Looking For An Artist Or Another Mr. Driller Clone

[dsh]

Moved from forum.openhandhelds.org. This is now the main thread where all the updates will be placed.

I'm working on a Mr. Driller clone. First of all, the project popped into my head more than a year ago. (I've already posted about that on one of the forums but I can't find the topic unfortunately.)
It was intended to be a fun programming exercise. I wrote sprite engine, baseic framework menu and few things and then there was a long break. Few months later I rewrote everything from scratch but I had other things going. Few days ago I picked the project up once more.

Project's wiki

So what do I have?

• 
  - General framework (changing screens [with fading-between], etc.)
  - Highly modular design. (easy to port to different H/S platforms, separated graphic routines)
  - Full opengl acceleration. (should be compatible with OGL ES, maybe with few changes)
  - Simple but effcient sprite engine with:
  • 
    * rotation
    * alpha blending
    * full color alpha-channelled sprites
    * full speed animation
    * scaling
    * resolution independence (automatic scaling)
    * bitmap fonts
  - Now working on game mechanics: Just finished super-fast algorithm for determining which bricks should fall, player can walk around, destroy bricks (I can post a video shortly if you want).
  - Planned: uber-cool particle engine for your eye-candy fast-paced action.
  - Pure C for coding pleasure

I spent tens of hours trying to make artwork because I don't like testing with placeholders and wanted to do everything myself. And they are still lame, no artistic skills here.
The initial concept was to replicate the look'n'feel of the orignal series - colorful high-res rasterized vectors, cheesy music. The working titles were: "manic driller", "drillerman".

The latest idea is:

• 
  - Lets call it something like "d-man". High-res (as much as we can pack) pixelart graphics, cold colors.
  - Lets make the main character a badass, the story a lot less childish (any ideas?).
  - After I finished replicating the main game mechanics I plan to enhance the gameplay.
  - Speed it up. Lots of action on the screen (ex. the particle engine!).
  - 8bit music? To get in the mood browse http://www.8bitpeoples.com/discography.

It probably isn't the right place to look for artists but I don't know where to look and don't want to register tens of new forum accounts. And, of course, I've seen a lot of talented pixel artists on these forums willing to do the job like this.

I need an artist to make the artwork. Probably many res versions or a big one downscaled for smaller screens or maybe a small one (800xsth) upscaled on bigger displays - we can work it out.
No money involved - source released on latest GPL upon completion. I can do the porting for mobile platforms if you provide me with testing.
I want to do it the pro-style, no compromises - a polished final product. I can promise that if the game is finished you will get all the credit in-game and in everything in connection with the game.
If something happens and I can't finish the game I will release the source I have.

I can make theming support later so you can completely mod the game but I need only ONE artist for the default theme.

You could get the impression that I'm difficult to cooperate with, but It's false - I am open for ideas and willing to change my view if you convince me. Of course, the final word belongs to me, I don't see it any other way. I will provide detailed specs for the graphics so you can work without having to ask questions every 5 minutes.

I recently discovered miss driller and the fork driller2x, but I still think that there is place for my idea. BTW Driller2x has graphics ripped off the orignal, licensing anyone?
I examined source of miss driller and It's a bit difficult to work with so I don't think that apart from dirty hacks it can be of any use as far as real enhancement is concerned.
And I don't think that my code is beautiful, but seriously, what is that 2k lines of spaghetti doing there?

So let me know what do you think. Cheers,
Filip

PS Write here or contact me directly at pinkeen_amonkey_gmail_com.

EDIT:- I found the old topic in case anybody's interested: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/41688-game-concept-npot-textures-support/
- I didn't work on the game during weekend but I think I'll be able to finish basic game mechanics on Monday and will post some demo videos.
- I would like to state that I am not, by any means, depreciating work of miss driller and driller2x developers. Just my idea happened to be similar (and I needed to justify my work). They did really good job. And I am being sincere here. So thank you and keep up the good work guys!

VIDEOS:
The videos are choppy because of the compression and capturing technique. The game itself runs extremely smoothly.
- early game mechanics demo
- bitmap fonts demo - this graphics won't make it to the final version (otherwise I wouldn't be looking for an artist )
- parallax scrolling background and BASIC game mechanics almost completed
- Particle engine -exploding bricks + welding+like effect
- video featuring:

• 
  - Code optimization/cleanup.
  - Crates can be destroyed.
  - Air can be taken - "leave trail" particle engine effect in use.
  - If player destroys a brick beneath him and doesn't fall because he's standing on an adjacent brick then he slips (slides towards the empty space) off this brick. Not sure I've actually shown it in the video.
  - Bricks which are about to be destroyed because they've fallen blink.

- video featuring level advancing. Check out how the bricks from the passed level are discarded and the chain reaction destroying the interconnecting area.
- *NEW* video featuring main menu and in-game hud concept + some improvements.
LATEST IDEAS:
- shared web leaderboard

 

[hackroid]

Hello. I've replied to your post via the link to the other forum, I have a lot of my own ideas regarding animation, character design and music. I've played Dig dug before but not Mr. Driller. If you want a clone with more humour in it I have some humourous character designs. My other other work can be viewed here http://www.atombat.com

Cheers.

 

[Vorporeal]

To make this clear - that is not the new forum. That was the old, temporary forum while this one was down for a while. This should be your thread on the topic, as these are the active forums.

 

[hackroid]

To make this clear - that is not the new forum. That was the old, temporary forum while this one was down for a while. This should be your thread on the topic, as these are the active forums.

If there is any way to append/attatch/add the posts I made in the "temp" forum to this forum then please do.

 

[Vorporeal]

I don't think there is any easy way. Probably the easiest is to choose to edit your posts there, copy the contents, and paste it into a new post here. There's no easy/automated way to do it.

 

[dsh]

To make this clear - that is not the new forum. That was the old, temporary forum while this one was down for a while. This should be your thread on the topic, as these are the active forums.

Sorry for misunderstanding. I saw "new" and "old" on openpandora.org and got it all wrong. Moving the main post here...

 

[dsh]

Hello. I've replied to your post via the link to the other forum, I have a lot of my own ideas regarding animation, character design and music. I've played Dig dug before but not Mr. Driller. If you want a clone with more humour in it I have some humourous character designs. My other other work can be viewed here http://www.atombat.com

Cheers.

I like your character sketch, the idea of drill instead of hand is great. The colors needn't be necesarilly that cold but they are good. I've looked around your website and you've got some interesting characters there but I don't think that any of them could fit this game (as the main character). But that's me - I'd like to hear your ideas!

As I wrote I'd prefer to reinvent the original story (so we could fit anything), but no ideas yet (anybody?).
As far as humour is concerned, that was my first idea but now I thought that it would be good to create something new. Humour is welcome but maybe some other form than character design. But then again, write down your ideas!

Lastly, I really would like to see your sketch put into pixel art (pixel art sketch?) if it isn't too much work.

I'll try to finish the basic game mechanics tommorow and will definitely post videos so you can see we're not talking in vain here.

 

[Spandangle]

instead of a device the character uses to dig just let him punch through the ground which would add humour and bad-arseness

as far as the story goes

i remember reading in greek mythology that hades had once fallen in love with a beautiful goddess that controlled the seasons and in the end he married her and took her to the underworld

so you could make the main character a mortal or demi-god (with great strength) who fell in love with her found out that hades has taken her to the under world he now plans to dig there and bring her back and take her for his own

just an idea hope it helps
if you like it


Email me

 

[hackroid]

bwg2021 was on the right path to an idea I was gonna post until I found out you can only attach 3 pics per post in the temp forum, so I left it out.

The idea is that your character has been sent down to Hell to save your friends/girlfriend/boyfriend, on the way there you rescue "lost souls", I was thinking of the humour being a bit like metal slug, if this is okay with you.

As you drop down to Hell, doors line the sides of the walls on the way down, with signs on them with different temptations, some earn bonus points some are where monsters hide chasing you down a stage, making the gameplay harder, or they are used as bonus stages.

Thanks for the comments about my own characters, yeah they would be in their own games rather than this one

Near the doors of Hell you come across Helldriver, a demonic monster riding a large pile driving attatchment.









Appended from the other forum post.

I do a bit of pixelart, I can do sprite animations. Tell me what you think, if this is the style you are looking for then maybe I could help. I also have many many, MANY characters of my own that could be made into games, if this game works then who knows. my work is available to view here at atombat.com

A couple of names I thought of

Drill-Thrill/Driller Thriller
Drillion
Drillboy
Drillkid
Drill Blitz
Drill-Elite

P.S. I can do 8-bit music too.

 

[BackAssward]

[media]http://img39.imagesh...helldriver.png/[/media]

You ndo realize that it looks like the demon is drilling with his wang, right? Calling him Srew Demon kinda reinforces that. Unless that was your intent.

 

[dsh]

Thanks bwg2021 and atombat for the myth idea. It's definitely a good starting point. Although I wouldn't get so deep into the demons and all this symbolic stuff. I also wouldn't maintain any references to the mythology.

As you drop down to Hell, doors line the sides of the walls on the way down, with signs on them with different temptations, some earn bonus points some are where monsters hide chasing you down a stage, making the gameplay harder, or they are used as bonus stages.

The enhancement with monsters is a great idea. Suitable for the alternative game mode. (We can maintain the original one for the purists.)

on the way there you rescue "lost souls", I was thinking of the humour being a bit like metal slug, if this is okay with you.

That's in the original game. You rescue some kind of spirits (hidig behind some blocks) and get points for that. This will definitely make its way to this game in some form.

I was thinking of the humour being a bit like metal slug, if this is okay with you.

I was also thinking about something similar but couldn't articulate it, that's the way to go.

The "hell driver" drawing is really funny. But mythological/sybolic theme is a bit too ... hmm I have to think about it.


I am gonna post the videos+screens tommorow and maybe this will trigger some more thoughts. I have to go to sleep now, so good night everyone.

By the way, I'm in the CET timezone.

EDIT: When we've gathered a few viable ideas we can make a poll or something...

 

[hackroid]

Drill dive test pixel art, done really quick can be improved, this is just the start to when he kicks his legs up like he's doing a handstand and begins drilling..

Why yes BackAssward that is his wang, it was my intent




dsh it could be more like Ghouls and Ghosts/Ghosts and Goblins/Splatterhouse style demons

 

[renegadechic]

haha that devil seems to have the same appendage as dick drill from dead leaves haha

 

[hackroid]

Simple Drillbot animation.

 

[dsh]

Ok, so I've done very little today but I figured I'll show you what I have, so here's the first video (all updates always in the main [first] post).

Simple Drillbot animation.

I like it, good work. A couple of questions/suggestions:
- Maybe the outline is a bit too strong? What do you think?
- Maybe some more colours (yes, i know its pixelart, but a bit more)? You can use full 24bit palette and even alpha channel.
- What is that black line above the head?

I think it is a bit too early for animations and any serious graphic work because we haven't agreed on any sizing, framerate, etc. yet.

 

[hackroid]

The line on his head is just a fin. The large outline is the background alpha channel.

Im just playing about showing what his animation could look like.

 

[dsh]

@Atombat - I like the idea that player has 2 drills but then it would seem that he can destroy two bricks at a time when stading over their adjacent borders. It's very easily doable in the code but It could cripple the gameplay.
I like your style atombat, so if you're still willing to do this then you're the man. Take into account that it is a really vast amount of work, even if it doesn't seem so.

I think a forum is a great place for storing general ideas and specs because it's always accessible if anybody needs to look up something. Or I can setup a wiki on googlecode or something.
As for the instant communcation - I don't use any IMs for quite some time (yes, I'm strange) but I can setup a jabber account or maintain an irc chatroom.

What do you think about the videos?

I spent some time today completing falling bricks mechanism (yes, it wasn't complete in the video) and chasing some memory corruption bugs. The game mechanics turned out be far more complicated than I thought when starting the coding - ex. what if falling bricks fall on top of a brick that is shaking or connect to it on its side? Considering that adjacent same-coloured bricks form a whole body which can be traversed only by recursion or a lifo queue things get really messy. Nevertheless I seem to figured it out.

Back to the graphics... If we're going with the classic-techno-robotic look I don't have a clue how to bricks should look like. And mind you, we need awfully lot of those brick styles (each for 100 meters?).

Some artwork specs ideas and how it is done now:

The resolution:
Now it's 1024x768 and the bricks are 60x60. Since the pandora has 800x480 screen and the bricks scroll so we don't need a specific amount of them to fit on the screen vertically I think that it is safe to assume the horizontal resolution to be 800 and keep the vertical unlocked. That way I can make all the other elements to reposition in a sensible way for different aspect ratios. Of course this has to be taken into account when designing graphics.

Bricks:
I went with 11 rows of bricks (odd number so we have a central one). I think that it is a good solution to keep all the in-game info (HUD) on the right like in the original. If we try to stick with the golden ratio we get roughly 800 = 495 + 305. 495px horizontally goes for the action and 305 for the gauges/numbers. 495 / 11rows gives us brick width of 45pixels (I was really amazed that the number is round!). Lets keep the bricks square so the brick size is 45px by 45px.
Alternative brick colours can be generated automatically by scripted hue rotation.
I spent a lot of time figuring this out: There are 47 bricks types (shapes) so EVERY "body shape" can be reproduced flawlessly. Probably this number can be lowered by choosing different border style or something. And believe me - I spent hours searching for the missing shapes.* If you've got a better solution, it's very welcome.

(I'll check out how it is done in miss driller and get back to you.) EDIT: Ok, in miss driller there are only 16 shapes but the formed bodies look far from flawless if you pay some attention - they lack inward corners, etc.

The player:
In the demo all sprite animation (not movement!) is done at 20fps (I chose that numer out of thin air, It can be anything and it can be diffrent for each animation!**) and it looks quite smooth (maybe not on the videos).
Animations can be looped with reverse [frame counter bounces from first to last frame] (that's the way the drilling is animated).
All animation frames should be the same size (it's easier to calc positions then, otherwise we would need to define an anchor point for each frame - been there, done that).
I made the player sprite narrower than the brick width so all looks more natural. Player can also be higher than the brick (like in the demo), but is it a good idea? Maybe only a pixel higher to add some naturality (that's the way it's done in the GBA version).
The player sprite's collision bounding box is smaller than the sprite so the drill looks like it is sticking into the bricks. B-box rough visualisation:

.

In the demo, the walk animation is 6 frames long and the drill animation is 3 frames - it looks good at 20fps. However I leave that values for artist's consideration. The brick destroy animation is 11 frames. It can be shorter but it should last for at least the time of the pause between drilling through the brick and the player falling through it - right now there is no pause in the demo but the original game has it (it's needed so the game isn't too easy). I haven't figured out how long should it be. But let's say the destroy animation should be at least 200-250ms (it can always be longer than the pause). There is probably no pause on the gba version. Decreasing the player fall speed and resetting drill key state (so it has to be repeatedly pressed) should do the job.

Okay, I'm tired for now. Hopefully more comes tommorow (maybe even videos).

* I made the brick shapes sprites like this: I created transparent border shading, expanded it to base set by c&p its fragments then I copied and rotated them accordingly to get 47 pieces full set. In the end I overlayed it on the brick background.
** Each "sprite class" has it's own definition in a text file where you can set it and test without recompiling.

 

[Vorporeal]

If you wanted, it could be very simple to have outlines for any brick shape with only a few images. The bricks themselves would be simple squares - you'd only need one type. You could then make two shapes - a straight-line border and a corner-border. These could be rotated and put together in such a way that they could outline any brick shape that can be made. It would produce a border that looks like a real border, but would only require 3 different pieces.

 

[dsh]

If you wanted, it could be very simple to have outlines for any brick shape with only a few images. The bricks themselves would be simple squares - you'd only need one type. You could then make two shapes - a straight-line border and a corner-border. These could be rotated and put together in such a way that they could outline any brick shape that can be made. It would produce a border that looks like a real border, but would only require 3 different pieces.

I considered this at first, but this would look very plain and "somewhat rough". I want everything to look pro, polished. I want the game to be even better than the original if it is possible. I leave it for the artist to decide though. I want everybody participating in project to be really proud of the final product, being able to include it in the deserved place on their resume. And I think that this goal is pretty achievable so why not try harder?

Anyway your input is greatly appreciated.

 

[hackroid]

@Atombat - I like the idea that player has 2 drills but then it would seem that he can destroy two bricks at a time when stading over their adjacent borders. It's very easily doable in the code but It could cripple the gameplay.

I was thinking of the character being able to morph his robotic hand into a drill, both hands would be too much for the play area. but some scenarios may call for it. Imagine his 1 out-stretched drillarm facing down as his whole body spins like a superman style tornado downwards, coming to a halt, arm raised to the side as he whacks out a horizontal block, it could be a fully charged power-up.

What do you think about the videos?

I like the 1st one of the in game mechanics. The splash/menu screen is too basic at the moment for me to give a fair comment.

If you want 47 brick/block types I'll to do as many as looks good in the game, if it is overkill then we can cut back later.

I'm interested in making the characters look as vibrant and well animated, if it works in 20fps then I will go with that, if it is 24 like normal animation, then we may compromise?

Your coding this game just tell me your resolutions that you want and I'll make the characters to your specifications. It doesn't have to be a Techno robot design, this style usually suits pixelart though.

I'll add your email so we can chat through gmail?