$ Need Artist For App Icon, Need Name For Game, and Need Opinions
dmilinovichiii
Member Posts: 620
I have been working on this game for about a year now at about an hour or two a week. Here is the result:
I need a few things:
1. I need an app icon. Is there an artist out there who would be willing to design me a really catchy icon for $5-$10?
2. What do you think? This is only level one. Later levels have zombie bosses, stronger zombies, and faster zombies.
3. 90% of the graphics are royalty free because I'm artistically disabled. Do they look ok? I'm not looking for award winning, but I want them to be acceptable.
4. What should I name this game? My development name was Zombie Apocalypse but I'm looking for something more original.
A few notes:
The game actually has sound, it just wont work with my screen recorder. The weapons include pistols, snipers, machine guns, and bazookas that all have different bullet effects. The perk system is very similar to the system in Call of Duty multiplayer games.
I need a few things:
1. I need an app icon. Is there an artist out there who would be willing to design me a really catchy icon for $5-$10?
2. What do you think? This is only level one. Later levels have zombie bosses, stronger zombies, and faster zombies.
3. 90% of the graphics are royalty free because I'm artistically disabled. Do they look ok? I'm not looking for award winning, but I want them to be acceptable.
4. What should I name this game? My development name was Zombie Apocalypse but I'm looking for something more original.
A few notes:
The game actually has sound, it just wont work with my screen recorder. The weapons include pistols, snipers, machine guns, and bazookas that all have different bullet effects. The perk system is very similar to the system in Call of Duty multiplayer games.
Comments
http://oi46.tinypic.com/2qv6u7d.jpg
I still need a name though. Does anyone have any ideas?
The most striking thing to me is the lack of atmosphere... it's a zombie shooter and you chose nice warm daylight colours for your background. It's lacking the dark and gloomy feel I would expect from a game like this.
The next most horrid thing is your choice of font - a) it's very hard to read and only works in large size and b) it's not matching your theme. It's an art-deco style graphic font and creates no connection to shooter games or even less to zombies for me.
Here's a quick mock (using elements from my blog to show what I mean with atmosphere and colourscheme and font.
Your weapons screen sports some pretty horribly gradient shaded buttons that combined with the font don't stand out as touchable objects anymore. Also the sizes are even and the most important button 'Play' doesn't seem more important than the others.
If the money is an important indicator it should be placed in a more visible spot and hightlighted e.g. with an icon.
When loading or creating levels don't leave the player hanging with some plain text on the screen - give them something to look at and continue building atmosphere. Using a different font from the 'standard' is not too good either - pick one font for your dynamic text and one font for buttons / hightlighted / graphic texts).
As for the gameplay screen - atmosphere is essential. It needs to be a lot darker imho. Also I lacks explaination - what are the elements in the game [what's the blue bar? what's the red bar? Add some icons to tell the player what the bars represent.]
When chosing your artwork try and keep it consistent - e.g. catus is showing from the side and the player and zombies are top down. Adding shadows underneath the sprites 'roots' them to the ground and they don't 'float' around visually.
Chose a set of colours 2 main colours for buttons and UI and 4 - 6 main colours for the game background to create a consistent atmosphere. The player should see that he's still in the same game at any time from the preloader to the title/ main menu to the gameplay and game over screen. The easiest way to achieve that is by limiting your colours and graphical elements and reusing them on all the screens.
As far as the icon goes - you chose a nice image but the style is totally disconnected for the artwork you have in the game. It has the atmosphere I would like to see in your game - but it's also very realistic in appearance and will cause problems with the level of detail when scaling down to 57x57 pixels.
I you are out for a 'releasing a game' you are good to go. If you want to create a good game that has some chance of being downloaded and enjoyed I would advise you to consider some serious polishing.
Good luck!
Thank you very much for that constructive criticism. You made some good points.
My problem is that I completely lack artisting talent. I have tried numerous tutorials online and I can repeat what they do, but I'm not good and making something myself.
It seems like most of the fixes you suggested are artwork fixes. Do you think it would be possible to send an artist my gameproj file and have them send it back with new art? How much would something like that cost?
Most of the things I did have been taken from my tutorials
http://2dgameartforprogrammers.blogspot.com.au/
I am sure it can be done - but I would suggest just sending your current art bits and some screengrabs (showing all the screens and events that happen before/ during and after gameplay). As far as costing goes I would need a lot more info and it depends a lot of the artist, his skills, experience and pricing structure.
Ok. Thanks for your help. I think I'm going to make the changes that I can do myself and release it so that it is available during Christmas and then release an update with all the changes you recommended.