4. Roll your own.

At the beginning of development, I spent a few weeks researching various modeling software, before realizing they either did not meet my needs or the cash in my pocket.

To create Weapon of Choice, I wrote Mommy's Best Level Editor and Object Editor (for modeling and animation) in about four months, which provided powerful control and fast gameplay creation.

I don't commonly see games with objects that animate color and translucency, and I made sure to incorporate this into the Object Editor from the start. The first creature encountered when playing, the Air Bladder, swells up before shooting, which changes its namesake, vein-covered sack translucent and slightly yellow.

This animation control was used many other places, and starting immediately with such a strong case provided a good example to follow.

Figure 7. The Air Bladder 'shoot' animation shows the translucency in effect.

For me, the best use of technology is to incorporate the most unique aspects of the engine into the gameplay. Mommy's Best Object Editor allows for complex skeletal systems to be created and then rendered using sprites attached to the joints.

Limbs can use a verlet chain to control motion with a hand or foot driven by animation. Integrating the editor and game code allowed for subtle polish, such as accessing the joint chain for the legs of the operatives or aliens, and having their feet properly animate on uneven terrain.

This ability fed back into the level design; I felt challenged to create levels that looked opposite to often flat, tile-based design.

Figure 8. Screenshot of Xerxes fighting a Wrap Mouth. Xerxes' legs are reoriented in code after animation initially positions them.

5. Sometimes Quantity over Quality Works Too.

From the start, I had to decide if I should animate characters with a sprite for each frame of motion and only have a few, gorgeously animating objects, or should I have a ton of animation using a key-framed approach more akin to 3D games, which at times can bend limbs in a weird fashion.

While I love the look of the Metal Slug series, 16-bit Aladdin, Flashback, and other sprite-animated games, I decided a sprite system rigged to a key-framed skeleton would get me the most animation for my time.

This resulted in dozens of different trees, grasses, vines, leafy plants, spikes, tentacles, eyes, and appendages, all flowing, flapping, dangling, and swinging in perverse yet attractive fashion.

Figure 9. Wrap Mouth animation frames 18 through 24. Note the skewing of the limbs in some poses. While still noticeable, it's difficult to see during gameplay.

Here is a break-down of in-game art objects and their animations:

Environment animations were shared across many different objects, but for the monsters, which are the most important, I created many unique animations. I believe it would have taken me years to fully animate that many creatures in the classic sprite fashion.

For MBG's next project, I'd like to improve the ability to change sprites on a skeleton in order to combine animation methods, resulting in the best of both worlds.