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A Plumber For All Seasons (out now!)

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I prefer the first one, but think it needs to be a little lighter along the top.
Yeah, I have to side with chineesmw here. I don't think the Faux-3D effect is really the right call. I think the second one could use some more shading around the edges, though.
Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg
Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

I think this lacks contrast too much. You might want to remove that outline in the background and accentuate the foreground with a bit more outlines (darker shadows under the grass for example) to make it pop more, or try to make the foreground a bit brighter than it is right now.

Also the first hay-bales look much better, gives the scene more depth.
Thanks! I've tweaked the contrast a little and toned down the horizon line, but I feel I'm at the point where any further adjustments make it look worse.

(Also, yep, pseudo-3D bales it is.)

Here's something I worked on yesterday that will probably go unused:



A tractor with a baler that throws bales into the foreground, not unlike Chomps in YI or the fireball-throwing owls in DKC3's factory levels. (Disregarding the fact that it makes no sense to do that in a field of wheat or whatever, or that it's a round baler, not a square one.) The problem is making the tractor stick to the background while staying on-screen and also accounting for player movement like backtracking. I really don't think there's an elegant way to solve that. I intend to keep the bale-throwing gimmick, mind you, but I'll probably just put a Lakitu there instead.

welp~


 
Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg
A tractor with a baler that throws bales into the foreground, not unlike Chomps in YI or the fireball-throwing owls in DKC3's factory levels. (Disregarding the fact that it makes no sense to do that in a field of wheat or whatever, or that it's a round baler, not a square one.) The problem is making the tractor stick to the background while staying on-screen and also accounting for player movement like backtracking. I really don't think there's an elegant way to solve that. I intend to keep the bale-throwing gimmick, mind you, but I'll probably just put a Lakitu there instead.

welp~

Regardless of what you do, this whole aesthetic is gorgeous. Being from the Midwest in the US, this reminds me so much of Fall. Beautiful work, WYE!

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If I moderated your hack, there was apparently a 90 percent chance it was rejected.
Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg

A tractor with a baler that throws bales into the foreground, not unlike Chomps in YI or the fireball-throwing owls in DKC3's factory levels. (Disregarding the fact that it makes no sense to do that in a field of wheat or whatever, or that it's a round baler, not a square one.) The problem is making the tractor stick to the background while staying on-screen and also accounting for player movement like backtracking. I really don't think there's an elegant way to solve that. I intend to keep the bale-throwing gimmick, mind you, but I'll probably just put a Lakitu there instead.

welp~

I think you should certainly try and keep the tractor gimmick. I have never seen anything like that before. To address your problem, have you thought about having the tractor behave as a sprite that moves from the right end of the screen to the left, firing two or three bales, then goes off the left end of the screen and appears again, only this time going from the left end of the screen to the right? I think this would work OK. If the background moves if the player jumps high enough, then this could pose problems, but you could always make it so that the background doesn't move vertically in these situations.
Originally posted by G.n.k.
If the background moves if the player jumps high enough, then this could pose problems, but you could always make it so that the background doesn't move vertically in these situations.

Or just change into "no vertical scroll at will" if vertical scroll isn't needed for the level
I have a Discord server as well! (by joining, you agree to the rules)
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Basically, I believe in peace and bashing two bricks together.

Originally posted by user23507
Originally posted by G.n.k.
If the background moves if the player jumps high enough, then this could pose problems, but you could always make it so that the background doesn't move vertically in these situations.

Or just change into "no vertical scroll at will" if vertical scroll isn't needed for the level

Yeah that's an option too
Whoa, thanks for the feedback everyone!

Originally posted by andy_k_250
Regardless of what you do, this whole aesthetic is gorgeous. Being from the Midwest in the US, this reminds me so much of Fall. Beautiful work, WYE!

Hey andy, long time no see! #tb{:)} Also thanks - I guess it does look a lot like fall (or late summer maybe), but that general feeling is just what I'm hoping to evoke.

Originally posted by G.n.k.
I think you should certainly try and keep the tractor gimmick. I have never seen anything like that before. To address your problem, have you thought about having the tractor behave as a sprite that moves from the right end of the screen to the left, firing two or three bales, then goes off the left end of the screen and appears again, only this time going from the left end of the screen to the right? I think this would work OK. If the background moves if the player jumps high enough, then this could pose problems, but you could always make it so that the background doesn't move vertically in these situations.

I've tried doing something along the lines of that, but it didn't work out visually. I think the problem is that the tractor's movement should be predictable, but at the same time it's visually attached to the background so it's subject to player movement in the level. For example, if the tractor moves at a constant speed from left to right while the player runs through the level and suddenly changes direction, the tractor would appear to move very weirdly, if not backwards.
I'd love to have used it, but hey, at least it's been drawing practice.

Fortunately, visual oddities aren't a problem if you put the bale-throwing entity in the sky instead - which is what I spent all week doing. Took me longer than I wanted to iron out all bugs, but (thanks to invaluable help from TheBiob and Thomas) I think it's working quite alright now.



Lakitu throws bales that act as both obstacles and platforms. They bounce on the ground once before falling down, and have lower gravity to make them easier to interact with. When the player stands on a falling bale, they'll eventually lose contact with it, but to make things fairer, they'll still be able to jump the first few frames they're in the air (thanks to RPG Hacker's Tolerance Timer patch). If the player is hit by a falling bale, they'll either be gently pushed aside or damaged if they're too close to the center.

...and I hope to heck there are some good level design setups to actually put this to good use. #ab{:S}


 
It looks pretty good so far. Be interesting to see the level design when it is finished. Perhaps a Tetris-style vertical section might work using the falling bales as blocks.
Damn man that is a really cool gimmick
Long time no 2-1!

Here's a bale-throwing gimmick I'm rather pleased with: the player has to recall that bales bounce on solid objects once before falling off, and make sure the bale doesn't bounce off the turn block on the first jump but does on the second. The third jump requires jumping off a falling bale with tricky enough timing.

That's about as vertical as the gimmick gets - I've found those sprites really don't play nice with vertical level modes. (Also the bale's growing animation is a tad sloppy, but I'm afraid improving it isn't feasible. Though the flickering and lag is only there in the gif, mind you.)




 
As for that tractor graphic in the background, you could always make a single screen with no scrolling transition level that joins two levels together with pipes or something. This way you won't have to worry about scrolling with the tractor and yet still be able to use that graphic.
Originally posted by Final Theory
As for that tractor graphic in the background, you could always make a single screen with no scrolling transition level that joins two levels together with pipes or something. This way you won't have to worry about scrolling with the tractor and yet still be able to use that graphic.

But if the tractor were only in a one-screen part of the level it wouldn't do much good I don't think? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding.



In other news, consider world 2-1 finished! I'll skip sharing more screenshots of it, though, since I've already shown everything interesting about the level.

Instead, here's a beach tileset I made back in 2013 that I dug back out just now (recovered most of it from an old YY-CHR screenshot actually) and that may serve the next level well. (this is a beta setup of course.)




 
If you want a tractor in your level, you don't have to make it move. You can either add just some tractors in your level (but you have to make them consistent with background) or add one in the background so it appears more than once and the level still looks interesting.

BTW, interesting looking graphics!
I have a Discord server as well! (by joining, you agree to the rules)
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Basically, I believe in peace and bashing two bricks together.

This hack is looking amazing. Good luck WYE. I love all the cool mechanics you mentioned.
please click this!
Not much of interest lately; just a little tweaking on the tileset front. (The background is still a placeholder, and that's what I'm currently tackling.)




 
For better or for worse, here's how I spent the weekend (aside from slacking off):


(animated version, ~5MB)

I had originally planned to put a fair amount of beach below the horizon, but that wouldn't meet my parallax needs, so the background ended up having a clear vertical cut between land and sea. I do rather like the beach part and the subtle layer 3 clouds, though.


 
That's some sexy parallax scrolling I'm seeing here. Good job!

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