Wardner - wardner(manipars 12-16-2008) WIP

[manipars]

Greetings! Here is also another early WIP for the excellent platform game Wardner (thats why everything looks like crap for now =). The bg is from the Japanese flyer, characters from the inlay and the title-logo is vectorized etc. The preview screenshot below is just a mockup at this stage; I'll work on this theme as well as Ordyne until I finish them both before announcing other themes.All user inputs are welcome. Cheers

WIP mockup preview 1:
http://i448.photobucket.com/albums/qq210/manipars/WardnerWIPmockup1.jpg

[bodydump]

Off to a good start. I like the layout. Its busy but not cluttered. The title is kind of hard to read, but thats not your fault, its that font they used. Like all your themes I'm looking forward to downloading this one.

[brian_hoffman]

I like the logo but the backround is too busy. You can use a picture of a castle without the guy there getting his face covered.

[EvilDindon]

Yeah, cool, I love this game !!

Actually I wanted to make a theme for this one, but there is not very good looking artwork for it, so I stopped.

Anyway, you managed to do something lookable, congrats !!

That coverd-face bad guy should be removed or moved down under the title, with a video less rotated to make some place for that move-down.

Have you try to search artwork (marquee or flyer) from the Us clone named "PYROS" ?

Maybe the artwork for this clone is better ?

[manipars]

Thanks for the inputs, I definitely agree about the title being too small and the background too busy looking. Here is another quick mockup preview, I've changed the title-logo (marquee) and cleaned the bg and removed the boss etc., at this stage I don't like this theme at all, I've tested it with many different backgrounds and everything felt wrong. I think I'll just start over later with just the Dracula/boss artwork from the clone PYROS and use the blue castle background from the game Bezel artwork and build the rest on that. Cheers

http://i448.photobucket.com/albums/qq210/manipars/WardnerWIPmockup2.jpg

[EvilDindon]

Looks already really really good !

I would be satisfied it was released as it.

[bodydump]

I like the new logo much better. I did like the look of the dragon holding the video frame in the first mock-up.

[manipars]

Thanks bodydump and EvilDindon for the inputs, here is another preview, I removed all the characters from the bg and extended the castle and added some star streaks/edge glow and halo effects to make it more dreamy like, I like it more now with this background, it looks more clean, the preview-video is a bit too much covered but I really wanted to have the armored guard in this theme. I also liked the video border tilted a bit in the hads of the dragon as in the first mockup but I don't think that it is usable now with all the characters in this theme. I'll try reducing the video size or the character size to see if it makes it better. Cheers

BG;
http://i448.photobucket.com/albums/qq210/manipars/WardnerBG.jpg

Preview;
http://i448.photobucket.com/albums/qq210/manipars/WardnerWIPmockup3.jpg

[bodydump]

nice, that background looks awesome.

[BadBoyBill]

Nice work on the background, looks awesome, howcome the screenshot looks like theres a 50px black border around it. Would look nice to see that background take up the whole theme.

[manipars]

Greetings BadBoyBill and tnx! The black borders around the bg was intentional, I wanted to use the same cool effect as amchine's Aero Fighter themes with the border slowly zooming out when the theme is loaded from fullscreen to its current state, it also makes the theme look less cluttered in my opinion and makes the characters pop out. I'll post another preview with the background covering the entire screen, it might be easier to judge side by side. Cheers

[manipars]

Update: Greetings, I just made some minor changes to this theme, here is another mockup image, I removed the black frame border as BBB mentioned (looks better now), added perspective shadows to all the characters, the video frame has now a glossy glass effect over the cracks, I also added back the bricks under the dragons feet as the original artwork and removed the armored guard etc. I think that the title might need some gradient outline or shadows to stand out more, I'll test that later. I still fully don't like this theme and I'm not sure why but hopefully I will find out the reason for that soon. Cheers

http://i448.photobucket.com/albums/qq210/manipars/WARDNERWIPTEST.jpg

[manipars]

http://i448.photobucket.com/albums/qq210/manipars/WARDNERWIPTESTII.jpg

[BadBoyBill]

Looks good, maybe a little less angle on the vid, and I'd move it to the right some even if it goes behind the pillar some, a little behind the girl and a little behind the piller instead of alot behind the girl only. Thanks.

[manipars]

Thanks for the inputs, you're right about the video angle, I was just following the castle lines and it became too angled. Now with the vid-preview repositioned and slightly behind the pillar I have some space left to use the armored guard once again on the left side, I removed him before due to lack of space. I think that it looks better now. I'll start cleaning the artworks now that the layout feels more complete. Cheers

preview:
http://i448.photobucket.com/albums/qq210/manipars/WARDNERWIPTESTIII.jpg

[bent98]

Any update on this one?

[manipars]

Greetings! Sorry for the delay. My backup .psd file was a month old and unfortunately I had to start over and clean up all the artworks and characters all over again due to the HD crash recently.

>> Theme uploaded and awaiting approval. Cheers

some additional changes in the final ver. as compared to the previous previews:

* Perspective Shadow lowered and blurred for all the characters to give a more natural look
* Brevel glossy effect added to the title logo to make it stand out more
* added blood splatter drop effect to the golden armored guardians spear
* added cracks and glossy glass effect to the video frame
* vid-preview repositioned again and is also less tilted and slightly behind the pillar
* + etc. that I can't remember right now =)

Final ver Preview:
http://i448.photobucket.com/albums/qq210/manipars/HSFINALWARDNERPREVIEW.jpg

[EvilDindon]

Excellent.

This game is one of my favourites.

[Dazz]

Uploaded theme was named incorrectly. I have corrected the name and approved the theme.

[manipars]

Uploaded theme was named incorrectly. I have corrected the name and approved the theme.

Thank you sir! It's over 1AM here where I live so I should blame it on the afterhours =) thanks for the correction. Cheers

[manipars]

PS. I just noticed that I made a mistake of tilting the video in the wrong direction it shoud be r="6" and not a negative value. It would be appreciated if a mod/admin could update the wardner.xml file or let me know I need to delete the old zip and re-upload. thanks

<video w="573"
h="446"
x="535"
y="405"
r="6"
below="no"
forceaspect="none"
time="1"
delay="0.5"
bsize="0"
bsize2="0"
bsize3="0"
bcolor="0"
bcolor2="0"
bcolor3="0"
bshape="round"
type="grow"
start="none"/>

correct preview:
http://i448.photobucket.com/albums/qq210/manipars/wardnercorrectedfinalpreview.jpg

[BadBoyBill]

Its the same process for us to update the xml, you can just re upload, like the theme, thanks.

[manipars]

Thanks Bill! I thought that admins/mods could just open the zip in the ftp as a folder and update files onfly. The theme is now corrected/re-uploaded. I will never work on a theme at a late night of a working day, my brain isn't cooperating with me =) Cheers

[BadBoyBill]

Nah we cant do it that way. The files are all renamed to some really weird name when you upload so we never know what theme is what, what happens is when the users download the theme it renames that weird named file into the name you place in the description field when you upload. So no matter what the file name is named when you upload it always gets changed to the name you have in the description field. So its not important what the file name is when you upload, just important what you put in the description area.

[Darkmindz]

Wow smashing theme.

[manipars]

Thank you Darkmindz for the comment and thanks Bill for the explanation about how the server dl. works.

Note: Today, when I view this theme with fresh eyes I can say that I made a sloppy job with cleaning the cut-outs (it looked good last night at 2AM but awful today), that is because I had to re-do the cleaning process again since I lost my latest updated original WIP .psd and it is a human tendency to a more sloppy job when you repeat something that you don't like all over again =)

I could need to spend an hour or so today cleaning everything up, but I don't think there is a good reason deleting/re-uploading the theme again. The mods/admins/theme-testers would kill me this time =), I just post the cleaned wardner.png files here so that you can update your #Artwork slots/folders instead. Sorry about that. As it is now I'm pretty unhappy about the final results due to that. I have to change my backup routine to each week instead of each month. Cheers

[manipars]

UPDATE: Sorry but I had to delete the uploaded theme, I will re-upload the theme again as soon as all the artworks are cleaned properly. I was planning to post the cleaned wardner.png files here separately but it might be too much hassle for some people and unfair to the new downloader's.

Thanks to all the people who voted and downloaded this. I will post here when the theme is uploaded again. Cheers

[Propaganda]

Thanks for the theme! I played this game at lunch in jr high school. Man, it was impossible to beat the end guy until you found out where to crouch and not get hit at all! :)