Leon: Tactical Asshole Cat

Craigery

Active member
LATEST UPDATE: http://www.nesmakers.com/index.php?threads/leon-tactical-asshole-cat.163/post-41243
This game has changed dramatically from this first post. Check out my latest post!

Leon: Tactical Asshole Cat

uc


Story: Leon is a member of an elite cat squad whose very existence is Top Secret. Instructed by Admiral Kiki and technical expert Nina Katz, Leon must complete a variety of missions to keep the world balanced for all cats.

Concept: Stealth based game where you try and break everything in a location without alerting the humans. Pictures frames, books, anything on a desk or counter. There will be humans, dogs and other hazards that can hurt you. In general it is a stealth game so I am toying with a concept of having the level end if a human sees you. In general you want to avoid conflict, but knocking things off of counters could temporarily knock out dogs or other hazards. Lots of objects will cast shadows making it easier to hide. I am toying with idea about an "Anxiety Meter" where you have to hold a button down while hiding to make your tail stop wagging, otherwise it will give you away and the meter is small. Also looking at certain powerups to collects like a Decibel Meter to show how much noise you are making, Motion Detector, Visibility Meter to see how hidden you are. Its kind of a riff on Metal Gear starring some of my animal family.

I am still working on getting these into the NES Screen Tool and know I will need to cut things, but I had some fun over the weekend planning and making these.

Stand Idle
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Walk
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Attack
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Jump
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Sit Idle
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Sit Attack
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Sit Hide
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Crouch Down
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Crouch Idle
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Crouch Walk
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Crouch Attack
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Crouch Hide
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Damage
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Death - Just kind of threw this one together. If there is space left I will do something more interesting.
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Again, I am sure I will need to cut some stuff, but I want to try and push the animations as much as I can. Comments?
 
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Mihoshi20

Member
LOL, that name alone makes it worth playing and those sprites are great. I can't help imagine scenes where Leon stops people chasing him by knocking over trash cans, or stops the bad guy by rubbing up against his bottles of potions knocking them off the table and breaking them, foiling his evil schemes. Or playing with dangling computer wires ripping them out of the sockets and shorting them.
 

Craigery

Active member
uc


Just sketching some stuff out that can be broken or knocked down, so you can see I have various books, frames, a mug, boombox, juicebox, a glass, and some other stuff. I plan on a can of Cola, bottle, and a vase for sure, but I am open to suggestions for more items. So far planning on a House level and a Veterinarian hospital level for sure.
 

Craigery

Active member
A mock up of the starting area, a bedroom. I am sure the colors will need to more limited, but I think this is a reasonable representation. of what I am going for. The shadow areas under the bed and beside dresser can be used for cover. The books, frames, vase, and mug could be damaged.

UPDATE: New picture; added a window and wallpaper. Not set on the wallpaper colors, but its simple enough that it can use colors for whatever other rooms I make. Also when I was messing with this I thought that you would know what objects you can break if you pass behind them; could be a good mechanic to look for hidden things too.

uc
 

Craigery

Active member
Some progress! I've finished my Player Tileset's first pass. Hopefully NESMaker will allow you to move tiles in the Tileset, maybe drag/drop, and it will automagically update the Metasprites? Because I didn't work with the 8x16 mindset and I am sure there are some tiles I could move together, but CHR isn't as friendly in that area as I'd hoped.

uc



I cut down the Jump and Crouch Down considerably. I made small sacrifices from the original on a few animations. The only animation from the first post that got cut is Crouch Attach, which I am not really sure I need. Not an exciting update, but after this I am going to plan for 8x16 a little better if I can. I wish I was in the Beta :(
 

Mihoshi20

Member
So far it looks like you're well within constrains. Currently Player and primary assets are restricted to a 16 tiles across by 8 tiles down grid making for a total of 128 tiles for player assets. Essentially half of the grid shown there. You don't have to group the tiles together as that's done when you're defining what tiles makeup the player and it's animation. These 128 tiles are always loaded with each screen so are generally also used for projectile assets and other common sprites and not just the player, so you may want to keep this in mind. The HUD however is a different tileset so you don't have to worry about that.

As for hiding behind objects. It's not entirely required to make space for that in the tileset for the player as the NES is capable of placing sprites in front of or behind background objects, though the current engine doesn't support that feature yet so keep that in mind also for the time being.
 

Craigery

Active member
Mihoshi20 said:
So far it looks like you're well within constrains. Currently Player and primary assets are restricted to a 16 tiles across by 8 tiles down grid making for a total of 128 tiles for player assets. Essentially half of the grid shown there. You don't have to group the tiles together as that's done when you're defining what tiles makeup the player and it's animation. These 128 tiles are always loaded with each screen so are generally also used for projectile assets and other common sprites and not just the player, so you may want to keep this in mind. The HUD however is a different tileset so you don't have to worry about that.

Forgive me if I am not understanding this correctly:
128 tiles for the Player/Primary assets
128 tiles for Background/HUD

So if I have this correct anything not in the background is part of the Primary assets? Are HUD elements with the Background tiles?
I am re-watching the tutorials to find some of these answers too.

Also, because I have thing for gumball machines...

uc
 

Mihoshi20

Member
Craigery said:
Mihoshi20 said:
So far it looks like you're well within constrains. Currently Player and primary assets are restricted to a 16 tiles across by 8 tiles down grid making for a total of 128 tiles for player assets. Essentially half of the grid shown there. You don't have to group the tiles together as that's done when you're defining what tiles makeup the player and it's animation. These 128 tiles are always loaded with each screen so are generally also used for projectile assets and other common sprites and not just the player, so you may want to keep this in mind. The HUD however is a different tileset so you don't have to worry about that.

Forgive me if I am not understanding this correctly:
128 tiles for the Player/Primary assets
128 tiles for Background/HUD

So if I have this correct anything not in the background is part of the Primary assets? Are HUD elements with the Background tiles?
I am re-watching the tutorials to find some of these answers too.

Also, because I have thing for gumball machines...

uc

Franco92 made a post here http://nesmakers.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=133 displaying a nice layout chart where NESMaker sticks it's graphical assets. Using it as inspiration I've made an enhanced chart that might help you when planning out the graphics.

PPU_chart.png

Each square represents an 8 pixels x 8 pixels tile.

1A - Player Section: 128 8x8 tiles total. These tiles are always loaded. This section tends to include all the animations and tiles that makeup the player and death animations and projectiles. Max current size for a single player sprite is 8 tiles by 8 tiles (64 pixels x 64 pixels total), but this would severely limit direction variety and animation as it would use up most of the available graphics space for the player.

2B - Monsters Section: 128 8x8 tiles total. Similar to the player section. This section tends to include enemy and NPC sprites and animations. This section can change from screen to screen. Max current size for a single monster is same as the player but would severely limit monster variety along with facing directions and animations.

3C - Main Tiles: 96 8x8 tiles total, but generally grouped into 16x16 tiles for a total of 24 individual screen tiles. This section contains your background and foreground tiles. Can change from screen to screen.

4D - Screen Tiles: 32 8x8 tiles, but grouped into 16x16 or more tiles for a minimal total of 8 screen tiles. These tiles are shared between screens and don't change.

5E - Auto tiles/Paths: Similar to screen tiles but join together and can't be used separately. Generally used as paths, water tiles, or grass patches.

HUD Section: Isn't used yet and doesn't seem to have changeable assets.

Hopefully this helps and if you have further questions feel free to ask away.
 

Mihoshi20

Member
Tengen Games North said:
That does help me some Mihoshi20. Thanks!

What do you mean the HUD section is unchangeable, that is the font every game must use?

At present the HUD area isn't used and there are no assets in the GraphicAssets folder that relate to the HUD. I imagine once the HUD is enabled for use then it'll be fully customizable. Variable size for the HUD is even also planned but at present the same graphics are always loaded in that block of the chr but go unused.
 

Craigery

Active member
Mihoshi20 that was beyond helpful! I need to browse the board a bit more rather that just the FB group.
 

Mihoshi20

Member
Craigery said:
Mihoshi20 that was beyond helpful! I need to browse the board a bit more rather that just the FB group.

Ah good good! I hoped it would be helpful and clear a few things up! :D
 

Craigery

Active member
uc


Planned out the top floor of my first level The House. Not crazy about alot of the colors, but I can figure that out later. From left to right we have a small bedroom, Hallway with stairway down, Bathroom, Master bedroom and closet. Lots of things to break in each area.
I need to finish my humans walk cycle and continue a patrol corgie that I started.
Also working on a HUD. There are 3 meters; how visible you are, how loud you are (if you run or land you would be making some of noise), and in which direction something is approaching. I will most likely add a timer as well.

Thoughts or suggestions?
 

TurtleRescueNES

Active member
This is a game I look forward to see develop further. Great original concept!

Any thoughts to adding a roll of toilet paper for Leon to unravel? ;)
 
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