. That was always my favorite. It was a beautiful, hard & glossy immovable thing.

By: InsaneJetman

InsaneJetman — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 08:32:41 +0000

I have my doubts about a light source from above. However, I do agree that the slime/ice shadows don’t seem right. Also, bright cheerful areas sound great. I didn’t mind the cloud graphic.

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:27:14 +0000

I’ll experiment with a light source from above, and I’ll add a brick surrounded in stone.

I’ll also try out the slime/ice without shadows and a thinner border on the purple block (phase door).

I’m going to try applying some artistic filters to the background to make it match the game graphics. However, the game is going to have some bright cheerful areas to appeal to more players, as well as the standard cave/industrial.

By: Adam Dobay

Adam Dobay — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:27:24 +0000

Jojo, I do like the red on blue, and it’s refreshing to see a proper background picture. I think it’s nice.

By: Jojo

Jojo — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:10:12 +0000

Some thoughts:
- Maybe it’s not a good idea to have such a big border around the purple block.
- “Also, the background resonates greatly with the tiles and is a superb addition” – I hope you don’t mean that blue background with clouds, it looks like a temporary image to me, and I hope it really is one, because it looks cheap and especially combined with the tiles, it makes the level faaaaaaaar too colourful.
- faux 3d, hell yes!
- candy! <3

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:33:45 +0000

I think the moss and ice would look better if they didn’t have a shadows (makes them appear floating on the brick instead of covering it).

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:32:15 +0000

I really like the use of brick blocks that have thin layers of stone on one or more sides, it would be really nice if it’s possible to have a single block with all sides having this thin layer applied, I would usually redesign my old levels to avoid single floating blocks simply because it would break the visual style of the level if I had to make it completely stone or gold etc.

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:29:20 +0000

One comment on the 3D’ness. I think it looks a lot nicer to have the “light source” coming from directly above, otherwise you have an arbitrary feeling that there’s a sun in the upper left, which may not suit all levels, and will partially ruin some symmetric levels, also light source in the upper left is a bit outdated, for example look at Windows 2000 and before, they had upper left, but XP+ and OS X now have a light source directly above. It’s not just OS’s but all kinds of graphic design in websites etc.
Though just cause other people aren’t using that style doesn’t make a very good case not to use it…

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:49:00 +0000

Yeah those spikes are not the greatest.

By: Adam Dobay

Adam Dobay — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:42:31 +0000

Wow, the faux-3d looks great, I do like the box but I also don’t like the purple block. The fact that it’s purple is no problem (although renaming my ‘Pink is my favourite colour’ level will lose the song reference), but the pink block was my favourite of all the tiles in the original game so I hope there comes an entry that preserves it’s original charm.
Also, the background resonates greatly with the tiles and is a superb addition, together with the faux-3d it makes the whole thing look much more professional.