Paper Pirates vs Vikings

An easy start would be just making the balls you have the same shade of gray as the milk (or vice-versa), but metaballs seem like they'd give the right effect. My first thought was some kind of shader, but is that even an option on mobile?

An easy start would be just making the balls you have the same shade of gray as the milk (or vice-versa), but metaballs seem like they'd give the right effect. My first thought was some kind of shader, but is that even an option on mobile?

i had the water particles white so i could tint them or use the shader.. on flash when i was making water before, i used them, but i didnt try it on mobile... it helps a little if they are the same color as the water... i was told maybe a filter would work.. not sure how to do that.. next release they said there may be shaders for actors. 
i could somehow do a ring of a darker color around the water particles to show depth, but they would overlap. how could i make the second color disappear only when and where the water actors overlap. does that make sense?

Early gameplay footage
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/8AWxbFkR07E" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/8AWxbFkR07E</a>

I added the 3 characters, they will be made of cereal.  You swipe right side of screen to change character.. tap top right for special for the character... gun for red guy.. other 2 (pink and blue) have swords for now.  Tap bottom right to pick up and punch.  I need to fix animation control again.. I see a bug... don't mind the red coming through for punches and pickup... I didn't replace those graphics.. no point until we put in actual graphics.   toothpick sword attack.. musket  gun that shoots cocoa pebbles attack and a spoon\club attack . unless better weapons i can think of..
gun pick up will be ammo for the gun guy.. i got rid of sword pickup

I think I'm going to stay with the paper pirates idea.
Level 2 coming along.  I need to make the krakens head rotate in place whem the player moves..the arms graphics need to be done and animate the head as well..i also need to get the things to move to the correct places a little better and figure out what to do when the player gets to the end of the scene or the beginning going left as well. 

Added pirate captain and animations.  Need to make the punch animation better and slow down  empty bag animation

Is like some advice on my HUD. 
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/MsX6UajYC80" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/MsX6UajYC80</a>


What can I do to improve my HUD?  Im sure theres a better way to set it up.
The bag of treasure is your life bar.. collect treasure and it fills up.. get hit and it goes down.
Tap the chest after you collect keys to unlock an upgrade.. I have these pop up in portrait and landscape differently.. how does that look?  I can't decide to have them on the left or right in portrait mode..
The telescope will let you switch between the pirate charachter and a pirate monkey.. the pirate has a gun.. and the monkey has a sword.  The monkey will be faster but not punch as hard as the pirate.  I'll have that in an update shortly after I release the first level.
Score is in the top left corner woth the life bar at the moment
Amo is under that.. I'll have that be a sword power bar when the monkey.. and switch to the amo when pirate
I wanted to have an enemy defeated counter somewhere
I had troubles getting a life bar attached to the enemies.. the red guys.. so i made the hp text.. and the damage text as well...
Thoughts?

The HUD is hard for me to read. It blends into the background since both are colorful. Maybe some kind of border or background box would help?

The HUD is hard for me to read. It blends into the background since both are colorful. Maybe some kind of border or background box would help?

thats how i felt too.. the damage blends in also.... hmm. i think the layout is a little wonky too.. im going to take the telescope out.. and you can select the other player a different way.. or another level maybe

Firstly, congrats on the project, It's coming together nicely. I agree with what's been said so far.

One way to make the UI stand out from the rest of the game is to create icons, rather than use the game graphics, if that makes sense? So a chest icon, and not the chest actor. It's a good idea to make the HUD elements the same height if being displayed horizontally, or same width if being displayed vertically.

It looks like you have enough space at the top of the screen to create a banner to hold the HUD. Perhaps something which looks like a scroll with icons that look like they're drawn on it.

Firstly, congrats on the project, It's coming together nicely. I agree with what's been said so far.

One way to make the UI stand out from the rest of the game is to create icons, rather than use the game graphics, if that makes sense? So a chest icon, and not the chest actor. It's a good idea to make the HUD elements the same height if being displayed horizontally, or same width if being displayed vertically.

It looks like you have enough space at the top of the screen to create a banner to hold the HUD. Perhaps something which looks like a scroll with icons that look like they're drawn on it.

Thank you!  I'm trying to tighten up the last things while I draw the Viking enemy, so I can have an initial release next month.
 I changed the sizes of icons to the same size.  I changed the color of the chest.. the player clicks on the chest so it couldn't really look like a scroll.. it tried it out.   I made the amo icon differnet.. but that didn't really make a difference.. so i kept the same one i was using.. i put the opacity at 90.. to soften the box.  I just noticed the ropes are over the hud.. wtf.. haha
Still needs something though..

It's looking a lot better, and gives you a uncluttered game space. The ropes over the HUD actually add to the feeling of depth!

It's looking a lot better, and gives you a uncluttered game space. The ropes over the HUD actually add to the feeling of depth!

Thank you.  I'll keep tweaking as I add the last bits of the 1st release
I can't wait to try your retro redux on mobile   I'll play the flash soon and give you some feed back...

Updated the first post with a New Desktop Demo
looking fir a little feedback... please let me know what i can do to improve on this.. im needing to add the last of the graphics and animations,, redo the title screen with the new graphics and fix that layout.. let me know if you get any crashes or lag, runs well on mobile.. 55 to 60 fps the  whole time looks like

press z to pickup and punch.. press x to shoot and if you get knocked down tap x until you get back up. use the arrow keys to move up down left and right.. use the mouse if you want or if you have a touchscreen it works.  joystick is on the left, tap the top right half of screen to shoot, tap the bottom right half of the screen to pick up and punch.
collect keys to unlock brown chests to get upgrades to your pirate.  tap the brown chest to unlock a powerup
STAMINAreduces amount of taps to get up and raises your defense
BAG lets you carry more jewels and helps when getting hit by enemies
AMO bag lets you carry another musket and fills your amo
SPEED makes your character faster
ATTACK hit harder..  the enemies get tougher

I only played it for a moment, since it's already past 2:00 am here. I didn't get any lag, though... so far so good! No crashes or any technical faults, either. I'll sit down and give it a more thorough play through tomorrow.

I appreciate it! I just ported the controls over so it can be played in the arcade.  Not sure they work 100 percent haha... All the controls are touch  on mobile