Shark Attack Review

[succendo]

Since I promised renard_v  I'd post a review detailed my EXACT THOUGHTS on Shark Attack, here goes.

Graphics: The character portraits and artwork are incredible. Squeedge nailed the enemy and character designs like whoa. The sprites are great as well, but they lack animation. That's the biggest issue behind the visuals: they lack animation. It's excusable,

Comments

[monstersexual]

Awesome review, thank you for giving in-depth feed back on it. I mean... this is what you do for a living so YOU ARE CERTAINLY A TRUSTED SOURCE :3 Glad to see someone pointing out things I agree with as issues, instead of "OMG HIT BOX NOT IN HEAD, WORST DESIGN EVAR" (I'm still going to stand by that I think that works for the game >:B)

Reading through this I thought to myself "yup, yup and...yup!" The changing backgrounds is something we really wanted to do, but... for some reason we canned the idea. I can't even remember why now, but I'm sure it had a lot to do with me being like "WHAT AM I DOING AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

Even though it lacks in the animation department (which is entirely due to me being rusty as fuc with pixel art) I think we at least achieved a TG16 look/feel to it, since many of the shooters I've seen on it have less animation than Shark Attack. But yes, in future games there needs to be more ~life~ to the sprites. I just need more practice and now that I've seen what we can do, I'm excited to see how much further we can go. So I just need to practice animatin' and all that

[succendo]

I do think you managed to catch that TG16-esque quality, but even them the sprites felt quite static and unchanging. It's not a matter of them being bad, just you not used to doing pixel animations. I thought your designs were hella good though. Those boss portraits, aaa~!

I think a lot of people can't examine what they like about games. When I sit down and play a game, I don't either, but it seems that people can't disconnect themselves from the experience to evaluate what might be flaws or strengths. They are all HURR DURR I LIKE VIDEO GAYMS. I think this is why simulation designers find my talks so fascinating: I can explain why and how things are good/bad.

With backgrounds, it's actually easier than you might think. You have the beginnings of it in stage 1, with the different buildings that scroll by. The normal background could stay the same, but there were no "landmarks" to indicate the player's position, and bosses were out of order instead of being part of the natural progression of the stage. It's also jarring (and more of an issue with the engine than artwork) that the game hangs when transitioning.

I'm excited to see what else you guys put out. Your art is fan-fucking-tastic and I know about Renard's love of videogames, so there's no doubt in my mind you guys can craft great things.

I actually pitched posting this review on my main job, but my boss shut it down :(

[renard_v]

blaming myself for using transitions instead of making a fade object DUH DUH DUHHHHHH my bad