C64-ish gfx for Reside

Commadore 64 - ish graphics are super fun to make.

Normally, I think, it is 3 colors per "tile" as long as one of them is the "background" color. In this particular image that color would be black. However for the most of these graphics I only use two colors in total per tile. If you look closely though the wire and the thingy-plates in the lower middle of the screen has three colors. This is simply because I have a hard time deciding on the limitations I am forcing onto this project. 

As always I've almost already abandoned this, so I will not be working too much on this in future, if any at all. 

One of the cool things I made for this is the smoothness that the little motor-cycle-helmet dude moves with. he moves in 8x8 pixel increments, which normally works fine on left to right movement because the tiles are 8x16, but it doesn't work (normally) for up and down movement. So I made it so, that when you move up or down, a black block is occluding the background behind, then the character moves 8 pixels up, a moment later, he moves the last 8 pixels up and the background is visible again. 

Smooth Y movement. Smooth-ish.

Furthermore I made an airsupply feature, where air is emitted from certain objects, such as vents. The air is a particle that then tries its best to find the player. When it finds the player it adds air to his lungs, and the player can then breath. If the player does not have a constant airsupply the lungs will be emptied of air, and the there will only be oxygen in the players system to make him last for about 30 seconds. 

Air-supply system.

Here is a little gui representation of the air-supply.

Air-supply gui

There are three stages. The white one blinking is the last oxygen in the system, The red one (in the beginning of the gif) is the lungs with no air in them. Later the lungs are filled with air, and the white "last air" gauge is shot down.

Additionally, to be clear on the C64 ish-esque-like gfx, I use that as a buzz. The "C64". It is a matter of setting up C64-like limitations, the limitations mind you, that I like. So my limits are: 8*16 "chunks. 3 colors max on one chunk, 1 color being the background color, in my case black. Nothing is allowed to move smoothly, unless measures are taken to secure the integrity of the chunks. Color pallette is limited as well, however not to the original C64 color pallette. The pallette I adhere to is the original Game Maker pallette - the reason for this is that I cannot be certain that Game Maker will remember a custom pallette from session to session, and there is something nice to actually just make the "out of the box" pallette work.