Character Design

[thombruce]

I had downloaded this pack as I thought it offered good variety: https://totuslotus.itch.io/characterpack

It does, but I don't think it meets my needs. I think we want to have more than four facing directions.

There's this really good 8-directional template: https://gibbongl.itch.io/8-directional-gameboy-character-template

I'm tempted to adapt that, using it as-is in the short term then making different character types based on it.

I had been thinking of doing something more like...

• Hotline Miami: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/911297278698954517/FCD386E3C1607AF8724222378405EEF902598FA5/
• GTA: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/911297278698954517/FCD386E3C1607AF8724222378405EEF902598FA5/
• FTL: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ftl/images/7/79/RacesALL.png/revision/latest?cb=20140408220024

These games have a more authentically top-down approach (FTL is only sllightly off), meaning the sprites can be rotated in any direction. This would also fit the more top-down designs of the rest of the world I intend.

The 8-directional sprites can be and are much more expressive, however, so I'm still a bit torn.

One important note is that the world needs to be rotatable. It must be possible for North to become down and South to become up when the player moves over a pole, for instance and they should be able to manually reorient if they choose to.

Best way to achieve that is probably by rotating the camera, rather than the world. Beyond a pole, however, the world is genuinely redrawn upside down - I still have to figure that out.

When the camera rotates, I wonder... could the sprite (8-directional) be artificially animated in the process to reflect the facing direction at each point in such a rotation? Maybe camera rotation is something I want to experiment with early on...

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Right now, I'm leaning more towards the 8-directional sprites purely because they are more expressive. Use of weapons is still an open question.