Wake up dice rollers, it's Behind the Dice time again!
This week, we asked the devs: Show off a feature you’ve added to the game - could be art, animation, gameplay feature! How does it work? Why did you add it?
We added a big screen-wide banner to declare the player has rolled a Farkle!, and also to declare the encountering of rare mobs. I wanted to add it initially, inspired by the ‘’Rare Catch!’’ banner that appears on Sega Bass Fishing, and then when making it realised it would be a vast improvement on the square title pop-up we were currently using to announce a Farkle.
Farkle Sprite Sheet
Farkle Animation
Before Dicealot, I had never done any animation, so getting used to creating sprite sheets was a whole process. (I have also developed a deep sympathy for full time animators... their poor hands.) As with most things, toward the end of the project everything becomes a little smoother as there is nothing you're doing/making for the first time (ideally). These banners were an opportunity to push the visual feedback on some more un-loved interactions, and make the game feel a little more alive.
Slash Sprite Sheet
Slash Animation
It can be a bit of a challenge from a visual hierarchy point of view also, as one imagines that all interactions would benefit from some jaunty animation (and they likely would), but we already have quite a lot going on on the screen, and so using moving elements to direct player's attention is a really useful tool, one that becomes less effective the more banal things that are animated.
The little details are so cool and really make you appreciate artists that much more eh? Hope you enjoyed this week's Behind the Dice as much as I did - sprite sheets are so much fun (to look at)! Have a lovely weekend and see you in the next one!
P.S., Look at these numbers
Credits: Discord community member djsac
