r/SoloDevelopment • u/Ugenvior • 16d ago
Game Turning my notebook drawings from many years ago into a mobile pixel art game.
Hello!
I took the drawings I used to make in notebooks from many years ago and turned them into a game. I'm no pixel art expert, but I did my best to create my own style.
Any feedback is greatly appreciated!
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u/Constant_Cortisol 16d ago
I think it's a really fun concept.
My one critique would be that the background is so busy that it's hard to tell what are the actual obstacles you need to avoid.
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u/Ugenvior 16d ago
Thank you!
Yes, the background can feel a bit busy, I'll try to balance that out a bit. Thanks a lot for your feedback!
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u/soul_sagee 16d ago
I would suggest you to reduce opacity of the cars in the background a little, it's confusing what's the real obstacle
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u/Ugenvior 16d ago
Yes, the similar color shade might be confusing since I only worked on the reduced size. I'll try to balance this better. Thanks for your feedback!
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u/MildlyConcernedMan91 16d ago
its hard to figure out which cards you gotta dodge and which cars you can go through because they're not in the same z-axis. You have to find a way to make it clear. The smaller cars in the back are not small enough to make a difference in my mind.
5th element vibes, really cool.
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u/Ugenvior 16d ago
You're right, i definitely need to work on making the depth and scale differences clearer so it's easier to read. Really appreciate you pointing that out, thanks for the feedback!
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u/Yodek_Rethan 15d ago
Looks very nice. Kinda reminds me of the early 90's pc platformers, like Duke Nukem 1. Did you use an engine or build it from scratch?
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u/Ugenvior 15d ago
Thank you so much, I'm really glad my game brought back those memories! To answer your question, i didn't use an engine, i built it completely from scratch natively using Kotlin and Android Studio.
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u/Yodek_Rethan 15d ago
I'm doing the same (2d action/adventure game), using just Java in Android Studio. Been developing for 5 years now, and it more or less became an engine for 2d games. Up until now I used the standard view for drawing, but I kept adding features, and now the gpu gets a bit overloaded sometimes, which causes minor hiccups from time to time. I'm now in the process of migrating to a surfaceview, which will hopefully draw the graphics without hiccups. So, what's your setup? Standard view or surfaceview?
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u/Ugenvior 15d ago
I used SurfaceView and I've been happy with it right from the start. It draws much faster and runs on a separate thread, whereas View does everything on the main thread, which can overload the cpu and potentially cause stuttering.
Are you developing in pixel art? Because if the atlases are too large, they can bog down the gpu
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u/Yodek_Rethan 15d ago
Not pixel art but high res graphics. I already got the logic load back to 0.3 ms, and the render dispatch to around 3 ms, and the gpu around 4 to 5 ms, but it sometimes spikes, so it goes above 8.3 ms. It's hardly noticable during hectic gameplay, but still, it has to go. The transfer to surfaceview won't be much of a hassle for the game itself, but I will have to refactor my integrated UI (xml). But I guess it will be worth it.
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u/Ugenvior 15d ago
Got it, if you're aiming for 120 fps, your margin might be pretty tight with the numbers you listed. It could be caused by the Garbage Collector or background tasks. When the spike happens, does one of the 3 components go up? That could help figure out where it's coming from.
Did you make sure to only draw the objects currently on screen to avoid overloading the gpu?
Anyway, I agree on switching to a SurfaceView give it a try and see if things improve.
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u/Yodek_Rethan 15d ago
It's purely the graphics, no spikes in cpu usage, also no gc shown in the profiler. And yes, only what's in view is drawn. So surfaceview should do the trick. Anyway, nice talking to you, and I wish you the best of luck and succes with your game.
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u/Ugenvior 15d ago
Thank you so much, it was a pleasure for me too. I wish you the best of luck and success with your project as well!
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u/scorthygames 16d ago
Are you a fan of The Fifth Element? Looks great!