New title screen picture

[ccexplore]

ccexplore, the leftmost lix is clearly a runner    I don't know whether it matches any particular frame of the runner's animation, but that's what it's doing. I wouldn't suggest making any changes.

Um, I guess I can match it to one of the frames in the sprite gallery after you pointed it out, but I stand by my opinion that it is just not as instantly recognizable or natural-looking as the other two; if anything I find the middle one look more runner-like.  It may also be that the downward sloping of the ground makes that particular "pose" look more unnatural than it would otherwise.

Since it is a still image and not animated, some frames of the animation work better to depict the skill than others, especially in combination with the silhouette styling (which naturally blends together certain details like arms vs body and such).  I realize it's somewhat nitpicky but at the same time, Lixes are the star of the game so it only makes sense to take greater care with them.

Anyhow, even in the current form it is clearly an improvement over the existing background, so I certainly wouldn't mind having this in the next release, whether or not the Lixes are left as-is or further tweaked.

[geoo]

Really love the artwork presented here, the silhouette picture looks great, and I was actually thinking of making a terrain style that looks a bit like that, maybe this will give me motivation to actually finish it!

As for recognizability (maybe not for Lix specifically, but Lemming-like creatures), now that you're talking about it, I think they might be more recognizable if you have a couple of them just march in a line with equal spacing between them (and maybe with a blocker at the front), that's the stereotypical image you have when Lemmings comes up... And of course, keep the miner, that's a perfect shot of a lix in action.
(The runner looks to me a bit like she's wearing a hat. )

[NaOH]

I have trouble identifying with certainty which skill the leftmost silhouette is doing, even after consulting the sprite gallery--the first impression was it looks like the Lix got contorted into an odd snake-like shape.

You're right; the leftmost lix looks weird and twisty. Looking at the suggestions so far, I've swapped it out for three different possible lix sprites (each attached; b, c, and d). I like version b the most, but I'm still not quite content. Thoughts?

For the miner, I think maybe you should model it after the animation frame where the axe's blade is already at the front side of the Lix--the frame you chose keeps looking a little odd to me because it doesn't really look like the arm holding the axe is there? (it blends right into where the head is)

I've tentatively changed the miner's sprite to have the pick forward. Not totally convinced yet, but I don't have the best artistic eye. Thanks for the honest feedback, ccexplore.

Current version: (attached) (source)

I think they might be more recognizable if you have a couple of them just march in a line with equal spacing between them (and maybe with a blocker at the front)

(The runner looks to me a bit like she's wearing a hat. )

I also kind of got the hat impression, actually. Unfortunately, now her hair looks almost as bad as mine does . I'll look into adding a blocker, but for now I'd like to get these two lixes down.

Thanks for all the feedback, everybody!

(edit: fixed quotes)

[RubiX]

Its really cool stuff.   

Something about the Lix at far left with her hair sticking out too far from running/jumping makes her seem awkward.   It does help though since lightening the Lix colors.

[ccexplore]

You're right; the leftmost lix looks weird and twisty. Looking at the suggestions so far, I've swapped it out for three different possible lix sprites (each attached; b, c, and d). I like version b the most, but I'm still not quite content. Thoughts?

I too like b the best at this point, and I do feel that both the left and right lixes have improved from the previous version.

The hair does look a little exaggerated for the left lix, but hopefully that can be addressed with a little further tweaking of just the hair.  Perhaps it's okay to deviate from the official sprites slightly since unlike the sprites, we are using still images here so what works fine in animation, might need some tweaking to work well in stills.

As for the miner, I do feel it is an improvement, but I have a guess as to why there may be some doubts.  I'm actually fine leaving it like in b right now, but perhaps it migth be worth testing and see if it'd work better if you use the frame where the axe is at roughly the same position as in b, but the Lix has both feet on ground.  Technically in animation for that frame I'm referring to, the axe is being thrown backwards preparing for the next downswing rather than forwards, but since it is a still image here it will substitute suitably for depicting the forward downswing.  It is less dramatic a pose with both feet down, but might look more natural as a still pose?

[NaOH]

Something about the Lix at far left with her hair sticking out too far from running/jumping makes her seem awkward.

I think this hair is better; it should seem less blocky. (attached)

It is less dramatic a pose with both feet down, but might look more natural as a still pose?

It didn't look right with both feet on the ground. However, I modified the leg slightly, so it's less square. (attached)

[ccexplore]

Looking good.

[Clam]

Looks like this will shortly be the "official" title screen . Congrats and well done!

[RubiX]

Wondering if someone is able to make NaOH's background screen into a nice desktop wallpaper.   

Basically it would look something like this from ONML





with the bubble letters saying:

         Lix
A Game Inspired By
     Lemmings


Would be nice to have, i tried but cant get the lettering looking nice enough in a similar style.
Hope someone can help    Thx
Rub

[NaOH]

Wondering if someone is able to make NaOH's background screen into a nice desktop wallpaper.

Somehow I missed this when you posted it! Which image did you want -- the mountains or the dirt?

EDIT: here's a wallpaper-sized version of the existing image. No fancy text, though.

[RubiX]

Yea that's what I want for my desktop.   
If we can get it with LIX lettering it will be a stellar wallpaper for my PCs

[NaOH]

This is getting there.

[RubiX]

Yep.   I like
If u could make one with horizontal letters also it would be a nice choice.   But its fine vertical too 

[NaOH]

From IRC:

<SimonN> new picture of D/A5 Lix upcoming
<SimonN> http://asdfasdf.ethz.ch/~simon/etc/lix-with-d-2015-04-18.png
<SimonN> I gotta ask NaOH whether she's got hi-res versions of her menu background image

Yep.   I like
If u could make one with horizontal letters also it would be a nice choice.   But its fine vertical too 

Attached, for anybody interested, is a zip containing:

Temporarily in my dropbox is a zip containing:
- the high-res version of the background picture
- the low-res version of the background picture
- the source .xcf file
- and a variety of 1920x1425 wallpapers that you can resize as you see fit.

All the images are unsigned (except for lixbg_highres_signed.png), and you're welcome to modify the xcf however you like. (In particular, it should be easy to drag the lettering around to wherever you like, if you know how to use the gimp.)

Here's the image hosted on Dropbox for those who don't want to download a zip, for however long I choose to go before clearing out my Dropbox.

[Simon]

Right on, this is a lovely scenic image.

Explanation of what's cooking for non-IRC-followers:

I would like to support arbitrary desktop resolutions. The user interface scales already well in the screenshot. Icons/bitmaps need to be available in several different scalings, so the best one can be selected at runtime. The background image can be cropped and scaled from a large source image, and this is it. Scaling up from the C++/A4 640x480 version would look odd against the smooth menu.

The gameplay will not be affected by the GUI scaling. Instead, a higher resolution makes more of the level visible at once. The zoom levels can become a user option. Some people have expressed a desire to zoom out in the 640x480 version; this will be achieved on a contemporary resolution by the 1x zoom.

-- Simon