Author Topic: Elimination: Detecting objects as enemies  (Read 18507 times)

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Offline Hot_Dog

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Elimination: Detecting objects as enemies
« on: October 02, 2011, 02:59:14 pm »
I started this topic because I've had some people telling me that enemies are hard to see because they show up as "pixelated blobs."  Sooner or later, we might have to live with that.  But until then, I've been brainstorming ideas, and calc84maniac was a help as well.  I started this topic so that I can show some things I tried out and get opinions on them.

IDEA 1: Stop thickening enemy textures.

I always thickened the lines that I used to draw enemies so that the player could see them.  However, they do make it hard to tell what's an enemy and what's an object, so I plan later on thinning the lines and instead adding more detail.  BUT, enemies still appear defragmented from a distance, same as other objects.  How can you tell one distorted object from another?

IDEA 2: Show a player that the object is an enemy, not a spaceship or a tree

At the moment, this is what I need an opinion of.  You can see in the screenshot below that every enemy has a gray arrow above it.  That way you can see from far away that an object is an enemy instead of something else.  Right now it's a proof of concept, because I have to remove a couple of bugs where the arrow shows an enemy behind a wall

Offline Eeems

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Re: Elimination: Detecting objects as enemies
« Reply #1 on: October 02, 2011, 03:08:29 pm »
That looks great :D
Hmm, you could also try alternates to the arrow, like maybe a circle see which works best.
/e

Offline calc84maniac

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Re: Elimination: Detecting objects as enemies
« Reply #2 on: October 02, 2011, 03:34:11 pm »
I like that idea, it really gives you an idea of where the enemies are :)

Though, to keep it from ruining the element of surprise, perhaps you should only draw arrows when the enemies are close to the center of the screen.
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Offline Hot_Dog

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Re: Elimination: Detecting objects as enemies
« Reply #3 on: October 02, 2011, 04:26:03 pm »
To keep it from ruining the element of surprise, perhaps you should only draw arrows when the enemies are close to the center of the screen.

That's a good idea.  After all, now that there's some way for someone to tell an enemy, I don't have to worry about people having to fire blindly

Offline boot2490

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Re: Elimination: Detecting objects as enemies
« Reply #4 on: October 03, 2011, 09:21:22 pm »
How about only having enimies? scenery never looks good until you are a foot away from it. It is like your character is nearsighted ;D
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Offline Hot_Dog

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Re: Elimination: Detecting objects as enemies
« Reply #5 on: October 03, 2011, 09:46:46 pm »
How about only having enimies? scenery never looks good until you are a foot away from it. It is like your character is nearsighted ;D

Granted! ;D  But I'm not ready to give it up.  Even if you have to be close to scenery to see it, it adds a pretty touch as opposed to a map that has nothing but walls.

Offline boot2490

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Re: Elimination: Detecting objects as enemies
« Reply #6 on: October 04, 2011, 11:04:21 am »
hmm.. how about everything except for enemies are grey and enimies are black? But some meemies will be grey to fool you...
And/or enemies should meve more so it is more evident. If you make that the case, they should be a little easier to kill.
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Offline Hot_Dog

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Re: Elimination: Detecting objects as enemies
« Reply #7 on: October 04, 2011, 12:33:14 pm »
hmm.. how about everything except for enemies are grey and enimies are black? But some meemies will be grey to fool you...
And/or enemies should meve more so it is more evident. If you make that the case, they should be a little easier to kill.

Those are both good ideas, so I'll try both.  Although I'm going to make the enemies, not the objects, gray.  Also, the moving around faster might make it hard for a player to aim...I've played this on actual hardware, and it's not easy as it is.

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Re: Elimination: Detecting objects as enemies
« Reply #8 on: October 04, 2011, 05:19:16 pm »
How about only having enimies? scenery never looks good until you are a foot away from it. It is like your character is nearsighted ;D

NOO!! I wants scenery!

I also think the gray arrows look totally fine. I would probably prefer to play a game with the gray arrows as opposed to without.
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Offline boot2490

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Re: Elimination: Detecting objects as enemies
« Reply #9 on: October 04, 2011, 08:08:54 pm »
What about making scenery gray so you know when you see an enemy? that way you can't see them behind walls.
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Offline Hot_Dog

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Re: Elimination: Detecting objects as enemies
« Reply #10 on: October 04, 2011, 09:44:45 pm »
What about making scenery gray so you know when you see an enemy? that way you can't see them behind walls.

Can you rephrase?  I'm confused.

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Re: Elimination: Detecting objects as enemies
« Reply #11 on: October 04, 2011, 10:35:13 pm »
What is the size of the enemy sprites right now? If you can't increase detail, I like the arrows.
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Re: Elimination: Detecting objects as enemies
« Reply #12 on: October 04, 2011, 10:35:41 pm »
I personally like the triangles.




Offline boot2490

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Re: Elimination: Detecting objects as enemies
« Reply #13 on: October 05, 2011, 12:02:41 pm »
If the scenery was all gray except for wall outlines, which are black, and then enemies are black, they would be more visible.
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Re: Elimination: Detecting objects as enemies
« Reply #14 on: October 05, 2011, 03:10:52 pm »
Yeah I'm curious if that would make them easier to see. Kinda like how some calc games use gray for background images on which enemies can show up (such as Project M).

Btw this looks great Hot Dog but I think the arrows should be a bit smaller so when there are many enemies they are easier to distinguish from each others.