I keep blocking out the memory of an existing 3d advance wars game and tricking myself into thinking I'm doing something new. I keep attempting to solve problems that have already been solved
The difference I suppose is that reboot camp is just an imitation of a 2d game rendered into 3d: just with models where sprites once were. What I’m trying to accomplish with my project is to actually have units grounded within the world, interacting with terrain rather than just an icon rendered on top.
But then I’m not free to use the allowances that icons provide, and even when stretching my units to cartoonish proportions it can be hard to keep things readable. One of the really impressive feats of spritework in the original game is despite how theoretically different in size each unit was, the sprites had the same dimensions and as such the size and power of units had to be communicated through shape language: heavy vehicles being blocky while smaller vehicles were diminished and had rounded corners.
And I think the problem I’m running into is That there’s a tension between making the largest units make sense traversing tunnels and bridge while the smallest are still readable and not just a blip on the radar