How does this 3D platformer(-ish) look?

[Bad Sector]

There.

I'm working on it since a while. I started it to learn XNA for a job that never worked out (apparently they wanted freelancers with revenue share instead of employees) but then i decided to continue working on it because controlling the bot around the maps actually was fun. I replaced the original textures with new using a more consistent look (a some sort of sketchy look with a bit of 90s 3D games inspiration - yes, the choice was because i can't do 1024x1024 normalspecularmapped textures yet, so i decided to stick to something i can do consistently :-P). I haven't replaced the robot yet to fit in the style though, but that will happen soon. Here is a small shot from the game (more in the site above, including a download link):



The game is obviously in prealpha stage and hardly has any kind of gameplay. At some point it'll be ported to a custom C engine for Mac OS X and Linux versions (the "game code" will be mostly in LIL anyway, which is usable via C#/XNA so i'll only need to write the rendering and input parts in C - and i already have an engine in works, it just cannot load maps from my 3D world editor yet).

However i'm interested in feedback sooner than later. What people think about how the game looks and plays (btw, i'll add XBox360 controller support soon... i just need a controller first :-P)?

[Applewood]

The one word answer is "empty"

[Bad Sector]

And the multi-word answer? :-P

It needs more on the content side, (levels are feeling empty indeed). But i have a problem there: as far as i have played it by running around collecting stuff, it seems that i need to keep spaces open. It feels good to run around and occasionally bumping on stuff to select them (adding some blowable things that do nothing to really harm you but provide extra eye candy will probably be a good idea). However i'm not sure how to combine "make things not look empty" and "needs empty space to run around". I mean beyond said blowable things.

Now that seems like a problem to ask in a level design forum (which i'll do :-P), but the more opinions the better :-)

[Applewood]

I don't really know how to answer this tbh. You know I rate you as a programmer having once offered a job, but those screenshots just scream amateurism from the textures to the geometry on down. I know you can do much better than this.

Sorry!

[Bad Sector]

It is ok, i'm actually asking for opinions here :-). A major reason for this texture style is to not take me ages to make textures, but if they give an "amateur" vibe, i'll ditch them and try making something better. Even though i can't make top-AAA quality content, i don't want to make mediocre stuff either :-)

[Applewood]

Here's one from a company I briefly worked at (so know how many and how good the people were - the answers being "few" and "nothing special")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA1H5r8gxAc

You can tell from the geometry how old it is, so I don't think that anything these days, indie or not, should look inferior to it. If that means too much work for one man, then it just bolsters the fact that certain games can't be made by one man teams tbh - no shame in that.

[Bad Sector]

Thanks for the video, it is nice to have a "below this, it sucks" mark that i feel i can reach :-). I think that the texture work there is within my capabilities, especially with modern software :-). Geometry is another issue though, because the style is different to what i have in my mind (EWJ's style is very organic). If i *had* to make such geometry, i would need someone to provide me with a lot of concept art because i find it a bit hard to imagine very organic environments. Fortunately for me, i don't have to do so :-P.

[Bad Sector]

Just out of curiosity i replaced the floor texture with a more realistic-ish texture (made by modelling the surface in blender and coloring it in GIMP) and i doubled the texels per world unit so that there is more texture resolution (which is why the other textures look smaller since they're the original). How does that look?

For what is worth, that took me around 20 times more time than the original texture, even though the general "shape idea" is the same :-P

Also it is tempting to put some normal mapping there since i already have the depth buffer from Blender.

[Applewood]

The extra detail is much better. I think you should be looking at lightmaps too - plenty of colour variation all over the place will help tons.

[Roman Budzowski]

It looks dark. Too dark as for me.

[Bad Sector]

@Applewood:
Yeap, i don't like the single-color palette. I did some tests based on feedback from other places too and added a bit of contrast in the pixel shader that renders the world. I think the vivid result is much better :-).

@Roman Budzowski:
Did you noticed that in the shots or the game itself? The game changes light levels as you move around to accommodate for dark areas so there is always plenty of light around (that will also be an option in the settings). The shots aren't good for showing that since, for example, the dark corner in the shot above will slightly brighten up as you move towards it (of course having dark corners might not be desirable in the first place).