New Title Screen!? and other cool stuff

[Titanoboa]

I've been trying to figure out whether I'll be able to help out with footage for our trailer. I'm not qualified to judge whether the quality of my footage is good enough, so consider this my audition.

30 second clip of carnage in public sumo bar. https://www.twitch.tv/trontitan/clip/Re ... eLightning

Nearly an hour of raw footage, recording a session of the Sumo Bar League with smart cam and text_out 0. (First match starts 5 mins into the video). https://www.twitch.tv/videos/634908867

I wasn't able to get 1920x1080 working right away, so this is 1680x1050. I think I can fix it if necessary. I'll definitely record locally so don't get too hung up on twitch compression artefacts and such. If this technical side is the big issue, once I've fixed that it's easy enough to record much more gameplay of similar quality; we have 4 SBL sessions a week for instance. *doesn't have to be sumo, of course.

More than happy to make any and all adjustments; I'll listen to the pros.

No hard feelings if it's not quite good enough.

___

Unrelated to the above: One thing I think would look absolutely awesome is to get a 6v6 fortress grind (starting with the 3-2-1-go) with a smart cam focused on pos 2 doing the double grind, then mid-grind switching to pos 1 and then it cuts/fades out during or right after the "center battle". Only a handful of seconds and it looked pretty awesome when I discovered/tested it (didn't have my recording stuff ready at the time). In a 30-40 sec trailer that's definitely worth 8-10 sec of real estate in my unprofessional opinion.

[Pre]

amazing artwork sine!

my two cents regarding the trailer:
why not showcase all the gamemodes we have instead of focusing on sumo/deathmatch?
my suggestion is that we should focus on short clips of the main gamemodes we have (deathmatch/sumo/fortress/ctf/racing), showcasing the variety of this game. the untrained eye, which in my opinion we should cater to, will be very confused if we add closeup shots with a lot of movement and smart cam. plays like titans clip of carnage are very impressive if you know what's going on, but if i showed that to someone who's never played armagetron before, it might look confusing and deter them from trying the game.

my basic idea of the trailer would be something like: introducing the game --> showcasing gamemodes (in a similar fashion to how titan mentioned the grind in fortress) --> high intensity gameplay (which i would rather use a wider custom camera shot for though); with bits of information sprinkled in between in video or voiceover format.

i would also mention tournaments and ladders, as a lot of people play games for the competetive nature of it.

might make a rough draft to show how i picture it in my head in case this was too confusing

[sinewav]

Nice work, Titanoboa.

amazing artwork sine!

Thanks!

...titans clip of carnage are very impressive if you know what's going on, but if i showed that to someone who's never played armagetron before, it might look confusing and deter them from trying the game.

This is correct. It's not representative of the game, just like watching a speedrun of Mario Brothers isn't the best introduction to that game.

introducing the game --> showcasing gamemodes (in a similar fashion to how titan mentioned the grind in fortress) --> high intensity gameplay (which i would rather use a wider custom camera shot for though); with bits of information sprinkled in between in video or voiceover format.

Even this is too much. You have between 5-15 seconds to make an impression so the message has to be tight. To give an example of how much time that is, read the following:

"Remember that TRON game where you makes walls and try not to smash into them? That's what this game is, but with online multiplayer."

That's it. That's the message. The video needs visually to say that. All that other stuff about game modes and tournaments is already assumed in a modern game. Plus, regardless of game mode, all people will see is lightcycles avoiding or smashing into walls -- so let's give them that, but with dramatic camera angles.

[kyle]

amazing artwork sine!

Agreed, (have not had time to read or look at video, but graphics look awesome, as always)

[Pre]

introducing the game --> showcasing gamemodes (in a similar fashion to how titan mentioned the grind in fortress) --> high intensity gameplay (which i would rather use a wider custom camera shot for though); with bits of information sprinkled in between in video or voiceover format.

Even this is too much. You have between 5-15 seconds to make an impression so the message has to be tight. To give an example of how much time that is, read the following:

"Remember that TRON game where you makes walls and try not to smash into them? That's what this game is, but with online multiplayer."

That's it. That's the message. The video needs visually to say that. All that other stuff about game modes and tournaments is already assumed in a modern game. Plus, regardless of game mode, all people will see is lightcycles avoiding or smashing into walls -- so let's give them that, but with dramatic camera angles.

While i do agree that the first 5-15 seconds are instrumental in making an impression and i generally like your idea of doing that, in my opinion it is up to the rest of the trailer to make you feel like "hey, that looks fun, i could see myself enjoying playing this".

Achieving this purely from an 'artistic' trailer is difficult, i think we could benefit from showcasing armagetrons variety of game modes (may it be single- or multiplayer).

With the attention span lower than ever, making the game look interesting, but not complicated to get started in is key in my book.

Maybe a bad example due to being a completely different game, but i like the first 30 seconds of this trailer. Very basic, but engaging. It leaves the viewer curious what is possible in the game and wanting more.

[GluGGsel]

I'd double pre's opinion. We have to try to impress someone who does not know about mazing and how fast and difficult it can be.
When I try to explain my friends what Tron is about, I usually use words like: "Remember snake on Nokia? Tron is like multiplayer 3d snake."

[sinewav]

Maybe a bad example due to being a completely different game, but i like the first 30 seconds of this trailer.

I stopped watching at 24 seconds. I knew everything I wanted to know about the game. It's a side scroller that looks like a combination of Mario and Dig-Dug, and it's procedurally generated. Cool idea. I didn't even feel the need to watch more. 99% of people who watch a Retrocycles trailer won't make it to 30 seconds.

I'll take your advice into consideration! After all, I did make this Armagetron promo several years ago and it shows A LOT.

Also, everyone is free to make a video. If we have several to choose from that's even better, right?

[Z-Man]

This alpha build might help collect better footage:
http://download.armagetronad.org/blog/2 ... pha_z2036/

In the System/Display/Preferences menu, there is a new item that can disable the timer on recording/playback.

I wouldn't show the fortress start grind. The fact that you can squish so many cycles side by side must be incomprehensible for any newcomer.

[sinewav]

This alpha build might help collect better footage.

Cool, I'll make sure I use that one.

I wouldn't show the fortress start grind.

Agreed. I want to keep it simple and say "there are these things called zones and they do different things depending on if you are inside or out." That's basically all anyone needs to know. Also DO NOT CRASH.

[Z-Man]

Steam Status report: The store stuff has been approved and is ready for publishing. The builds I'm uploading are working (for me). The next two steps would be to get the builds approved and to publish the page. The build review requires the trailer, it seems. And we should not publish the page without it, either.

Semi-Related: Let's also put the game out on itch.io, because what has been stopping us? itch.io does not require 10^42 permutations of image sizes, just one (1). And a bit of text. No fee, no review process. The upload process is similar to Steam, you just point a tool to a directory. Plus, all the tools are open source. I didn't know they even had a client, duh. I thought they only had downloads from their website. Anyway, they do have a client that also supports automatic updates and downloads only patches of games from one version to the next. They have a simple web API that lets you query your most recent version, so games can show an 'update available' message. And most other games there are scrappy, so it could not be a better fit! (Just don't expect any visibility from just being on there, it's obviously even worse than Steam.) So... should we be Retrocycles or Armagetron Advanced there? I would not be afraid to stick to our one true name there as long as we keep it completely free, but one can argue that, should we switch to the popular 'pay what you want' model, we enter the zone of commercial activity with the big boy rules and would need to take more care to not step on any trademark-shaped toes.

[sinewav]

The build review requires the trailer, it seems.

My new computer should arrive in two days. It's take me a couple days to get some footage cut together then we can review and make changes over the next couple weeks.

...we enter the zone of commercial activity with the big boy rules and would need to take more care to not step on any trademark-shaped toes.

I've followed a few artists that made parody and fan art derivatives of popular franchises and then sold their designs on t-shirts and stickers. In every case where there was push-back from an IP holder it never went further than a cease & desist notice. The designers simply stopped selling the merch. On the other hand, there is no need to sell something when there are questions about legality. A behemoth like Disney can crush a person financially without any effort at all, ruining the life of that person (and their family). For a project like Armagetron it's best to rely on a donation system where people can show their appreciation. This is why a lot of artists are having great success with Patreon. Software like Synfig is a great example of donationware. I don't see why that model couldn't apply to Armagetron. Intent matters in law, and we are clearly not competing in Disney's space at all.

[sinewav]

Video Update: My new computer arrived several days ago, but I was busy and couldn't capture footage until today. It's going well. I'm fairly ignorant about high performance graphics so I'm not sure how this will turn out. Sometimes the video looks choppy on playback, but other times it looks great. I don't know why.

Most of the clips are local play like the demo I made earlier, but I did get a few seconds of a Sumo match. I may capture a couple seconds of a custom map with a moviepack, so if anyone has a favorite map and moviepack, let me know. I'm going to keep the video really short and follow the format in my demo: cycles, text, cycles, text, cycles...

Things will be busy at work the next couple days, but this weekend is a holiday in the US so I should have some time to recreate my animated text slides and possibly cut together a draft for review.

[sinewav]

Promo Video v2

No audio because it's turned off by default on Steam, plus I haven't gotten around to finding something appropriate. Suggestions welcome. I think this is pretty close (or exactly) what we need. I'll take some feedback, but I'm mostly looking for mistakes and quality issues. I didn't use as many extreme camera angles and I added a couple seconds of Fortress and Sumo.

Z-Man, when you satisfied I can render a higher quality version (based on Steam's guidelines) and upload the file to my server.

[SoulOfSet]

Promo Video v2

This is dope. Probably a great thing that there is no really complicated gameplay in there. Something like Mate0 escaping traps you can't even see in .dbd HR would probably be unsettling. I've been playing since '09 or I still find it unsettling.

[Z-Man]

Like it! If I were to change only one thing, I would disable the Lag-o-meter in the online play sections. It may be too distracting and confusing that they suddenly appear, and the focused cycle, yours, doesn't have one in real gameplay. It's a local setting, so if this is from a debug recording, just changing the item in the playback client's menu before playback should disable them.

There are a couple of cuts I find disorienting or confusing in the current form.
The first pair is at 10 s (https://youtu.be/2NQReiu-xrQ?t=10) and 13 s. The start of the 10-13 s segment starts with a camera sweep, I would expect it to be from the same round as the segment before, just with a spectator camera focus change (of course, that expectation comes from knowning how a camera focus change looks). It may be, there's a yellow cycle in both. And at 13 s, it ends with the camera passing through a trail (something that doesn't happen in real gameplay if you don't mess with the camera), I would not expect the continuation afterwards to still be the same situation, just from a better different perspective, not really a cut. And it almost is, but something is off; it took me a second view to notice yellow and green swapped places. If you're not starving for material, I'd drop the 10-13s segment.

The second one is at 34 seconds (https://youtu.be/2NQReiu-xrQ?t=34), where you cut away from blue almost hitting the rim. Why cut away there? It's a suspenseful moment, will blue stupidly crash, turn away from or towards yellow? It cuts to a different blue driving to the right in a different situation (camera focus is on yellow both times). Which again looks similar enough to a possible continuation that it fooled me for a second.

I think the general convention in gameplay trailers is that cuts always are cuts to completely new situations. Usually, that is obvious; you cut to different environments, different monsters to fight, alternate exploration and fighting. You don't have much to work with here Maybe put another Sumo or FFA segment between t<34 and t>34, anything with different colored cycles. And maybe a different cut transition helps. The classic 'quick fade to black, fade in new situation' could work, it says 'this thing here would go on and would be super interesting, but we want to show you something else, too' in trailer language.