Hacking [Skin] House of the Dead: Overkill

[rauthelegendary]

I was bored and decided to try making a skin for my CycloDS, I was going to post it at the official forum and at ndsthemes, but the official forums don't allow regristration (it says the moderator turned it off) and ndsthemes constantly says that the security code wasn't filled in right, while I'm 99.9% sure it is.

It's my first one so go easy on me. I probably won't adjust it anymore, but I'd like some comments on it.



As you can probably notice, I didn't have much inspiration for the background of the bottom screen...
If people want it I'll post a download link later.

EDIT:
The picture only shows it at one icon, but when you scroll through the three icons the red turns yellow. Just mentioning.

 

[TraumaHoundNDS]

It's my first one so go easy on me. I probably won't adjust it anymore, but I'd like some comments on it.

Well...since you're asking:

The top screen could use a bit of clarifying of the title's test as it looks a bit muddied (you could even go so far as to paint it all out and redo the lettering with similar fonts.) I do like the aged/wrinkled look of the poster though which could've been carried over to the lower screen to better tie the two together plus give some texture and dimension to the lower screen instead of the flat beige (I'd also edit out the repeat of the logo as the static top screen will always show it.) The cheats & scrollbar are stock recolors, nothing wrong with that, though the XML should be edited to take into account the scrollbar's background color to make it transparent (instead of the red coloring it has now.) Just looks cleaner that way, though. White text could be changed to that darker color like on the ROM screens for better readability. Buttons aren't that exciting as-is but as I'm unfamiliar with this title I can't suggest something to replace them.

Still, for your first effort it's miles above a lot that I've seen; I'd give it 3/5 stars at NDSthemes.com. Not sure what that security code issue is though I've heard of others having something similar in the past (can't think of anything recent.) You could always shoot ndsthemes an email ( [email protected] ) to see what he can do for you if it persists.

 

[rauthelegendary]

Thanks for the comment!

I understand what you mean with the top screen background, but I took this part from the Wii box and edited it to take off one of the main characters that would've showed only half of his head. I'm far from good enough to recreate the whole thing. If you look carefully, you can easily spot some of my edits in the bottom right corner. Luckily the NDS screen isn't very large, that makes them harder to spot

Me being bad with photoshop is also the reason why I can't recreate that old feeling for the bottom screen and I really didn't have any inspiration for it, so that's why I just threw an logo on it.

As far as the buttons go, there isn't much to use. I could've done zombie heads or something with one of the main characters, like what I did. I was thinking of just using a gameplay picture and then making a crosshair over the zombie heads when you wanted to select something (it's a Light gun game), but since buttons can't be moved, as far as I know, that can't work.

And I didn't know it was possible to alter text color... (stupid me) I'll look into that now.

 

[TraumaHoundNDS]

For the aged paper look, what you could do is start out with an image of actual aged, roughed up paper. Stock.Xchng (http://www.sxc.hu/) has over 90 "aged paper" images. Cut it to size (I use 256x476 for my base as it allows for the 92px gap between the 2 screens). Take that top image and edit out the paper bits as well as the red in the upper right, leaving the black band with the text and the zombie. Drop that over the aged paper text then adjust the transparency of the layer (you could also try setting the layer to "overlay" to see what effect you get) just a tad so the texture of the aged paper shows through. You can add a layer between the paper and the logo for your red coloring, adjusting it so it, too, shows the paper's texture. Now you've got your base to work with.

You could take the red status bars of the lower screen and also lower the transparency so they look printed onto the paper. You could also check out sites like DeviantArt for custom brushes to scratch & scuff up the image further if you want it to look more worn.

In the end, it just takes practice and perseverance. I've finally started using my Wacom tablet, after having it in a box for a year, in hopes of it improving my theming. Good luck with your project, post an update and/or a link to your NDSthemes profile (providing you get the login issue worked out.)

All that aside, this look like a badass game. I think I'll be picking this up when it comes out. I love lightgun games and I definitely love killing zombies!

 

[xxRAG3]

The Menu background should have a little more flare. I suggest switching the top and the bottom.