Sponge Blob Tennis + Sprite Choice Poll

[A_SN]

I made Sponge Blob Tennis with an italian artist who took care of pretty much every non-technical graphical aspect of the game. However, before the deadline, he couldn't be reached and thus didn't get to send me the score sprites for the score board, so I went with my own scores, the ones you can see in the release of the game. Now that the artist could contact me again, he sent me his own version of the score sprites, which give quite a different result.

My version :

His version :

What I'd like to know is which, according to you, is the best for the game. Also feel free to suggest improvements for whichever you would choose.

On a side note, this topic is also the appropriate place to give me feedback about my game, to give criticism, to suggest improvements, and to predict how miserably I will lose this competition or not. Here are the improvements I'm already planning on bringing :

-Correct a bug in the way boxes move on the ground that makes them do not what you want to do
-Make the boxes jump in a way that complies better with the law of physics
-Prevent players from crashing the game by going to far off the court
-Create a real manual servicing system (instead of going off automatically the ball could be in a first time launched in the air, the box could jump to catch up with it and ultimately the ball could be hit at the press of a button and its resulting trajectory will depend on how when and where it was it)
-Add a Tie Break mode
-Add sounds
-Add a menu and everything that makes a polished game
-Add TCP/IP multiplayer

 

[Mindless]

Arabic numerals... but maybe they could be a bit bigger?

 

[quasist]

I suppose better to use these(since it is sport game - nor chess)
1- I
2- II
3- III
4- IIII
5- IIII with line crossed

Like was in Home Alone Game.

 

[A_SN]

I suppose better to use these(since it is sport game - nor chess)
1- I
2- II
3- III
4- IIII
5- IIII with line crossed

Like was in Home Alone Game.

Yeah but that wouldn't be roman numerals anymore then ;-)

 

[Orkie]

Yeah but that wouldn't be roman numerals anymore then ;-)

No, it'd be a tally .

 

[trooper]

Arabic numerals... but maybe they could be a bit bigger?

Seconded

Trooper

 

[ruckage]

I'm undecided - I actually like the smaller score board in your version but the numbers don't look isometric enough imho. Think you should go for a size somewhere between the two with Arabic numerals but make them fit in more with the rest of the isometric graphics. Also the colouring of the board is slightly better in the second version.

 

[Moparx]

Use the Arabic numerals with the bigger sign in his version.

 

[saehn]

Agreed, Arabic numerals with the bigger sign. The primary purpose of the sign board is to convey information, not provide aesthetical value. That's also important---but secondary----IMO.

 

[Sphinxter]

I'd go with yours but make a bitmap font skewed to the angle of the board, the tops of the zeros should be at the same angle as the sign. In the second one the board dwarfs the court and takes the focus off the net, just my opinion of course, all art is subjective but I find yours has better balance.

 

[pkostrze]

I have to say I love this game. I've always been a fan of pixel-ish art and this is an excellent example, kudos on the graphics. I'd leave the scoreboard as it is, I like the current scoreboard, I don't know why but I just do. One thing I would like to see added would be sound... like a "squish" with each hit, or something like that.

 

[A_SN]

I have to say I love this game. I've always been a fan of pixel-ish art and this is an excellent example, kudos on the graphics. I'd leave the scoreboard as it is, I like the current scoreboard, I don't know why but I just do. One thing I would like to see added would be sound... like a "squish" with each hit, or something like that.

Yeah I like the score board too as it is, although I'd have to steal the artist's dimmer chalk color, and due to the thinness of the numbers, 3 pixels, they don't really look skewed so it doesn't really fit the board's skew-ness.. I guess I can make it a bit larger, just so my numbers can be 4 pixels large, I suppose.

 

[pferguso]

I like your scoreboard, but I would take out the topmost left, and bottommost right pixels off of your zeroes. Your numbers should have an angle, but still be legible. Also, looking at the 3 and the 5, I noticed that the digit widths are not consistent. The numbers should be uniform in both width and height. You can make the scoreboard bigger if you have to to accommodate the digits.

Also, I think there should be more sound effects.

Also, I would be a little more lenient on the collision of the left side of your sponge for hitting the ball, there were times when I was sure that I was lined up, only to see the ball fly right past me.

Good game though. Keep up the good work!

 

[A_SN]

I like your scoreboard, but I would take out the topmost left, and bottommost right pixels off of your zeroes. Your numbers should have an angle, but still be legible. Also, looking at the 3 and the 5, I noticed that the digit widths are not consistent. The numbers should be uniform in both width and height. You can make the scoreboard bigger if you have to to accommodate the digits.

Also, I think there should be more sound effects.

Also, I would be a little more lenient on the collision of the left side of your sponge for hitting the ball, there were times when I was sure that I was lined up, only to see the ball fly right past me.

Good game though. Keep up the good work!

Oh yeah, you've got good points about my score sprites, I'll do that.

As for the sound, yeah, it's on my TODO list.

As for the collisions, you're perfectly right, I haven't even thought about that! I kept treating the ball as a point, a singularity. I should be more lenient by giving the ball a certain radius.

 

[Alex.]

Nice work A_SN, the game is fun and looks great. Add my vote for the larger scoreboard. I'm undecided on Roman vs Arabic numerals, I'm inclined towards Roman because no other game I played has this

Does the game run at a real 160*120 resolution and is scaled via hardware?

 

[A_SN]

Nice work A_SN, the game is fun and looks great. Add my vote for the larger scoreboard. I'm undecided on Roman vs Arabic numerals, I'm inclined towards Roman because no other game I played has this

Does the game run at a real 160*120 resolution and is scaled via hardware?

You'd like to have the board as huge as in the second picture or at an intermediary size? I'm planning on have the number 4 pixels wide, with everything line/number properly separated by a pixel. I think it shall give us an intermediary size board.

As for the resolution, everything is blitted to a 150x120 surface (not 160, that's how the artist decided it would be regardless of standards), and then ultimately scaled up to the framebuffer using a plain old C function that doesn't yet make use of the hardware because I didn't have the time to mess with that. Once I move on to hardware scaling and such, I think that instead of running at 80 MHz as it does now I'll make it run at 32 MHz or less if I can (I wrote the game with that in mind and as you can see it's a very simple game graphically).

As for the roman numerals, I just find it weird to have that in a tennis game .

 

[fusion_power]

The game runs at 80MHz? Hey, thats a bonus point I gave you in the name of my batteries

Nice Game. Normaly I don't like tennis and pong (because of lack of skill) but your game is interesting. I like the dot art and the 2 player mode and the AI. Even AI vs. AI is possible and funny to look :lol: Good components to make a good game and 2 Player Games are rare on GP2X

I noticed, that the blobs can leave the complete screen area, funny. left blob was stuck in the house graphic, would be funny, if he could hide behind the house. ^^ At this point, the game hangs up by the way.

In my opinion, the shadow of the ball should be straight under the ball, its not easy to hit the ball because of the isometric perspective. (or I have no talent - more likely :lol: )

Well, my batteries and me want to thank you for the game ^^

 

[A_SN]

The game runs at 80MHz? Hey, thats a bonus point I gave you in the name of my batteries

Nice Game. Normaly I don't like tennis and pong (because of lack of skill) but your game is interesting. I like the dot art and the 2 player mode and the AI. Even AI vs. AI is possible and funny to look :lol: Good components to make a good game and 2 Player Games are rare on GP2X

I noticed, that the blobs can leave the complete screen area, funny. left blob was stuck in the house graphic, would be funny, if he could hide behind the house. ^^ At this point, the game hangs up by the way.

In my opinion, the shadow of the ball should be straight under the ball, its not easy to hit the ball because of the isometric perspective. (or I have no talent - more likely :lol: )

Well, my batteries and me want to thank you for the game ^^

Yeah, and like I said I'll try to bring the frequency as low as possible. I've tested at 32 MHz and I get 17 FPS (but 27 FPS without scaling) and I think I can get better than 27 FPS at that frequency by using the hw blitter/scaler. Once I'll reach the lowest possible frequency (I don't think 32 MHz is the lowest attainable, using correct settings) and that my game will run smoothly on it I'll test and see how long can the gp2x can stay on with my game on. Heh, I should then ask DJWillis to make it a screensaver for open2x .

Yeah, as for leaving the game area, I didn't do anything about it, and I will. And when you go to far off, the program just sigsegv's (crashes) for a very well know reason. I just didn't have the time to deal with such details before the compo (I started the game in late may).

The shadow of the ball is *already* straight under the ball. lol. I've tried with a realistic shadow position and it's impossible to play.

 

[fusion_power]

Yes, while playing, even with a straight ball shadow it's not always easy to see, where the ball is. ^^ I really have trouble with high Balls. The grass is a good orientation to.

I'm far away to beat the AI. So my match "Sponge Becker vs. Blob Agassi" is not nearly on the original :lol:

While playing, I had some Ideas:

-Trining Mode! With a Ball Canon (adjustable) we could train better the high balls and jumping skills, maybe.
-some transparency into the Blob graphics, maybe. Just a few, needs drawing the hidden corners of the blobs to
-Very fast balls turn red like fire.

 

[A_SN]

Yes, while playing, even with a straight ball shadow it's not always easy to see, where the ball is. ^^ I really have trouble with high Balls. The grass is a good orientation to.

I'm far away to beat the AI. So my match "Sponge Becker vs. Blob Agassi" is not nearly on the original :lol:

hehe, yeah, like I said the AI is tough, and the current level of difficulty will most likely be the Hard difficulty, although not the hardest.

QUOTE

While playing, I had some Ideas:

-Trining Mode! With a Ball Canon (adjustable) we could train better the high balls and jumping skills, maybe.


Actually I trained myself by changing the jumping odds from 1/8 to 1/2, meaning that half the balls the AI would send me would be high, in a random way, so that's a pretty good training. I might make such a mode, as well as a slomo mode or option.

QUOTE
-some transparency into the Blob graphics, maybe. Just a few, needs drawing the hidden corners of the blobs to


I guess I could experiment with that

QUOTE
-Very fast balls turn red like fire.


I actually considered doing something special for when the high balls get intercepted (since they're always thrown back at about 200 km/h) like some special kind of sound, one that may sound like when some huge projectile is projected in the air by one of these huge cannons from the 1950's and such. A flamming ball could be interesting too, although unrealistic since stuff only starts burning in the atmosphere at something like Mach 25 or so