The Games Factory 2: Might Get Back Into It

RopeDrink

Right...

I kept saying for donkeys years I'd get back into making another game but put it off for so long. Last night for some random reason I sat through the TGF2 tutorial on how to make the silly "Chocobreak" game, simply to refresh my memory on the basics of TGF (Afterall, it's been so many years since I used it).

I was going to give Game Maker or Unity a bash but I figure I'd go back to what I knew as opposed to learn a new one from scratch - This may bite me in the ass as TGF is somewhat limited and specifically designed with 2D simplistic games in mind but considering how balls deep I went with it the first time to make my first game I'm sure I can stretch the boundaries again if I got back into it.

This leaves me with a small problem...

Lack of resources and Inspiration.

The very first game I made (Incomplete but got me familar with TGF before I trashed it and made my breakout clone) used stuff prepackaged with TGF1, which is also included in TGF2, so I may start by remaking what I did the first time I got into it - However, knowing me, I'll want to dump the game as it's using stuff I didn't make myself or is available to every Joe Soap who uses the program anyway and I will never settle for something that isn't at least mostly unique to the package itself (Hence I made practically everything in my first complete game by myself).

I have no specific game plans as of yet so what I end up making could quite literally be anything - But I'd find myself more inspired and open to possibilities and ideas if I had a whopping core-collection of resources to look at, nevermind work with.

So, I'm going to ask you, the GD community, to suggest any sites that may contain collections of useful:

Backgrounds (Not important, I'll probably make my own)

Sounds (Very important)

Music (Not as important - If need be I can use my old music, even though it was in my other game)

Preferably top-down tiled sprites or flooring (Again, I'll probably make my own but some for inspiration would be cool, just to tinker with while I get back into TGF)

Ideas!




I'm decent at making static 2D images in photoshop such as backgrounds, tiles and text, especially easy to make blocks, but I'm not much of a spriter or animator so this is the big issue as I probably won't be able to design my character(s).

Failing above idea I may also consider a flash-esque point/click style thing, possibly a horror, though I've no way to generate backgrounds unlike in the past when I used to make my own environments for screenshotting using "Hammer" and making maps in Half-Life.

Last but not least, I could also rehash my first game with a sequel / generally improved version of the original... However, once again, I won't be able to make the backgrounds as Terragen 2, even on my beastly computer, can take anything up to 8hrs just to render a scene. I used to use Terragen 1 in the old-days to make martian landscapes for my backgrounds and it was a damn sight quicker but can't seem to get my hands on a copy for Windows 64.

If people can suggest any other useful ideas regarding background creation, or even just resources of any description to have a browse through, would be grateful.

Ultimately I'll always find a way, myself, to make what I want if I put my head down and get the drive but it's always easier when you have a massive pool of images, sprites, backgrounds and general resources at your disposal to tinker with until you come up with a final idea of what you aim to do.

Any/all suggestions welcomed and appreciated - Don't hold back - If it's a spritesheet of some description, backgrounds, sound effects, music, doesn't matter what theme - Throw them in my direction so I can get some inspiration!

Kilgore__Trout

Free Sounds: FreeSFX.com, freesound.org
Free Music: incompetech.com

Finding suitable free graphics online is a nightmare. You might get the graphic, but rarely at a decent quality and from the right perspective/resolution. Looked through a lot of sites for placeholders, (including the one you linked above) got some, but ended up drawing most myself.

Idea: Could we talk to the guys that run the graphic forum, and maybe set up a thread for collaborations?

Good luck with your project!

Torakx

If animating sprites is one of the main issues( and boy I know its painfully slow to try animate a character just walking, at least the traditional way) you could try the top down view as you mentioned.
That might leave you just needing to animate the toes and arms slightly for movement.

Heres an awesome way to make animated sprites using 3d assets.
Much easier to animate stuff in 3d programs.Just capturing the frames to png's is all you need then from a set perspective.And obviously set them into a sprite sheet with set pixel spacing to suit your game maker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_MWrsomMxk

The only issue I found with this, is Lightwave I dont think is free, so its not an option for me right now.
But if anyone kows another way to do this using freeware/shareware etc, please let me know.
I havent checked yet, but im hoping there might be a way to do this in 3ds max or blender.
Edit: Actually maybe I can try this in 3ds max animating a chaacter and just set the view right and screen capture...mwuahahaha!

Regarding backgrounds and textures, I haven't a clue what to suggest without an idea for the environment or game you want to make.
You can take photographs or already made textures and layer them with other ones or your own outlines and setting those layers to soft light or overlay(photoshop) and blend them into new "original" textures.

Whats the limit on resolutions for your game?
The 2d game im doing in college with Unity, is limited to the Atari screen size.So we are working with a res of 196x160
If I had an idea what yours will be and some themes or settings, I might have a mess around with photoshop and see whats possible.

Heres a before and after overlaying textures onto a scene.
Before


After

Well I did a bit of highlighting after too, but you can see the texture generally adds life to the picture.

That pic is probably 1024x1024 so the overalyed texture looks detailed.
But the technique should work for lower res too,where you want a generic base texture behind details in the background.
Might be easiest to start in double the res you want to finish in and try lower the canvas size and res after.
Not good for small sprites, but might be a very fast way to create nice backgrounds...if it doesnt lose too much detail downsizing after.