Yeah, i just found out an awesome new technique, similar to those 'tweening' rotate/translate/scale programs and engines.
However, I was able to dominate the hell out of it, and allow for myself to show twisting and 'soft material' motions, and I applied this to my character. The crazy thing about this, is it also works through templates, so I can swap out the main template at anytime to make quick changes to any character, or many other characters at the same time, all while making the final animation adhere to certain pixel restrictions. It's not perfect, but I'm sure I can come up with some solutions in the future. I did notice that there is an oops on her right foot, you can see it better on darker backgrounds, but that's easily fixed. It takes a decent amount of time to set up, depending on how many moving parts you have included, but afterwards animation goes fairly quick, and of course, the ability to just swap the template is invaluable, to me at least.
Since it's 80 frames, and every gif I make seems to either play it in slow motion, or frame skip, I threw together a quick 'animation viewer' to demonstrate it. I plan on improving this viewer to allow it to read from a spritesheet, as well as defining certain animation criteria and what have you.
I'm currently overhauling the original homesick and putting it on the Xbox, then getting to work on a sequel.
Unfortunately, the sprites are pre-rendered, though, I could essentially create a system in game that uses the movable parts, though that one specifically has well over 60 parts I think, it would be extremely sluggish.
Chloe, please release it on iOS. I think it'll be more accessible on there and the game genre suits touch controls more. There are one or two hidden gems on the Xbox Indie Games section, but most of it is absolutely awful. The same could be said for iOS, but as I say the game suits a touch screen I think and there are more users there who'd buy it.
I'm guessing it can, although I have no idea about what extensions you may/not be using. Or the memory usage.
Also keep an eye on Ouya if you're looking to sell your games. Clickteam should work working on an exporter for that right about now. I think/hope.
Edit: Wow. I just got onto Windows and tested your example - that is fantastic! I honestly wasn't sure what you were saying in your first post (I'm not too technically minded ) Great work!
I don't think I used any extention. Memory usage is a huge deal, since many people have been having problems running the game on a PC, however, that was how I programmed it before (with the competition restriction of using just a single frame)
Ouya would be awesome! I'll definitely keep that in mind. No sense on why I shouldn't put the game anywhere it can fit.
The iphone 3GS and up can handle quite a bit, but you'll prolly have to create a version specifically for the device as there are some device specific restrictions. Plus it helps to be able to test on an actual device during development.
Yes OUYA uses Android and won't require much changes to have a mobile app run on it.
In fact Clickteam currently has the OUYA dev kit,and will work on a runtime for it when they are finished with Android. It'll most likely be an extension to the Android runtime.
Yeah, i've got an ipad, but no mac. I might have to get in touch with a few people that aren't very happy with me (for who knows what reason...) Android would be a great platform, but the exporter isn't out yet, and I don't have an android device (though I can probably get my hands on it for now). Either way, I'll at least have the xbox release.
Ouya would be great, if it ever comes out. But I'm glad they are taking their time with it.