I made a big effort to try to include a little something from all kinds of games, plus abstract sprites that could be cleverly used.
BUT I AM JUST ONE MAN!
What graphics, sfx, music would you love to see made available for the next Toy Box Jam? What did I miss? Or what would you love more of?
SPEAK YOUR MIND HERE!
Axnjaxn was probably talking about the crappily drawn and recolored monsters I slapped on one of the wisdom extra graphics sheets -- they were literally one sprite that would animate by flipping, and were four recolored versions of the same sprite. Womp womp. (Also I might've included a font twice? Have to check.
But yeah, since other colors don't have ranges like the grays do, I tend to just do either two color (main color, shadow edge) or three color ones -- main color, highlight, shadow.
(Then, in case folks didn't dive into the demo cart, other "palette animation" sprites are painfully made so you can animate them by changing what palette colors are and which are transparent, like the Ninjoe whip and particle sprites we did.)
I enjoyed the creative spark of having to use only provided assets and using things in ways they probably weren't intended to be used :). I didn't settle on the idea of doing Haunted House until I saw the bat sprite in motion, then I started building the house out of different sets of terrain blocks, wanting the floors to be different from one another since the Atari version uses different colors. After that, it was picking out things to use as the player, treasure, stairwells, the front door. Haunted House didn't have an in-game antagonist, but it came with a booklet that had a story, so I went with the large animated skull and had his animated mouth tell the story instead of bite or attack. Probably if I was creating my own art, it would have looked a lot different, but would the game even exist if that bat didn't kickstart my thought process?
The one thing I found myself wishing I had more of was sfx/music options (I didn't solve the puzzle to unlock the additional assets, so I may have missed some). I think it was just the mood of my game didn't fit with most of the provided sounds. I ended up using the game over sound on my start screen because it was the "spookiest" one :).
EDIT: I am a complete buffoon - I never even checked democart for SFX/music! So never mind about that whole SFX/music comment. Maybe what you can include next time is a cart full of brain cells for me :).
Oh weird! I wonder if I forgot to regrab stuff at the beginning. My copy of start cart 1 didn't have any SFX or music, only sprites.
My suggestion for future jams is to amend the rules to only require that at least 50% (or whatever percentage) of the assets for a game come from the start carts. Any other assets used must be original creations by the entrant. Then, after the jam is over, curate a new set of assets picked from the assets actually used in the jam (previously provided and newly created assets) to create the start carts for the next year's jam. This provides an ever evolving set of assets, but takes the pressure off of you to create them. I like the communal aspect of this and I think Max Tojoby would appreciate the nod to impermanence.
Interesting idea. Hmmm... I think I'd prefer donations before the jam than 50% creation after, because having to work with "what's there" is the super-unique part of the jam. There have been other jams where you have to "use these X sprites for sure", but then you HAVE to use those sprites instead of choosing what you want.
It might be interesting (to me) though if the spritesheet was ONLY donated sprites from say 32 folks, and they just provided a cart with eight sprites, and I put them together JUST before we all get to see what they are! That would still get the unique flavor of the jam, but no one knows fully what will be in the final cart, including me! And I like that only X sprites roll over to the next one (so it's not just an ever-increasing number).
Now, I was overdramatic above -- I did the original most of the original sprites, but my bud Toby did all of spritesheet two and others donated sprites as well. So I get to play with plenty of sprites I didn't make! :D My main task this jam was making the "unfinished game", heh.
Thanks for the input!
I see. Using "just the toys in the toybox" is the definition of this particular jam. So, yeah, having a toy drive before the jam probably makes more sense. Well, if you keep the easy mode for next year, maybe you can do it both ways.
Anyway, thanks for hosting the jam. It actually got me to make a game after a very many year hiatus. I had a whole lot of fun. I got the idea for my game shortly before downloading the start carts and was on pins and needles hoping I could actually make it fit with the assets. Probably the wrong way to go about things. (What's new!) The idea for using the railroad tracks came straight from the toys in the toybox, though, and it made for a way better game than I first envisioned.
I think some clothing could be really versatile, like all three examples you mentioned. My current RPG/rogue-like is struggling for armour pick-ups--I'm thinking of using partially drawn-sprites, like the top half of sprite 53 in the democart with some palette-swaps could look sort of like a helmet, but it's a bit of a stretch. My first project with plumbers might have had a use for gloves, overalls, boots, as power-ups. :)
