[WIP] Tales of Lena - 2D (pixel art) platformer

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Tales of Lena
2D retro-styled platform game

Introduction
I started this project about 3 months ago. Some people might remember my previous project called Lands of Treasure which I put aside to work on a simpler game that wouldn’t take years to finish.
I already posted a few bits and pieces of this game in the Small Works Art thread but I felt like it was time to make a thread of its own.

Story
In this game you play as Lena, a treasure hunter…
At this moment I am focusing on gameplay so there I haven’t though out the story yet.

Gameplay
As in most platform games, the goal is to reach the end of the level. On your way you will find enemies, obstacles and lots of secrets that lead to hidden treasures.
As this is an Android game, I wanted to keep the gameplay and controls as simple as possible. Apart from walking left and right you have 2 action buttons:

  • Jump: Kill enemies and reach higher places.
  • Interact: Kick and destroy blocks, go through doors,…

The game is split up in worlds, every world has 2 levels, each level has a certain amount of (optional) treasures to collect and the second level will end with a boss fight.
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Graphics
As a big fan of Retro games I chose to do pixel art graphics using DawnBringer’s 16 colors palette.
All graphics are made by me using Aseprite.

Media

There’s definitely a lot more to tell about my game than this so feel free to ask questions and I’ll be happy to answer them :slight_smile: Feedback is also welcome as long as it’s constructive :wink:

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This could be an interesting game if it plays different than the other 1 billion platformers out there. Hopefully you have something special to show. I have my ideas for something like this keeping with the treasure theme.

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I like retro style :slight_smile:
Is there any reason the hero must eat fruits?
And when it will be released - roughly?

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Fruits are good for you!
Looks awesome, keep it up! : D
You have any more information how the levels will be built/connected?
Will you have some overview, or will you just enter new level as soon as you exit the old one? Will it be linear or more metroid style with many choices of paths?

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Well it won’t play that much different cause it’s still a platformer, and I want to keep it simple. Of course that doesn’t mean I’m going to rush it.

My problem with some of the available platformers is that they either lack polish or content/variety. There’s one platformer on iOS that has some really beautiful pixel art graphics. The first level is also a forest, so is the second and third and fourth,… Turns out there are 16 levels that look the same… After that you are in a cave for 16 levels and finally in a town for another 16 levels.

I’m trying to make my game more like the old Sonic The Hedgehog games, 2 levels for each world/setting, end with a boss and then go to a new world/setting that feels different, has different monsters and collectibles,… It won’t be Angry Bird inspired, so no table of 100+ uninspired levels to get 3 starts for :wink:

Thanks :smile: Me too!
Actually those fruits are just score collectibles. they will be different for each world. In this forest they’re fruits, in a cave they might be mushrooms, in a village marketplace they might be vegetables and bread,… (This idea came from Jazz Jackrabbit 2) I have an idea to give them a bit more purpose but I’m not sure about it yet. In the final game they will also be placed more along the way.

Roughly? 2015! :stuck_out_tongue:
It’s hard to say really, I try to work on it as much as possible even though I have a full time job that already involves 8+ hours of PC work (3D, programming, web design) ^^’ I do have some ideas to release it in episodes :slight_smile: Haha, that doesn’t really sound too positive but don’t worry, it’ll still be a free game (Idea of it being a free game was back when I was targeting mobile) :slight_smile:

Exactly! :stuck_out_tongue:
Thank you very much! :smile:

There will be an overview map. Each time you finish a level you go back to this map and a new marker will appear for the next level. Metroid style would be really cool but as my first game I want to keep it simple :wink:

Each level is split in a number of parts, as you can see in the video, you’ll find doorways here and there. These always work both ways, unlike in games like Kirby’s Dreamland, you will always have the ability to go back to the previous part.

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Sounds great!
Love the doorways, makes the levels a lot more interesting and also a sense of exploring and mystery as you never know what you will expect : )

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Yep :smile: Already thinking about a city/village level where you can enter certain houses, revealing a single screen interior.

I wonder if anyone else had this feeling but I got some feedback that Lena seemed to walk a bit slowly… I’m fixing that now :wink:

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Well, for walking its a good speed, but it looks a lot more like she is running, so increasing the speed a bit will probably help match with the animation : )

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The new speed is definitely better :slight_smile: I always had the feeling my character was walking a bit slowly but I couldn’t do much about it without breaking pixel perfection… I found a solution now which I thought I tried before but it seems I didn’t cause it’s working really well so far.

I’m a bit of a perfectionist really, having pixel art graphics isn’t enough, everything has to be 100% pixel perfect, else the retro feel is broken. To make this all possible I’m not using any Unity Collision or Physics stuff. I made my own simple collision system so gameobject positions are always integer and not “floaty”. Really happy with the result :slight_smile:

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Your art is clean and pleasing - as well as the smooth gameplay. Keep at it. I like the quality level you are presenting!
Half of the “1 billion platformers out there” are marred with rough visuals and partially developed gameplay elements. Deliver a quality complete product - that’s how you can be different than half of the 1 billion platformers out there. I personally enjoy interesting rpg elements woven into platform game design.

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Thank you very much :smile:

I definitely agree with that :slight_smile: Also, did I already say this game will be free? Quality game for everyone, can’t go wrong, right? (Won’t be free anymore now that it’s targeting PC instead of mobile)

Even though I’d love to add elements like that, I really have to keep this game simple else I might never finish it ^^’

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Small update:

I’ve been doing some “behind the scenes” coding lately so nothing really new to show…
Next up is making the main menu and level overview interface and link that all together.

In terms of graphics I made a logo animation (not too interesting to make a gif of) and now I’m mainly tweaking stuff, getting rid of the black outlines on effect, making some small changes to the player animations,… Next up for art will be menu graphics. I will also be getting some help from a friend do make an awesome title screen background. She’ll be doing a sketch and I’ll turn it into pixel art :slight_smile: She actually drew Lena in the past (though with different colored clothes):

878×1000 186 KB

With that you can more or less imagine what kind of style the title screen and eventual cut-scenes might look like :slight_smile:

I also set up a Trello for myself to keep track of everything I still need to do :slight_smile: That will definitely keep my work more organized!

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Amazing art! Keep it up : D

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Er… um… SHE GOT ON BLUE PANTIES! MESSED ME UP!

Sorry, I was totally reminded of Sinbad the stand up comedian for a second.

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Thank you very much :smile:

Haha, don’t ask me why her panties are visible like that :stuck_out_tongue: I didn’t draw it :wink: Actually I forgot to credit the artist:

Sarah Stowasser

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Wow, lot of awesomeness on that page : D

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Looks like Super Mario and Megaman games

Excellent work

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I totally agree :smile:

Thank you very much :slight_smile: I was definitely inspired by old platform games on NES but also those on PC like Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure, Commander Keen, Duke Nukem 1 and 2,… :slight_smile:

Last week I’ve mostly been doing “behind the scenes” stuff, nothing you’ll notice visually but the code is a lot cleaner now :slight_smile: I also added an effect that displays the amount of score you gained when collect stuff or jump on an enemy.

I’m currently working on treasure chests that work similar to the breakable blocks but can spawn multiple collectibles that fly out the moment you kick them. After that I’ll be adding some more treasure collectibles like jewels and tweak some more graphics. Also thinking about adding moving platforms. When all that is done I’ll work some more on the tileset for the level so I can make a new video :smile:

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Been working on lots of different things at the same time ^^’ Working on the HUD to display the treasures you collected and with that working on a class that handles what you collected and thinking about the structure of level progress and how I’ll be making the save and resume system of all this,…

In the meantime I thought I’d show you a some small graphical changes/additions :slight_smile: Nothing major, the level graphics still look the same though they definitely need more work to make them less “flat” :wink:

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Looks cool!
Could use some background objects like trees or whatnot with a slight parallax effect, might help with giving some more life and depth : ) But i guess you already have that planned : p

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