Title Screen - A little help from the Players?

[nyktos]

A solid Title Screen adds a certain amount of validity to a game,
and it makes the final product feel nice & polished.

Since there is no packaging - we need an aesthtically pleasing opening screen.
The one we have is fine, but I like what I see on the Play page...
the crossed swords, and stylized font.

I asked about this awhile back, and Oskar said that it took up an incredible amount of space...
and in the end wasn't worth the tradeoff.

I can totally respect that, because for an Android Game App...
it loads incredibly quickly & force closes are rare.

I am not sure what he tried, or how he tried it - nor what it looked like.
But I'm thinking someone might have some insight into what we can do to fancy up our Title Screen?



We need more details, so I will see what I can do about getting some info.
Just throwing this out there - see if anyone bites?

[already love seeing the logo on my phone]
just some thoughts...

[Sarumar]

+1, I can only hope at there are someone who can help on this great idea !

[DarkSavant13]

I can give it a shot using my phone and a few graphics apps. And, by using my phone it I can see how much memory it takes as I create it.

I would need the size of the opening screen and the maximum amount of memory that can be allocated to the graphic.

[oskarwiksten]

Thanks for taking the initiative on this, Nyktos!

For anyone that might want to help on this, we do have a lot of great graphics available for Andor's Trail that we use on the Google Play page:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... ndorsTrail

The graphics that are available are:

• List of all images: http://code.google.com/p/andors-trail/s ... age%2Flogo
• Andor's Trail logo (.svg) http://andors-trail.googlecode.com/git/ ... l_logo.svg
• Andor's Trail logo (.png) http://andors-trail.googlecode.com/git/ ... go_512.png
• Featured graphics (.png) http://andors-trail.googlecode.com/git/ ... ed_gfx.png
• Featured graphics (GIMP layered .xcf) http://andors-trail.googlecode.com/git/ ... ed_gfx.xcf
• Promotional graphics (.png) http://andors-trail.googlecode.com/git/ ... al_gfx.png
• Promotional graphics (GIMP layered .xfc) http://andors-trail.googlecode.com/git/ ... al_gfx.xcf

I'm thinking the opening screen of the game should look somewhat similar to the featured graphics on the Google Play page. Unless someone can come up with an even nicer looking screen of course

[DarkSavant13]

I had an idea when I was drifting off to sleep (funny how that happens so often, lol) and almost forgot about it until now.

I got a picture in my head of a path heading off into the distance (like a triangle with the very top angle chopped off, wide at the bottom and small at the top), forest on either side. At the beginning of the path is our hero, fighting monsters where the forest gives way to meadow. The path actually fades to black at the top and on the path, in the middle, stands a very small silhouette against an evening sky, of a person. Above the forest, path, and silhouette are the words, Andor's Trail with the shield and swords between the words.

So the idea is that while our hero is fighting the monsters, at the top there is the silhouette of Andor walking along the trail.

I know it may seem complicated, but it's actually not. It could be done using current graphics, and a half-decent paint program. What I have in my head looks professional without too much work. When I get paid by Worker's Compensation this week I'm going to get an Android stylus and I'll sketch out a really basis pre-vis sketch to show ya what I mean.

[Pyrizzle]

I had an idea when I was drifting off to sleep (funny how that happens so often, lol) and almost forgot about it until now.

I got a picture in my head of a path heading off into the distance (like a triangle with the very top angle chopped off, wide at the bottom and small at the top), forest on either side. At the beginning of the path is our hero, fighting monsters where the forest gives way to meadow. The path actually fades to black at the top and on the path, in the middle, stands a very small silhouette against an evening sky, of a person. Above the forest, path, and silhouette are the words, Andor's Trail with the shield and swords between the words.

So the idea is that while our hero is fighting the monsters, at the top there is the silhouette of Andor walking along the trail.

I know it may seem complicated, but it's actually not. It could be done using current graphics, and a half-decent paint program. What I have in my head looks professional without too much work. When I get paid by Worker's Compensation this week I'm going to get an Android stylus and I'll sketch out a really basis pre-vis sketch to show ya what I mean.

i can't wait to see your sketch. The mental image i am getting from this is fantastic.

[DarkSavant13]

I had an idea when I was drifting off to sleep (funny how that happens so often, lol) and almost forgot about it until now.

I got a picture in my head of a path heading off into the distance (like a triangle with the very top angle chopped off, wide at the bottom and small at the top), forest on either side. At the beginning of the path is our hero, fighting monsters where the forest gives way to meadow. The path actually fades to black at the top and on the path, in the middle, stands a very small silhouette against an evening sky, of a person. Above the forest, path, and silhouette are the words, Andor's Trail with the shield and swords between the words.

So the idea is that while our hero is fighting the monsters, at the top there is the silhouette of Andor walking along the trail.

I know it may seem complicated, but it's actually not. It could be done using current graphics, and a half-decent paint program. What I have in my head looks professional without too much work. When I get paid by Worker's Compensation this week I'm going to get an Android stylus and I'll sketch out a really basis pre-vis sketch to show ya what I mean.

Well, here's a pre-vis sketch I promised, though it's not as nice as I wanted it to be. The stylus my wife got was the wrong one, with a rounded tip, not great for sketching, lol, but I should hopefully get a good "drawling" stylus when funds permit. But, this will give you an idea of what I had in mind. Forgot to add the shield between Andor's and Trail, but I'm sure you can imagine it there. Please notice that the trees, path, and Andor (the tiny figure at the top of the path are black at the top, making Andor only a shadow, and gets progressively lighter to normal daylight where the hero and monsters fight. The sky could be any color that works with the lettering (which I imagined to be a bit more fancy, something old looking). The trees are easily done, using existing textures, the same with the path, monsters, and hero. The biggest work that will need to be done is the shading, which shouldn't be too difficult with any decent paint program. I'm really sorry I can't do it myself but I sadly have limited resources and can only use my phone with terrible memory, so someone else will need to do it. Good luck. If ya need any clarifications just let me know.

[Stoodge]

here is my attempt, stealing the idea from DarkSavant13... just attempted to create your sketch in ms paint, to a degree.

apologies if the colour is a bit off, i have a red green colour deficiency. also known as colourblindness.

i say again that the idea for this one came from DarkSavant13, i just tweaked it to get it kinda straight in my head....

[DarkSavant13]

here is my attempt, stealing the idea from DarkSavant13... just attempted to create your sketch in ms paint, to a degree.

apologies if the colour is a bit off, i have a red green colour deficiency. also known as colourblindness.

i say again that the idea for this one came from DarkSavant13, i just tweaked it to get it kinda straight in my head....

This is great! Well done. The color is perfect, no problem there. The path and trees are even better than I had in my head, and I LOVE the trail of footsteps leading up to Andor.

Hey, the reason I created the sketch was to get people like yourself involved since I'm very limited at the moment. And you came up with some GREAT ideas.

I would still like to see the shield between Andor's and Trail and our hero fighting beasties at the bottom roughly where the sheild is now. But, Stooge has done an awesome job, and with only may paint even. I excited at the way it turned out.

Any comments about this concept from our devs?

[fiernaq]

That is sweet. Touch it up a bit by using a better tool like the Gimp or at least Paint.NET and I'd love to see it as my homescreen. Much better than a solid grey background