Chasersgaming

April Update 2022

Added 2022-05-19 10:20:14 +0000 UTC

Oi Oi Gamdev and or Gamer!

Well here we are, late, but better late than never, isn't that how the saying goes?

These last few months have been tiresome for me. A lot of work has gone into re-working the sprite sheets, fixing some obvious mistakes, and some not so obvious. This has taken me a very long time and i have had some very late nights, trying desperately to get things in a finished state where i can move forward quickly. This has had a massive impact on releases over the last few months where i haven't been able to release anything since January. Very disappointing i know, but it is necessary, no, actually it's essential that this re-working was done because the benefits for future releases relies heavily on these going forward, and having mistakes picked up now and fixed this early on only has a small impact on previous releases so far, as opposed to 40-50 releases later on down the line. i don't want to be going back to previous work and losing time fixing issues that i missed then and knock back future releases, just like it has done already. Once you have seen the mistakes, although they may only be minors ones, they are hard to unsee and it bugs the hell out of me. :)

Unfortunately all this work has gone on in the background and it's something you arn't really going to see as there is nothing really to see, or worth showing i don't think, i don't see a point in showing a screen shot of code, or half draw sprites that don't make any sense, however i am aware that maybe giving an update on things is something i should try and do more often, either here or on Discord in a 'casual' sort of way to at least keep you all in the loop. I have a pretty 'disconnected' work pattern i'm afraid. What i mean by that is when i'm working on things i tend to just keep my head down and crack on with what ever i need to do and don't pop up again until i'm finished. :) so i go pretty quite for a time, and then when finished il come alive for a short spell before disappearing again. :) So i hope you will bear with me, as i will try and do better. :) But be assured, i'm not doing nothing, i am doing something.

Anyway before i waffle on more, lets get to the releases(Yay!)

Kings and Queens! for the RPG Asset Series. Yes, i know i have already released Kings & Queens but these have been re-worked since i updated all the sprites. Previously released only had one clothing type, but these newer works have five clothing types, for each format, SMS,NES, & Gameboy.

Back in January i think i mentioned that February would of been a female release, then March another male release, so one character theme of female one month and a male the next month, but this is where the efforts i have made with re-working a few things has led to me releasing both at the same time. To be able to release one male, and one female character every month is something i have been wanting to do since November last year and this should speed up things considerably. Ultimately, what would of been 12 characters( 6 male, 6 female) in 12 months, could now be 12 characters(6 male, 6 female) in 6 months, leaving the remaining 6 months of the year to possibly create another 12 characters, speeding up the process. :) i say 'could' in a likely fashion as this is early days and my first attempt at doing it, but feels good so far and went rather well.

SMS TYPE 1 MALE

SMS TYPE 2 MALE

SMS TYPE 3 MALE

SMS TYPE 4

SMS TYPE 5 MALE

SMS TYPE 1 FEMALE

SMS TYPE 2 FEMALE

SMS TYPE 3 FEMALE

SMS TYPE 4 FEMALE

SMS TYPE 5 FEMALE

You will notice a difference compared to the last releases of some characters. Mainly the 'black' characters with there avatars images.

The skin tone is lighter in the old versions, compared to these new versions. This was a bit of an oversite on my end here, this is also the same with the female types too. Going forward the darker tone avatars will now replace the old versions and has paved the way for me to introduce 15 new characters(10 male & 5 female) using a new lighter skin tone, which i would consider 'mix raced' and will add more diversity for character creating and be more inclusive, also will help with more themes. I have no examples yet, as i chose to to not include any at this stage for risk of delaying a release(again), but i will try and have them ready on the next release.

updated itch pages:

https://chasersgaming.itch.io/rpg-asset-character-king-sms

https://chasersgaming.itch.io/rpg-asset-character-queen-sms

Edit: other pages will be updated soon, i have some issues with the preview images for NES & GB.

Character Creator

As well as re-working the spritesheets, i have been coding the 'Character creator' as well, which has also played it's part in the delays of releases, which i briefly spoke about back in January. The 'Character Creator' is an evolution of what was my 'Sprite Exporter'. It's the reason i am able to export all the sprites that i do, including sprite sheets, individual sprite sheets and individual frames of each animations. With currently 12+ animations its a lot of work to do manually, one character alone used to take me weeks to do, but once i had the 'exporter' working, it took me much less time and allowed me to create more sprites. I've gone from one character, 10 characters, 20 characters and now five different clothing types for each character and females characters are in the mix. Despite some months having no releases, i feel this is a sacrifice worth making for what can come from it.

I also mentioned back in January that there could be an SMS, NES & GB 'Character Creator', but since re-working the sprites, and developing the tool, i have had to re-think this approach for a couple of reasons.

1) It wouldn't be practical to develop three separate tools as this means updating each individual tool as and when new 'items' are added, tripling the work and time needed to do so.

2) The NES/GB colour limitations would make the 'set up' of sprite colouring 'items' problematic. Not impossible, but a complex thing to develop.

The best thing to do will be to obviously add a colour palette selector. This will allow me/users to customise there own colour choices, either from a standard palette or one from NES/GB and customise it towards those console limitations. :) This makes much more sense to do, so there won't be a 'CC' for each console format, instead I will be looking at calling the tool an '8 Bit Character Creator'.

I get asked a lot for me to create my characters, in a more unique style to what games people are developing, or thinking of developing as they like my sprites, which is very cool and indeed flattering. :) Hopefully this will go someway into allowing more customisable sprites to be made in the future that doesn't or won't just rely on me to create them. :)

Now, i'm still a long way off from this being a complete tool yet. One thing i'm going to need is to learn 'shaders' to be able to handle the palettes. I've never worked with shaders before, so this will be a learning curve for me. However, once i have something tangible i will perhaps release a 'beta' version for you to try and give me some feedback. :)

OK, i ve rambled on long enough now so il leave it there for now. Any issues then let me know and il do what i can ASAP. :)