Link-Dead: Graphics and Concept Art

By: Derek Yu

On: October 11th, 2007

Sigvatr, the lead artist for Link-Dead, was kind enough to let me know that he has a new blog up to talk in-depth about Link-Dead’s graphical going-ons. Quote:

Like Soldat, your player character in Link-Dead will be extensively customizable. We are upping the ante significantly for Link-Dead, offering the player multiple clothing types, decorational equipment and trinkets, armor types, hair, facial hair and other surprises. Iâ€™m putting a lot of effort into make the characters appear as realistic as possible, even within the confines of a two dimension side scroller where they will appear quite small on screen.

Well, what can I say? It looks great, and it sounds like it’s just going to get better. In his first post, Sigvatr also talks about physics, level editing, and gibs. Delicious, gory gibs.

And while you’re at it, check out (Link-Dead developer) Michal Marcinkowski’s blog. He recently posted some sweet concept art here and here that’s definitely worth checking out.

Link-Dead, which was just announced a few weeks ago, is the spiritual follow-up to Marcinkowski’s highly successful Soldat. In case it wasn’t obvious!

Posted in Physics, Platformers, Previews | Tags: MichalMarcinkowski, Sigvatr

http://doomlaser.com Golds

those Link-Dead gibs are INTENSE. Can’t wait to see them in action.
http://internetography.freeforums.org Zeno

http://mm.soldat.pl/wp-content/gh_tank01.jpg

In before “attack its weak point for massive damage”.
MisterX

Ha, that’s even news to me this time around :D
I actually expected the character sprites to be somewhat similiar to Soldat, rather small and undetailed. But this totally beats it, they look great!
I’m really happy this huge amount of customization possibilities are given. For example I was totally hyped about the game “Soldner”, which basically sucks, but still I didn’t lose my interest in it only because of the ability to create a character just the way you want it. Though of course, in the end, it’s the gameplay which counts. I guess it will still be a while until we can see what link-dead will truly look like in that department. But for now it looks awesome :)

Nevertheless I’m really fond of the gibbing explained in the blog. I’m not all against gore in games, they may well be bloody and body parts flying around can be cool, but in my opinion that just seems to be taken too far in link-dead. I don’t want the level to be littered with body parts, several chopped off legs here, some brains there, and oh, look, a kidney.
Well, it’s still a long way to go and that’s only one aspect, I just hope it turns out well and not too extreme.
MisterX

Oops. That “I’m _not_ really fond of the gibbing” is actually what I wanted to say.
Eponymouse

Someone needs to calm down with the aliasing!

I’d like to see the sprites steered more in the direction of that side view character art actually, those are some very strong designs.
Sigvatr

I made the sprites before we got the concept art, so I probably will make use of both styles and let the player mix and match as he chooses.
failrate

The sprite on the far right looks like a cousin of the guys from Gone With the Blast Wave (http://www.blastwavecomic.com/)

That’s a very good thing :D
colorFool

Yeah, neat designs, but like Eponymouse said, it could be a little more crisp.

Sigvatr, I don’t know if it’d be such a good idea to mix the styles, since in the end it looks sometimes a bit awkward and unfitting. Usually it serves the game better if there is only one style that’s adjusted to the rest of the visuals. But these are just my 2 cent on that matter.

Other than that – keep on pixelin’!
Lorne

The Link Dead blog has convinced me Michal is insane. Insane in an awesome way.
Dan MacDonald

I wonder if their biting off more then they can chew? It seems like a lot of complex systems and content to achieve some asthetics taht end up being represented in a 64×64 pixel chunk of screenspace?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of the skeletal 2D animation and the ability to gib someons spleen with a well placed sniper round, it just seems like it’s a LOT of work for a small team. :)
Guy1

Amazing detail on the characters. You can almost make out the eyes and ears and the darth vader masks.
http://www.datarealms.com/devlog Data

Aye McD, complex physics-based gibbing is a *lot* of work, even in low res, and yeah there’s definitely a point where it doesn’t matter if all major internal organs are accounted for.

The real trick is to hit the balance in how much matter/meat comes out in the gibs vs the whole actor. Too little stuff and the explosion looks insubstantial (very common), or too much and you’re wading around in exponentially increasing remains (performance risks).

The other challenge is to have the gibs match the whole visually, but also represent the internals. As you point out, going too far with that is feasibility suicide for a small team.

Trying to add customizable characters on top of this multiplies the challenge.. now you have to carefully consider the run-time color and look of the pants etc that the gibbed guy has, in order to have the the gib assets match when they appear. Danger!

Concepts and ambitions looks great though – best of luck to Michal and the team!

– D
Stij

I can’t see the point of having super-detailed gibs in a game where the character is gonna be less then an inch high on the screen, honestly. Seems like an ambitious idea though!

IMO, I liked the way Cortex Command handled gibs- unrealistic, maybe, but it still looked cool.
Joseph

I was hoping for hi-res sprites but these look good. I still have no idea what the game is about…
Dominic White

Joseph: It basically sounds like it’s going to be Soldat spliced with Dystopia – a structured, cyberpunk platform shooter, online or off.

If Soldat is anything to go by, this’ll be gold.
Hmm…

is Sigvatr Eric Vaughn?
I Like Cake

Yeah, I mean gibbing is maybe not the most realistic thing in most cases, I think. I haven’t done a serious study of the dismembering process or anything, but it always seems weird to me that, if hit with a powerful blast, the human body would separate into discrete chunks of a similar size. I think you might be shooting yourselves in the foot a bit in trying to make a realistic simulation of an inherently unrealistic phenomenon.

Also, I hate to ruin the party, but I think the in game art in the picture there could use a reworking.

I only say that because I think the character concept art looks really awesome. It bugs me a bit how the character sprites are proportioned: e.g. their arms are significantly longer than their legs, and I think they’re excessively burly. They look a bit more like professional wrestlers than soldiers. The small resolution also looks a bit cramped with such detailed sprites. I’m no artist, really, but I would suggest moving up in resolution or maybe simplifying a bit.
Spanky

Ahhhh! DOS!
Sigvatr

The game resolution is 1024×768 by default. The pictures are zoomed in so you can actually see the little men.
Ilia Chentsov

#1 looks like Hitler, and #4 like a Killzone Helghast.
Link-Dead update

Hey, there’s a youtube video up on his blog, showing off the character physics.