As for the latest updates, the squad menu is almost done:
And for fun and practice I made some combat .gifs. The quality breaks down a little bit to get them down around 4MB, but I think for this kind of game, the animation generates more interest than high-quality stills.
This yellow fx looks good here on single units. Problem is when you use it for whole squad (looks then rubbish). Like i said imo best way would be to use some sort of sprite under foot of unit or soldier.
here is what i mean (sorry for that size)
that white selection sprite would be good for your fx. ( i mean type not strictly white square based sprite). This should work for both single and squad selection.
Also you are using colored grid system to show player attack range, movement etc. They are basically solid colors.
IMO you should either fiddle with brightness of them so to make them change brigness in "waves" coming from up or down
OR
. Give them some sort of pattern + reduce transparency a bit.
This is what i mean in therms of pattern:
solid type you use:
how it imo should look like:
+ a bit reduced transparency
This seems like nickpick problem but imo current solid type part of your UI feels a bit "cheap". Like in case of previous change of artstyle you should aim to make your game feel like proper game and not cheap knockoff. Your previous artstyle had that cheap look, by changing artstyle you made it feel like proper product coming from proper game company. The more you eliminate those cheap effects the more game will feel like proper product in eyes of your future backers.
That part of UI shouldn't i think be hard to adjust, considering what you have achieved already.
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Either way good progress. Just change of artstyle made your future kickstarter way more interesting for many people.
Other thoughts on presentation.
Combat model looks interesting (mish mash between singular unit tactics and squad tactics) but for now i think your main job in future kickstarter is to answer properly question. "Why ?". For now what you showed in all screens is that this is sort of mix mash npcs to squad and make them work together somehow which leads us to those questions:
- Why focus on mixing squads ?
- Does single class squads could work at all ?
- Do you need healer in every unit ?
- If you need various types of classes in every squad then doesn't that make all squads basically the same and doesn't this undermine customization part of your game which seems to be important ?
This is something you will need to answer in your pitch video. Fast and precisely at that.
SRPG/JRPG. Treat this carefully. People have different expectations for different genres. If you will try to pitch it as JRPG people will expect JRPG if you pitch it as SRPG people will expect SRPG. Point is that if someone likes JRPGs and you will try to sell it as JRPG and they will see SRPG then they may not like it. If you sell it as SRPG then people will have different expectations.
To summarize if you want to use JRPG then you need explain why it is JRPG and not SRPG in pitch video.
For example SRPGs are more about combat than story and "cinematics" but that doesn't mean they can't feature solid storytelling or story itself
JRPGs on other hand require ton of story content dialogs etc to fill that box you want to check.
MUSIC. This is important. This too early for your probably from developement position but music is important to project. In fact it is crucial.
At this point i think you don't need to think about long therm commitment from someone but you do need to think about setting tone for the game.
Music alone could make game twice as good, lack of it or bad music could make it bad.
To make my point clear here is fragment of some game (probably you never played ) SWITCH OFF SOUND FOR THIS:
Then look what those czech dudes choose for their promo trailer:
Notice how just gameplay from game (though staged) FEELS completely different when you hear it with right music.
There are ton of dudes who could either make good cheap music for you or work with your for future benefits if you kickstarter will be hit goal.
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Like i said good progress. Getting playable vertical slice would be more than enough to ensure you will get more money than most of people trying to make funding via kickstarter, becuse it proves you have the skill something which isn't so sure about almost all of other people.
The more you polish that vertical slice and the more you prepare the better you chance is.