I am wanting to make a platform game in Construct and i'm in the process of designing my main character and i've been looking at sprites for inspiration.


one thing that i really want to do is use animation to portray personality, and i'm having a hard time coming up with what I really want and how best to animate it. one thing i definitely want to get right is the player's character and her animations, but I can't seem to settle on the perfect way to do it.


so i want to look at a few sprite animations that have CHARACTER and i'm hoping that you can share some too. especially if you've made your own!



the archetypal heroic march. WITH PURPOSE. it totally fits metroid largely because of samus's suit, but it's hard to justify giving this kind of march to a more human character. it seems like a good starting place, though, because confidence is a great quality in a player character.



cool spot just don't give a FUCK. this guy's probably a good example when personality can go TOO FAR. i mean, the whole idea of the character in this example is a total gimmick anyway, so it totally works here, but something this exaggerated would seem out of place—even if toned down to match the proportions of a more human sprite.



boogerman's a badass. he struts like his shit doesn't stink. and his run is really bouncy and has lots of energy. i think that his animations added a tremendous amount of humor to the game—boogerman's really foul and based on farting and stuff but it pulls it off by being a total cartoon and embracing that.


his jump is also really really funny.


So friends: do you have other examples of sprites with really emotive animations? what can animation tell about a CHARACTER?


especially in your own games: when you animate your character, do you think of their personality? for a long, long time whenever i animated, I tried really hard to stick to the formula, thinking about a walk cycle that's set in stone. but the next step for me is to take that cycle and sprinkle it with flavor. what experiences do you guys have with this kind of thing? how do you approach this kind of thing in your own games?



stay "cool"