Splatoon
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Splatoon
Just over a year ago I was contacted to work on a NES game for a pitch to Nintendo, using the Splatoon IP. Sadly this game never made it to the full commision but we did have a working prototype that was demoed to the Splatoon team.
Initially the idea was to layer sprites so we could get more colours per character but the workflow was just too intense, what looks good in theory doesn't always make for the smartest route in a production pipeline. The idea of the game was to shoot ink on all the grey surfaces and colour them.
Finally I can start to talk about this project and show some graphics from it. I took reference from the Splatoon artbook, the game on the WiiU, and some Amiibos we had.
All of the following graphics are formatted to work an actual NES with colour and memory restrictions, animations were done in Aseprite, tile maps in NESscreen Tool.
Inkling:
fall
shoot
idle
jump
run
transform
Squid:
fall
idle
jump
walk
Level:
tilemap:
Re: Splatoon
Boy, don't I know it.Initially the idea was to layer sprites so we could get more colours per character but the workflow was just too intense,
These graphics look pretty neat, though the slope implementation looks a little glitchy. It would have been nice to see something like this instead of the other smaller mini games in Splatoon, though.
Re: Splatoon
Thanks, yeah there were quite a few unfinished bits, would have been nice to make the final polished thing.Kasumi wrote:Boy, don't I know it.Initially the idea was to layer sprites so we could get more colours per character but the workflow was just too intense,
These graphics look pretty neat, though the slope implementation looks a little glitchy. It would have been nice to see something like this instead of the other smaller mini games in Splatoon, though.
- Drew Sebastino
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Re: Splatoon
Those Inkling girl graphics are seriously beautiful. Your project reminds me of when I was seriously considering trying to do a 1:1 port of Splatoon on the SNES. Didn't get very far!
Were you ever planning on having more characters onscreen, because this would totally shred through the 8 sprite per scanline limit. It's difficult enough to even consolidate the characters down to 15 colors on the SNES.hawken wrote:Initially the idea was to layer sprites so we could get more colours per character
Except this kind of just is Splatoon downported to the NES, so I think it would be kind of weird as a mini game. Certainly beats screwing with the music in Splatoon 2 though; God damn that game makes me sad.Kasumi wrote:It would have been nice to see something like this instead of the other smaller mini games in Splatoon, though.
Re: Splatoon
Looks great! Would be cool if it was included like a minigame, but on the other hand playing the game on an emulator kind of defeats the purpose of making a game for Famicom hardware.
Do you know how the game was going to be used? A free download or something?
Do you know how the game was going to be used? A free download or something?
- FrankenGraphics
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Re: Splatoon
You could still drop any IP related content, change some things up and make a more than decent NES platformer out of it, by the looks of it. Still, a bit of a shame they didn't go ahead with it.would have been nice to make the final polished thing.
It looks really nice. Some interesting gradient techniques used on the background, too.
Re: Splatoon
That beautiful, can download the roms?
- Drew Sebastino
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Re: Splatoon
It just appeared to me that they'd be colored just by changing the 16x16 tile's palette? Because this would probably look terrible to be honest.hawken wrote:The idea of the game was to shoot ink on all the grey surfaces and colour them.
I figure you could actually make ink appear as it does in the game if you were to make every surface visible to the camera. (Everything is undetailed because I'm too lazy.)
The part of the floor that would be "inkable" would be 16 pixels wide and tall, as it would use its own palette (and is why the slope does not have a while line, unfortunately). However, this would probably take more than 256 tiles, (especially with different tiles for inked surfaces) which I think would severely limit your options on what mapper to chose. (MMC5 only? Hopefully not.) Additionally, while it's not too apparent in that shot, the perspective doesn't really make sense. However, the perspective on the Donkey Kong Country games never made any sense either, for example:
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Re: Splatoon
I could never tell if the walls on the left side were supposed to be ripped wall paper, or a painting of mountains and clouds.
Re: Splatoon
Yeah it's really no different from games like DKC or top-view 2D Zelda games. I don't know what it's called but there's a style of art where you combine multiple perspectives in the same drawing to make it more lively. Classic Japanese paintings often used something like that.Espozo wrote:while it's not too apparent in that shot, the perspective doesn't really make sense. However, the perspective on the Donkey Kong Country games never made any sense either
In Zelda a Link Between Worlds they made it intentionally so that it looks like in A Link to the Past by having everything being slanted (something which may be seen when going into a wall) while the camera is placed straight from above.
- Drew Sebastino
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Re: Splatoon
Take a guess. I don't think it's supposed to be ripped wall paper as much as it's supposed to be chipped paint. The number of colors there is noticeably lacking compared to the rest of the level. (Color balance is too centered on light colors.) One thing I never realized until I got into SNES programming is how all the poles and the doorway in the foreground fall in line with the 8x8 tile grid so they can appear in front of the player. How did they get it to line up like this if it originated from a 3D scene? I imagine there was a significant amount of editing done by hand afterward, but this is a given due to how the perspective doesn't make sense yet all the tiles have no visual breaks between them.psycopathicteen wrote:I could never tell if the walls on the left side were supposed to be ripped wall paper, or a painting of mountains and clouds.
(I noticed these posts after my other one:)
The beautifully animated Inkling is the best part though.FrankenGraphics wrote:You could still drop any IP related content
I'd like to know more details about how this project came to be.Pokun wrote:Do you know how the game was going to be used? A free download or something?
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Re: Splatoon
It's definitely a picture of mountains. **guitar music plays**Take a guess.
Re: Splatoon
Cheers!Pokun wrote:Looks great! Would be cool if it was included like a minigame, but on the other hand playing the game on an emulator kind of defeats the purpose of making a game for Famicom hardware.
Do you know how the game was going to be used? A free download or something?
Theres an article here that might answer these questionsEspozo wrote: I'd like to know more details about how this project came to be.
Last edited by hawken on Tue Nov 28, 2017 8:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Splatoon
Cool mockup, it might eat into the tile budget heavily though, the level only barely fit in the tileset. Theres a few NES games that use this quirky double perspective isn't there?Espozo wrote:It just appeared to me that they'd be colored just by changing the 16x16 tile's palette? Because this would probably look terrible to be honest.hawken wrote:The idea of the game was to shoot ink on all the grey surfaces and colour them.
I figure you could actually make ink appear as it does in the game if you were to make every surface visible to the camera. (Everything is undetailed because I'm too lazy.)
The part of the floor that would be "inkable" would be 16 pixels wide and tall, as it would use its own palette (and is why the slope does not have a while line, unfortunately). However, this would probably take more than 256 tiles, (especially with different tiles for inked surfaces) which I think would severely limit your options on what mapper to chose. (MMC5 only? Hopefully not.) Additionally, while it's not too apparent in that shot, the perspective doesn't really make sense. However, the perspective on the Donkey Kong Country games never made any sense either, for example:
For the gameplay, one has to get away from the idea of painting the floor, and make it about painting the walls, then using the walls to traverse to higher parts of the level. The tile colouring was intended to use a sprite overlay that dripped ink on the tile. (we never got this far though)
Last edited by hawken on Tue Nov 28, 2017 8:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Splatoon
Thats the thing really, the Splatoon characters are so nice to work with. Repurposing the sprite would be difficult. Thanks btw!Espozo wrote:The beautifully animated Inkling is the best part though.FrankenGraphics wrote:You could still drop any IP related content