Another Sneak Peak - Any good?

Here's a screenie. It's not quite finished yet but this is moreorless the look. Any good?

[edit] NEW SCREENIE



Old one:




That sea is animated by the way and the clouds move...


Only kidding. However all the shapes are animated.

I would like the decoration balls to be red though, as it looks very blue and cold overall now (the screen)

Holiday bonus = Christmas Bonus? :p
Don't tell me you're trying to be politically correct?

I would love to see some cozy, high quality snow pictures in the background though, as the 3d generated landscape detracts from my viewing pleasure (subjective ofcourse)

A few candy-canes would also add to the overall cozy-disney-christmas-feel, and add some more color to it overall.

Hope it helps, Jake, good luck on getting some sleep too :p

A christmas tree branch stub, with a golden bell and some other stuff, with a candle on top would be much better suited than just the candle like you have it now.
It feels like its too simple compared to the other objects - and too white :D



or do some patterns on it?

Well I'll give some honest feedback.

It looks good, but it doesnt look like a shareware game. Not quite. Needs tweaking!

The side menu is way too simple, you can even see the bevel of the photoshop / paintshop effect. The font just doesn't really fit well in the current design. You have a really simple side menu, but then quite an intricate detailed font. You need to add some variation. More then just a white beveled block that casts a shadow. How about a very tall candy cane, a reath in teh corner, a pile of presents or maybe just some more colored rectangles for the different sections. Just something that stands out more.

The whole menu casts a drop shadow, but your drop shadow gives away that the menu is a rectangle. See at the top you can see the top edge casting a shadow on the playfield. Well if this is what you want then ok. To me it looks a bit weird. You have a what is supposed to be floating menu, yet it fills the entire height of the screen, with 3 of its sides docked.

I would suggest either padding around the menu about 4 - 5 pixels or making the shadow continue right up to the top of the screen. The Padded menu could be interesting, you would have a small glimpse of the background, left,top and bottom of the menu. The casted shadow would also look alot cooler.

The play icons look excellent, apart from the bauball. It really shouldnt be faceated and really as somone else mentioned should be red. The colors you have chosen make it look like quite cold and bleak.

I am not trying to poke holes in this, but as you are trying to aim this at a buying market rather then a freeware market, I thought you might appreciate feedback of this nature.

The background really has no significance to christmas and the amount of blue you have there makes me shiver. To me for some reason it looks like the intro screen to a televised christian church service rather then a warm friendly holiday game.



Well there was my detailed critcisms's's's's of your shot. Hope you dont take offense!

ta ta

Some royalty-free pictures might be available? (those below were just found on google)
If you make the background cold and blueish, and the icons warm and fuzzy, I think you'll have a winner :D

The tiles are nice grey and if they're animated then it'll look nice. The problem I see though is that it resembles Xmass bonus with those backgrouns. imo easter bonus looked better.

Totally agree - too blue and washed out. Chaotic's examples are what's needed - more colour and contrast.

Hi everyone many thanks for your comments and suggestions! So a couple of things I should have mentioned before:

- There are around 10 backgrounds, some white, some dark, some sunsets, some sea/bluey etc. that one in the screenie is actually the north pole, but the pole is hidden until you complete the level.

- I used nice freeware photos in xmas bonus and hand drawn/simple backgrounds in easter bonus (so you could focus on the game). However no big name casual games use photos for the background it's all 3D rendered these days and so is mine as that's what the buyer expects.

- there are 2 more shapes you haven't seen. A red santa hat and a red/white candy cane with a bow. 5 our of 10 possible shapes show. Every shape is a different colour so you can play the matching game on colour And/Or shape which is very important. You don't have 2 red items, trust me on this :-) I'll probably boost the overall brightness of some of the shapes.

- I'll fix the panel bevel issue too, this had been bothering me a bit as well. Don't really have time to change it much :-(

- baable is faceted because when the mouse is over any shape they spin round and a smooth bauble won't look like it's moving...

I'll post another screen in a minute.

It makes sense if the game is about matching colors, so ignore my comments above :)

New screen: shows different shapes.

Also Panel changed, added bevels. Also realised that I'd left a green filter on the panel by mistake so that's gone.

skn3: The side menu is way too simple, you can even see the bevel of the photoshop / paintshop effect.

That's interesting. If I would be making a game (which I'll prolly never do :P) I'd still use photoshops layer effects to soup up fonts etc., like strike, perhaps bevel, perhaps glow, dunno. There was a certain lensflare craze, quite some years ago already, where everyone could seperate the noobs from the pros, just be looking for (overusage of) lensflares. Would you say that layer-effects for fonts in Photoshop are, like, the next lensflares?

Thing is, from a designer's point of view it's obvious photoshop BUT from a player's point of view it's a nice effect. Loads of games have really basic HUDS and don't do that well, having a shadow and a transparent HUD is pretty up to date, also it slides off later and looks cool. There's a million things I could do to this game given time but I'm pushed so I'm polishing the most important areas. The beta will reveal more I'm sure...expect maybe tomorrow? Just need some more code, graphics and music...

I would like to some some backdrops which are a little more Christmas themed - maybe reindeers, snow-covered cottages, warm fireplaces, that sort of thing. The current backdrops (especially the bottom one) are a little detached from the game's theme.

I agree with simonh, the backgrounds should be warm and welcoming, more like the rendered title screen.

I think some of the shapes look a little washed out and could do with being more saturated (quick hack)...

The new menu bar looks better, though. :o)

Yan: Yeah adjusting the brightness of everything was on my to do list anyway. Like I said it's not finished.

It is only going to effect the impression of your design if it is the only way you are trying to impress. The difference between a hand drawn hud that fits the theme and has text overlayed with a shadow, and a beveled block of color with shadow, should be obvious. Without even needing to look at it.

Grey, your improvements are a good start. If you had more time you could work some magic, but it is a marked improvement.


Just as a very quick example. You can easily make your hud look more unique with some tweaks. Obviously this looks slightly out of place, I wasnt willing to hand draw some stuff to make an example lol. You get the idea.

skn3[ac]: Impressive. Wish I had more time to do it like that. Actually those ribbon flower things look good and DO fit in cos they are rendered (got any spare royalty free?) Not sure about the sripes, but I get the idea, perhaps if the panel centres were a different colour though...[Edit] Never mind about the rosettes, I'm going to keepit simple now.

panel with darker score bits.



Actually just made the dark bits a teeny bit lighter and it's better.

It's such an iterative process making a game, for the gfx, code, music and sfx! If you don't iterate your game is probably crap or you are a genius :-)

Got a digital camera ? lol.

Yours is looking better each time.

Sometimes I get lucky and produce a bit that needs no tweaks.. but that happens once and a blue moon, so can you say 17 iterations ? lol

good point but ah no time...