Pimple and Rash artworks on the Game Over screen and Game Completed screen

[AlWesker]

Master System version have the same Pimple and Rash artworks used for three game instances: Selection screen (comes after title screen), Game Over screen and Game Completed screen.

Selection Screen

Game Over Screen

If Pimple dies

If Rash dies

Game Complete Screen

If Pimple completed the game

If Rash completed the game

If Pimple and Rash completed the game

SNES version use those Pimple and Rash artworks (which already have converted artworks from the SNES version in Pyron folder) for the Selection screen only. Game Over screen uses completely different artworks for both of them (it's a larger artwork given than in the Game Over screen, only one toad can be displayed at time, not the two of them jointly) and there's no Game Completed screen as such on the SNES version.

Selection Screen

Game Over Screen

If Pimple dies

If Rash dies

The ideal thing would be having the Master System version having the SNES Selection Screen artworks (which are already converted in Pyron folder) on the Selection Screen and Game Complete screens, while the Game Over Screens would use the SNES Game Over Screens artworks (those would have to be converted). The Game Over Screen artworks are very large in width, but since you are never going to get both Rash and Pimple together on the Game Over Screen (since they can't both die at the same time, it has to be one or another), the two artworks will never appear placed at the same time like they cand do on the Game Complete Screen in case you complete the game with the two characters. In that situation, since the Selection Screen artworks from the SNES version are going to appear there like they do now and they are still very similar in length/width to the Master System ones (but better drawn), it's not going to be affected by the fact of the two appearing individually or at the same time.

[PyronsLair]

The wesker had 2 images.. one for each toad.. to make it look good i have to use 16 colors on each you can make the imagens be sequential?

first you show P1 screen, before that.. screen fades out and appears player 2 screen ?

2018-08-13 9:04 GMT-03:00 Maxim notifications@github.com:

I'll have to work on the screen layout to make it fit. What about when it's both toads?

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[PyronsLair]

Or we must have a third one with the 2 toads together

2018-08-13 9:52 GMT-03:00 Gabriel Pyron gabpyron@gmail.com:

The wesker had 2 images.. one for each toad.. to make it look good i have to use 16 colors on each you can make the imagens be sequential?

first you show P1 screen, before that.. screen fades out and appears player 2 screen ?

2018-08-13 9:04 GMT-03:00 Maxim notifications@github.com:

I'll have to work on the screen layout to make it fit. What about when it's both toads?

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[maxim-zhao]

The original game shows the toad portraits and scores on a single screen. I will have to change things a lot more to support the changes, but I guess it's not that difficult.

[AlWesker]

I suppose putting those two arts together in case you complete the game in a 2 players game will make it go beyond the max tile count?

[maxim-zhao]

The Rash artwork is beyond our screen resolution, and if I reduce it to 192px tall then it's still beyond our tile budget. It's also tricky to squeeze the necessary text onto the remaining space. Can you rework it to fit?

[AlWesker]

What about cutting it a little? Especially the feet of the Stone Pig. Something like this.

Maybe that way it will fit in.

If that's the case, the same could be done with the Pimple artwork, cutting a equivalent part of the lower part of the snake.

[maxim-zhao]

That's going to cost even more tiles :) I think it needs some experimentation to see what size fits in the tile budget, and maybe some careful placement to avoid partial tiles. The end result then probably needs some manual retouches to clean up lines and edges. In the end, this art style is not sympathetic to the system so it's difficult to get the large art in place - redrawing it to somehow align more to the tile grid and allow tile reuse would get it to go further, but the art style would suffer.

[AlWesker]

Sounds like that's probably too complicated and not worth it.

I have another possible art solution.

This is a screen that appears in the SNES version between the title screen and the selection screen. In the SNES version, that flag is moved by some kind of Mode-7 effect (like if it's moved by the wind) and shows some further copyright screens on top on it. We don't have that screen on the Master System version and we don't have the need of adding it since we have already all the copyrights on the pre-title screens, so maybe we can reuse the flag or parts of it like the Battletoads badges on the Game Complete screen.

The bad thing about using the badges in the place of the toad arts would be that we would never have the three badges, but one or two depending on the players used and probably we would have to distinguish the Pimple score and the Rash score by putting "Pimple" or "Rash" on top of the score since the badges don't obviously distinguish the toads themselves. I think in this case the best solution wouldn't be using one or two badges but the three of them no matter the players, and simply putting the appropiate scores indicating which toad belongs to.

[AlWesker]

Mockups

Following the game pattern:

My proposal to have the three badges:

And by the way, shouldn't the letters be white? I think that way they will be read better.

[maxim-zhao]

Yes, they're white in the current code, I had to modify some palette changes.

[maxim-zhao]

I did a low quality resize of the Rash art to fit in the size and tile count, and re-laid out the text:

I think it's pretty good, can you clean it up a bit and have a go with the Pimple art? Im still not sure what to do for the 2-player one...

[AlWesker]

That's great. So it's finally going to be possible to insert these arts.

For the 2 player screen, I suppose we can go with the Battletoads badges, or the flag with them. It's going to be difficult to insert either the Rash and Pimple arts together or something else.

[maxim-zhao]

Or simply scale the two pictures down to fit - although it will be difficult to fit them both in the same palette.

[AlWesker]

I believe @PyronsLair said he needed to use 16 colors for the Rash art to make it look good. Chances are that will be the same with the Pimple art with its own 16 colors. So yeah, I don't think putting them both is going to be a good option for a 2 player. They would be too much nerfed and dumbed down in comparison to the specific 1 player arts. That's not going to invite people to play a 2 player game if the end result is going to be worse than a 1 player game.

Don't you like the idea of using the badges for the 2 player game complete screen? And having the three of them pieced together. I think this looks cool.

This way you would also get three totally different game complete screens depending on each possible combination (Pimple alone, Rash alone or Pimple and Rash) so it would be good. But I suppose you would have to add an indication of the name of the toad on top of the score similar to what I put in the mockup to know which score would be each in that case.

[maxim-zhao]

I think the palette is OK for two characters without enemies - but we don't have art for that. Maybe you can find someone who can draw something?

[AlWesker]

Why not using the badges for the 2 player game complete screen so we avoid the trouble of drawing anything from scratch?

Either that or going back to the original plan of using that art with the three toads, but I think the badges will give us less trouble and they are cool.

[maxim-zhao]

I think the badges look overly simplistic. This is a congratulations screen, it's traditional to splurge a little on the graphics.

[maxim-zhao]

Here's some quick conversions, I think there's potential:

[AlWesker]

I don't see bad to put artwork portraits in that format for the 2 player game complete screen, but those two are going to give the feeling that they are cut down versions of the specific 1 player artworks, so they are not inviting people to complete the game in 2 players compared to doing it in 1 player. I think it's going to be best to use distinctive artworks for that situation.

Following the game pattern you did, maybe we can put these from the cover art. Obviously properly adapted and without the unnecessary background elements.

And I'm still inclined to put the badges somewhere else since they are in a screen from the SNES version after all. Do you think it's possible to put them as background of the Credits screen? It would give it a lot of appeal instead of leaving it with a pure black screen. If the tile count allows it maybe we can even put the full flag with the Battlemaniacs logo and the badges.

In case the full flag can't be squeezed in, just the badges themselves in black background may be fine.

[PyronsLair]

these 2 players side by side using the motocycles looks cool

2018-08-17 8:53 GMT-03:00 Albert Wesker notifications@github.com:

I don't see bad to put artwork portraits in that format for the 2 player game complete screen, but those two are going to give the feeling that they are cut down versions of the specific 1 player artworks, so they are not inviting people to complete the game in 2 players compared to doing it in 1 player. I think it's going to be best to use distinctive artworks for that situation.

Following the game pattern you did, maybe we can put these from the cover art. Obviously properly adapted and without the unnecessary background elements.

[image: imagen] https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/41370804/44264151-c525a800-a221-11e8-8202-927890c704e7.png

And I'm still inclined to put the badges somewhere else since they are in a screen from the SNES version after all. Do you think it's possible to put them as background of the Credits screen? It would give it a lot of appeal instead of leaving it with a pure black screen. If the tile count allows it maybe we can even put the full flag with the Battlemaniacs logo and the badges.

[image: imagen] https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/41370804/44264269-39f8e200-a222-11e8-92ab-183dd41a7467.png

In case the full flag can't be squeezed in, just the badges themselves in black background may be fine.

[image: imagen] https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/41370804/44264847-6a418000-a224-11e8-9211-678e45d986b8.png

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[maxim-zhao]

Any time I make art, it's a placeholder :)

The credits screen would need to be rewritten to support images. I propose to add the shields to the "as the Battletoads" screen.

[AlWesker]

I'm not sure if they'll look that fancy in the pre-title screen getting on the middle of the starlight (hence they would break the flow of the pre-title screens, now it's very good) and they would appear very briefly in there. In the credits screen they would be displayed for a while and it would certainly make the credits screen much more attractive than it is now.

Is it too much work to rewrite the credits screen? Leave it for a possible v2 improvement if you don't regard it as a priority for now.

[maxim-zhao]

It's a bit of a pain, to be honest - I'd have to write a whole scrolling engine. It's not impossible (and would allow us to add stars...) but it is a lot more work.

[AlWesker]

Leave it for now then. We can think about that for a possible v2 update or whenever you see it fit. The badges will fit great as background for the credits screen so we can put them on hold for that.

[AlWesker]

The Pimple Game Completed artwork by @PyronsLair. It's going to need the same downgrade that was done to the Rash artwork in order to fit in the game though.

With this, it only remains the Pimple and Rash Game Completed artwork. @PyronsLair has tried to convert it but couldn't, so I'm looking for an alternative solution in order to have it. Hopefully that will close the artwork department of the hack for good.

[AlWesker]

Lousy placeholder-esque version of the Pimple and Rash Game Completed artwork, that needs the same downgrade as the Rash one received and the Pimple one also needs to in order to fit in the game.

We can either use this, or in case that it detaches too much in quality compared to the other art, either look for someone who gives it a try (I tried that already) or reuse the Battletoads badges artwork that was intended for the credits screens in case that's never going to be attempted.

[maxim-zhao]

All the artwork needs to fit in the screen (256x192, practically better to avoid the left 16 and right 8 pixels) and the tile budget (not sure what that is here, let’s say 256). It also needs to leave space for the “HA me completed”, “your final score” and the score itself.

Rising artwork down is difficult and usually makes it look much worse. It’s easy to do a quick and ugly version though.

[AlWesker]

This was done with the Rash artwork long ago and it fit well in the game. I suppose the same "low quality resize" could be done with both the Pimple artwork and the Rash and Pimple artwork (despite not being that great color wise, couldn't do anything better with it) and it woul be okay. Could you give them an attempt like you did with the Rash one?

[AlWesker]

@maxim-zhao how did you do it with the Rash artwork back then? Beside being a "quick and ugly" risen down version it fit perfectly in the game. If you tell me the procedure, I can try to do it myself with the Pimple artwork and the Pimple and Rash artwork, so this side of the artwork thing would be finished too.

[kurrono]

Hey guys u forgot the NES Battletoad 3rd player hahaha..