Game-play and Game design

So I have been continuing on my journey of creating the game I was talking about. So far I have the basic story and area transitions mapped out but I think I will wind up getting other people to help with level design. I have decided to sprite the game myself as I have discovered a nice technique for making high quality (high colour, sorry purists) sprites fairly quickly. It goes like this:

-Make a basic 3d character with the proportions you want your character to have
-Colour him in a bright colour and UV on basic details such as eye position etcetera
-Set the material to full bright (or use toon shading for help shadowing the character's sprite)
-Set the render mode to outline
-Animate your character and render single images orographic (optional) from the side (or whatever view you need)
-Import as a background into the Gimp
-Create a new layer and draw the outlines
-Paint in the colours and more details under this layer
-Save & organise your sprites into a sprite sheet

it is surprisingly fast and gives great results.

I have also been looking into tutorials on youtube and elsewhere to brush up on game maker. I have now learned how to create perfect platforming controls thanks to them. I am going to animate and render the basic outlines of the main character so I can start prototyping gameplay as I start editing the sprites to look nice. Since the game play is quick I need the timing to be spot on and so this is currently ahead of making pretty graphics for the game. With a functional room completed I will be able to begin working on the final sprites.

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Aside from game making I have began playing Final Fantasy VII. I have never played a Final Fantasy before but I am already loving this one. The story is far more mature than I would have predicted and the characters are quite intriguing. Not only that but the use of pre rendered graphics is very well done and it transfers almost seamlessly from still game play to pre-rendered camera movement. The combat, due to the timing system, is also very engaging. My only other turn based RPG experiance was pokemon where you could relax and let the battle play out slowly. In FF you have to concentrate... It is a mechnic I may steal in future projects!

Well thats what I've been up to lately, I guess I will post updates tomorrow. hopefully I can tear myself away from FF to animate and render my guy... hopefully ;)