Firstly, I had to design upgrade UI icons for the weapons I’ve added over the past few weeks. These are 32×32 icons so require more detail than the in-game sprites. I was pretty much a #pixelart noob before starting this game and don’t find this type of drawing easy, one of the reasons I went with a limited colour palette (other than liking the ‘gameboy meets spectrum’ aesthetic) was that it would considerably narrow down my options when it came to the art and thus make the drawing considerably less intimidating. I think that was a good move.
You can see the final icons here – I’m not sure, in retrospect, that a square format was the best format to choose for these as many weapons are much more ‘landscape’ in shape – particularly things like R.P.G.s, making them tough to fit in that space without them looking too spindly and weak.
The other major thing to do was add audio for the new weapons. As with the rest on the in-game FX, I designed all the sounds using the DSI Tempest. I stick mainly to the analog oscillators but also use the digital oscs for noise and (sometimes) a pure sine wave. I really love the Tempest for this type of sound design work, the eight-slot mod matrix makes it incredibly flexible, yet it’s really intuitive to use for a synth that’s so deep. Yeah, there’s a couple of things I really wish it had from a sound design perspective (individual level control over each analog osc and pre/post filter as a modulation target) but overall it’s a beast with just the right balance of flexibility and limitations.
I also used my cheapo Boss RV-100 ‘retro’ digital reverb unit and a couple of plug-ins for (sometimes fairly hardcore) compression and limiting.
Lastly, because I liked the chunky Gatling Gun bullets so much (see previous post) I’ve increased the size of the grenade and R.P.G. rocket. Also added a bit of spin to the grenade when it’s fired.
Getting the conventional weapon set done feels like a bit of a milestone so I’m pleased that’s done! next step – plasma rifle!!
Dev Time: 2 days
Total Dev Time: approx 128.5 days
Upgrade Icons For The Conventional Weapon Set
Tweaking Sounds On The DSI Tempest
Audio For The New Conventional Weapons
Bigger Grenades With Added Spin!
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[…] For the grenade launcher I designed a new grenade as I felt the old one was really pretty shite in the cold light of day. Instead of a more ‘traditional’ type of grenade I went for something that looked a bit more sci-fi and this seemed to work better right off the bat. I probably only spent about half an hour doing it (if that) which is ridiculous compared to the amount of time I spent tweaking the previous version. You can see the original here. […]