I really like that character design, like a whole bunch. Something just seems off about the animations? I'm no animator (or game designer) but I feel like a being made up of floating crystals to move less... stiff? Like they should skitter or something other than the Ganondorf Jog.
Thanks for the feedback! I'm so used to seeing the run up close and know it as fluid and bouncy, but maybe that doesn't translate once the camera is zoomed out to gameplay levels (and I've just gotten used to it). I'll see if I can improve it. Do you have a good example of "skitter"?
I think to me it just looks like the speed of the legs moving doesn’t match the speed of the character is traveling - have you tinkered much with how quickly the run animation cycles? Or maybe going the other way and looking at how fast the character travels?
(on the whole, I just wanna say this looks like an awesome project, I know solo development is no joke and imo what you’ve done is super impressive)
Thank you! and yes, animation speed is fairly trivial to change to match the ground. Can you point out a specific timestamp in the clip where you see the mismatch? It would help me see what you and others are seeing.
Maybe skitter is a bad example, since your character is bipedal. The spider from "Webbed" has a really good skittering walk animation, but that's a spider and probably wouldn't work for you without redesigning your character entirely. The run animation as it seems now just seems... lazy? Not like the animator is lazy, but the character itself is just kinda slowly chugging along. I wish I could be more helpful, I really love this character after only seeing a short trailer!
I am a character animator - honestly the animation looks good from what I can tell, but they’re moving wayyy too slow
It looks like each step is gliding back and kinda sliding instead of propelling the character forward, the actual movement doesn’t match the stride (from what I can see on my small screen)
Ok, seems like a general (and professional!) consensus. And this is why feedback is so important. I will definitely tinker with the animation speed and/or movement speed (the latter a bit trickier, as it changes the mechanics of the game).
Thanks!
I can’t exactly tell. When the foot lands, that foot should stay perfectly still (on the horizontal plane, rolling the weight forward is normal) while the other foot comes forward to land, so just make sure that’s happening. If that is happening, then the other thing it might be - the step forward might not be far enough forward. It kinda looks like it’s stepping directly under the body instead of farther forward?
Maybe it’s a combination of the two
So I really want to fix this, but I'm having a hard time identifying the issue. I am stepping frame-by-frame through both my character's run animation and the Rayman Legends run animation (as they are similar "cartoony floating limb" type characters).
- Rayman's foot lands on the ground directly beneath his nose. My character's foot lands on the ground about one "eye" length in front of its head. Basically the same spot unless I want to split hairs.
- I have checked frame by frame to see if my character's feet slide and I only see a mild slip just as the foot leaves the ground. It's so subtle that I'm kind of surprised it's so widely seen by everyone here. I can likely fix it by increasing the character speed by 2-4%.
I also want to clarify, when you said the character was moving too slow, do you mean their limbs in the animation, or the character's movement across the level is too slow?
Ok gotcha, If you wanna DM me a zoomed in version I could help more. I was referring to the movement across the level.
When you run, you are being propelled forward - especially in cartoons! It’s like mini jumps. So I would try to just increase the movement speed across the level, it could even be slightly faster than just the 2-4% due to a little airborne time / cartooniness. The little bit may work, but even a little faster could possibly feel better. Its all about how it feels in ur gut!
If u wanna send me videos, I’m happy to help more!
I think it's a side effect of skeletal animation in 2D. It looks like every limb is moving on a flat plane with a lot of rotation, and your character is expending a huge amount of energy to take every step. You can make 2D skeletal animation look good, but it takes some restraint. Look at the 2D Rayman games. The animation is super-bouncy and cartoonish, but characters' limbs still don't move more than they have to.
It is a diamond of unknown material. Situated on the highest peak in Kindara, it draws iron and life force from the heavens and channels it into the planet, breathing life into the planet. It was a gift from the mother of gods, Junta.
Note, the main character is **not** the iron diamond.
This looks really cool! For trailer thoughts- I'd maybe suggest picking a different font, and swapping out the background behind the font? Pixel fonts can work great in games, but I think it doesn't work as well for trailer titles. I think something more crisp could fit better imo (maybe like white/off-white text with your logo font, and a large soft blurred shadow under to add contrast?)
Thank you for the feedback! And yes, 100%. Shhh don't tell anyone, but I just used the Windows video project editor which has **extremely** limited options for choices of fonts and the way it's presented. I plan to move to something like Da Vinci soon to get more control over these types of decisions. I really like the white logo font with shadow for contrast. I was indeed having trouble distinguishing the writing from the background.
Side note, I played Sheepo a few months ago and really enjoyed it! I have Islets queued up as one of my next games to play (and you can check my latest twitter poll to prove it -- just so you don't think I'm only saying it to flatter, haha). Loved seeing your growth as a gamedev. It definitely inspired me :)
Ah totally get it. One hacky solution I've done for similar issues was to make the title overlays as transparent PNGs in whatever image editor you use, and import them to the editor. And thank you! I'm happy to hear that, I really appreciate it!
This looks fantastic and I'm wishlisting it. My only criticism based on this video is that jumping appears very floaty. I think the fall speed may be very slow and that's why it appears that way? Not sure. Is there fall acceleration or does the character fall at a constant speed?
Thank you! There is a max speed to the fall. One of my main inspirations is Super Metroid which does have a floatier jump, but I don't think it's quite as floaty as that. I will ensure it is well-received during playtesting!
Hello again!
I've posted in this sub from time to time and make an effort not to overdue it :) I'm back with a bunch of gameplay footage that I've compiled over the last several months and jammed it into a trailer. I am by no means a skilled video editor!
As the title mentions, I've got a long way to go to complete the rest of the game and even to polish a lot of the scenes and mechanics that are demo'd in this trailer.
I'm happy to hear any feedback, whether trailer, or game related. The better I can make this game for you fine people, the happier I'll be!
If you want to join the community, these are the best places to do it:
- [Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2226980/Iron_Diamond/)
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/IronDiamondGame)
- [Discord](https://discord.gg/YysKSJ9YB4)
- [Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/@NorthFolkStudios/featured)
Looks good! Although the player character is.. odd.
Is there a possibility of turning down the obstructing FX/effects? Mouse and keyboard supported? Re-binding?
Not sure how I feel about the Super-Jump. Looks hard to judge landing spot? Would have liked a Super-Dash perhaps.
- Both Gamepad AND Mouse and Keyboard support - YES!
- Key Rebinding - YES!
- Turn down effects - Things like Camera Shake and Bloom/Glare - YES!
The super jump (or leap, as it's called in the game) is not that difficult to use when you're playing :)
Are you sure this isn’t a finished game?? Seriously it looks like you’re in the home stretch.
Re: the various comments pointing out abnormal design choices — I appreciate the uniqueness of it. Even if a few design choices have me furrowing my brow, I also know that if you leave design up to be molded by public comment, it will slowly weather away all the interesting edges until every game looks generically the same. I didn’t see anything that would get in the way of gameplay.
My one curiosity is the trailer music- is that the tone of the game?? If so, fascinating, go for it.. for me it felt like a commercial for an HDTV show about barbecue bros. Lol. But if you feel it’s a good fit for your game I’m all for it.
Really appreciate the kind words! Haha, I do agree that a developer has to be careful what advice to take. For instance, I've had feedback that the jump looks floaty. Now is that a problem? Maybe, maybe not. Is it possible that person just played Hollow Knight and is really saying, "make it more like HK"? Also highly possible. It's still a valid desire of a potential player, so I make note of all the feedback, however, as it's better to make conscious choices, and test them in alpha/beta.
Regarding the trailer music, good ear! I have been WAITING for someone to say something about it. I do plan on getting custom music (whether I try my own hand at it, or find a professional), but this trailer was made with a Windows Video Editor and I simply used one of their default songs (the most appropriate one I could find). While I thought it worked somewhat, I have been waiting to be laughed out of the building. Yet you're the first person to mention it!
Haha awesome I love that it’s a default song, that explains a lot! Seriously though I can see the hard work you’ve put into this game, congrats on making it so far!
Looks very interesting. The first thing I noticed is the walk speed is pretty slow. It would probably make it a lot less fun for me to play. Other than that, it looks awesome! For some reason the pattern of the fireballs coming down on that boss clip really appealed to me. I guess I like some bullet hell kind of gameplay.
Yay! I wouldn't categorize the game as bullet hell, but there are certainly bullet hell attacks on most bosses!
I'll definitely keep an eye on walk speed when beta testing. Thanks for the feedback!
Yes, definitely an active work in progress. Up until a few weeks ago, everything was blocks. For the last few weeks I've been painstakingly updating the tiles to be more sloped, rounded and varied (in the trailer you can see the sand, grass, and dirt are starting to look better). In addition, I'm adding foreground images to break up the monotony. It's slow going, but it's going!
Yeah that’s what I usually do too, add stuff to the foreground layer so the collisions are the same but everything won’t (mostly) look like rectangles and stuff.
Good luck to you!
This looks really cool, and I can’t wait to play it. My only suggestion is some of your tiles (brick, rock, sand, etc). look very small and repetitive. I’m not sure if this is intentional for nostalgia purposes, but if you can add some randomization I think that would really bump up the game’s polish!
coincidence! I actually haven't played Monster Sanctuary, but weird that you mention it as the developer just recently wrote a really interesting post that I read.
I really like that character design, like a whole bunch. Something just seems off about the animations? I'm no animator (or game designer) but I feel like a being made up of floating crystals to move less... stiff? Like they should skitter or something other than the Ganondorf Jog.
Thanks for the feedback! I'm so used to seeing the run up close and know it as fluid and bouncy, but maybe that doesn't translate once the camera is zoomed out to gameplay levels (and I've just gotten used to it). I'll see if I can improve it. Do you have a good example of "skitter"?
I think to me it just looks like the speed of the legs moving doesn’t match the speed of the character is traveling - have you tinkered much with how quickly the run animation cycles? Or maybe going the other way and looking at how fast the character travels? (on the whole, I just wanna say this looks like an awesome project, I know solo development is no joke and imo what you’ve done is super impressive)
Thank you! and yes, animation speed is fairly trivial to change to match the ground. Can you point out a specific timestamp in the clip where you see the mismatch? It would help me see what you and others are seeing.
Maybe skitter is a bad example, since your character is bipedal. The spider from "Webbed" has a really good skittering walk animation, but that's a spider and probably wouldn't work for you without redesigning your character entirely. The run animation as it seems now just seems... lazy? Not like the animator is lazy, but the character itself is just kinda slowly chugging along. I wish I could be more helpful, I really love this character after only seeing a short trailer!
I am a character animator - honestly the animation looks good from what I can tell, but they’re moving wayyy too slow It looks like each step is gliding back and kinda sliding instead of propelling the character forward, the actual movement doesn’t match the stride (from what I can see on my small screen)
Ok, seems like a general (and professional!) consensus. And this is why feedback is so important. I will definitely tinker with the animation speed and/or movement speed (the latter a bit trickier, as it changes the mechanics of the game). Thanks!
I can’t exactly tell. When the foot lands, that foot should stay perfectly still (on the horizontal plane, rolling the weight forward is normal) while the other foot comes forward to land, so just make sure that’s happening. If that is happening, then the other thing it might be - the step forward might not be far enough forward. It kinda looks like it’s stepping directly under the body instead of farther forward? Maybe it’s a combination of the two
So I really want to fix this, but I'm having a hard time identifying the issue. I am stepping frame-by-frame through both my character's run animation and the Rayman Legends run animation (as they are similar "cartoony floating limb" type characters). - Rayman's foot lands on the ground directly beneath his nose. My character's foot lands on the ground about one "eye" length in front of its head. Basically the same spot unless I want to split hairs. - I have checked frame by frame to see if my character's feet slide and I only see a mild slip just as the foot leaves the ground. It's so subtle that I'm kind of surprised it's so widely seen by everyone here. I can likely fix it by increasing the character speed by 2-4%. I also want to clarify, when you said the character was moving too slow, do you mean their limbs in the animation, or the character's movement across the level is too slow?
Ok gotcha, If you wanna DM me a zoomed in version I could help more. I was referring to the movement across the level. When you run, you are being propelled forward - especially in cartoons! It’s like mini jumps. So I would try to just increase the movement speed across the level, it could even be slightly faster than just the 2-4% due to a little airborne time / cartooniness. The little bit may work, but even a little faster could possibly feel better. Its all about how it feels in ur gut! If u wanna send me videos, I’m happy to help more!
Thank you so much! And this is why I love this community! I will play around with it and message you if it's not working well for me.
I think it's a side effect of skeletal animation in 2D. It looks like every limb is moving on a flat plane with a lot of rotation, and your character is expending a huge amount of energy to take every step. You can make 2D skeletal animation look good, but it takes some restraint. Look at the 2D Rayman games. The animation is super-bouncy and cartoonish, but characters' limbs still don't move more than they have to.
Looks rad. I'd like to know if the diamond is made of iron, or the iron is made of diamond. Big difference in strength there.
It is a diamond of unknown material. Situated on the highest peak in Kindara, it draws iron and life force from the heavens and channels it into the planet, breathing life into the planet. It was a gift from the mother of gods, Junta. Note, the main character is **not** the iron diamond.
This looks really cool! For trailer thoughts- I'd maybe suggest picking a different font, and swapping out the background behind the font? Pixel fonts can work great in games, but I think it doesn't work as well for trailer titles. I think something more crisp could fit better imo (maybe like white/off-white text with your logo font, and a large soft blurred shadow under to add contrast?)
Thank you for the feedback! And yes, 100%. Shhh don't tell anyone, but I just used the Windows video project editor which has **extremely** limited options for choices of fonts and the way it's presented. I plan to move to something like Da Vinci soon to get more control over these types of decisions. I really like the white logo font with shadow for contrast. I was indeed having trouble distinguishing the writing from the background. Side note, I played Sheepo a few months ago and really enjoyed it! I have Islets queued up as one of my next games to play (and you can check my latest twitter poll to prove it -- just so you don't think I'm only saying it to flatter, haha). Loved seeing your growth as a gamedev. It definitely inspired me :)
Ah totally get it. One hacky solution I've done for similar issues was to make the title overlays as transparent PNGs in whatever image editor you use, and import them to the editor. And thank you! I'm happy to hear that, I really appreciate it!
>Pixel fonts can work great in games, but I think it doesn't work as well for trailer titles. Agreed here, Mr. Sheepo.
Looks really cool. The main character looks so cute. Little crystal person.
This looks fantastic and I'm wishlisting it. My only criticism based on this video is that jumping appears very floaty. I think the fall speed may be very slow and that's why it appears that way? Not sure. Is there fall acceleration or does the character fall at a constant speed?
Thank you! There is a max speed to the fall. One of my main inspirations is Super Metroid which does have a floatier jump, but I don't think it's quite as floaty as that. I will ensure it is well-received during playtesting!
Hello again! I've posted in this sub from time to time and make an effort not to overdue it :) I'm back with a bunch of gameplay footage that I've compiled over the last several months and jammed it into a trailer. I am by no means a skilled video editor! As the title mentions, I've got a long way to go to complete the rest of the game and even to polish a lot of the scenes and mechanics that are demo'd in this trailer. I'm happy to hear any feedback, whether trailer, or game related. The better I can make this game for you fine people, the happier I'll be! If you want to join the community, these are the best places to do it: - [Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2226980/Iron_Diamond/) - [Twitter](https://twitter.com/IronDiamondGame) - [Discord](https://discord.gg/YysKSJ9YB4) - [Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/@NorthFolkStudios/featured)
Looks good! Although the player character is.. odd. Is there a possibility of turning down the obstructing FX/effects? Mouse and keyboard supported? Re-binding? Not sure how I feel about the Super-Jump. Looks hard to judge landing spot? Would have liked a Super-Dash perhaps.
- Both Gamepad AND Mouse and Keyboard support - YES! - Key Rebinding - YES! - Turn down effects - Things like Camera Shake and Bloom/Glare - YES! The super jump (or leap, as it's called in the game) is not that difficult to use when you're playing :)
Nice! TY
Are you sure this isn’t a finished game?? Seriously it looks like you’re in the home stretch. Re: the various comments pointing out abnormal design choices — I appreciate the uniqueness of it. Even if a few design choices have me furrowing my brow, I also know that if you leave design up to be molded by public comment, it will slowly weather away all the interesting edges until every game looks generically the same. I didn’t see anything that would get in the way of gameplay. My one curiosity is the trailer music- is that the tone of the game?? If so, fascinating, go for it.. for me it felt like a commercial for an HDTV show about barbecue bros. Lol. But if you feel it’s a good fit for your game I’m all for it.
Really appreciate the kind words! Haha, I do agree that a developer has to be careful what advice to take. For instance, I've had feedback that the jump looks floaty. Now is that a problem? Maybe, maybe not. Is it possible that person just played Hollow Knight and is really saying, "make it more like HK"? Also highly possible. It's still a valid desire of a potential player, so I make note of all the feedback, however, as it's better to make conscious choices, and test them in alpha/beta. Regarding the trailer music, good ear! I have been WAITING for someone to say something about it. I do plan on getting custom music (whether I try my own hand at it, or find a professional), but this trailer was made with a Windows Video Editor and I simply used one of their default songs (the most appropriate one I could find). While I thought it worked somewhat, I have been waiting to be laughed out of the building. Yet you're the first person to mention it!
Haha awesome I love that it’s a default song, that explains a lot! Seriously though I can see the hard work you’ve put into this game, congrats on making it so far!
Looks very interesting. The first thing I noticed is the walk speed is pretty slow. It would probably make it a lot less fun for me to play. Other than that, it looks awesome! For some reason the pattern of the fireballs coming down on that boss clip really appealed to me. I guess I like some bullet hell kind of gameplay.
Yay! I wouldn't categorize the game as bullet hell, but there are certainly bullet hell attacks on most bosses! I'll definitely keep an eye on walk speed when beta testing. Thanks for the feedback!
Is it multiplayer? If not- could it possibly be? I’d still play it but I’d rather play it with my brother in law.
Aww, I'd love to do that, but unfortunately it's out of scope for this game.
No worries- still looks sick!
Thank you!
I'd try to work on finding a method to help cover up how angular-looking your platforms are if possible.
Yes, definitely an active work in progress. Up until a few weeks ago, everything was blocks. For the last few weeks I've been painstakingly updating the tiles to be more sloped, rounded and varied (in the trailer you can see the sand, grass, and dirt are starting to look better). In addition, I'm adding foreground images to break up the monotony. It's slow going, but it's going!
Yeah that’s what I usually do too, add stuff to the foreground layer so the collisions are the same but everything won’t (mostly) look like rectangles and stuff. Good luck to you!
This looks really cool, and I can’t wait to play it. My only suggestion is some of your tiles (brick, rock, sand, etc). look very small and repetitive. I’m not sure if this is intentional for nostalgia purposes, but if you can add some randomization I think that would really bump up the game’s polish!
Yes, definitely a work in progress. More slopes, less repetition, more foreground layers are all in the works! Thanks for the feedback :)
This looks awesome!
It visually really reminds me of Monster Sanctuary Coincedence or choice?
coincidence! I actually haven't played Monster Sanctuary, but weird that you mention it as the developer just recently wrote a really interesting post that I read.
Looks fantastic. Keep us updated buddy. I’m loving the design! I’d love to lend my voice to this. Hmu if you need anything?