AuthorTopic: Commercial Critique Challenge - Tilevania: pixel's quest  (Read 180234 times)

Offline Kasumi

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Re: Commercial Critique Challenge - Tilevania: pixel's quest

Reply #10 on: March 27, 2016, 06:01:35 pm
You are understanding correctly, wolfenoctis.

Here is a post that explains this in more detail since most of the images in my restrictions post are still dead. (And... I think they'll stay that way for a bit, sorry. I am trying to finish something else.) I see that you've already found the linked post, wolfenoctis, but I've been asked on slack to clarify more generally.

Specific to Castlevania, the HUD uses the universal color which is always black. This means that without editing the HUD tiles themselves, changing the universal color to something not black will change everything that is black on the HUD to that as well.

What this post really boils down to is, "Do not forget about the HUD when choosing your color palettes." I do not mind anyone changing the colors of the HUD for their levels as Battletoads does, or even remapping its tiles to allow for something other than black as the universal color. You could even do away with the lighter color if you want (For the bars next to ENEMY), which would get the HUD down to 3 colors, not 4. Just don't make a mockup like it won't be there at all, it's a large part of the game that the original developers had to work around and with. Also remember that there are things in the levels that currently use the same palette as the HUD.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2016, 06:05:42 pm by Kasumi »
I make actual NES games. Thus, I'm the unofficial forum dealer of too much information about the NES

Offline Ryumaru

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Re: Commercial Critique Challenge - Tilevania: pixel's quest

Reply #11 on: March 27, 2016, 11:35:06 pm
Quick and dirty edit of Ryumaru's excellent piece, have no idea whether it would work:

Basically made the tiles in the foreground big to create a sense of depth and obviously changed the colors, based on the palette in Ruymaru's original post.

If I understand the color restriction correctly you have one color that can be used anywhere and four 3 color ramps where you can only utilize one ramp and the omni color in a given 16x16 area?


Man that's great wolf, It's amazing what a palette change and some simplification can do. The rimlight on the left side of the walls is a great touch, as NES apparently cant flip/ rotate tiles anyway, so there's no reason not to have them be unique if it will help sell an idea like that. When you do stuff like this you realize that the 16x16 same palette area is a more limiting restriction than the number of tiles themselves.

Also, I've updated the first post with the NTSC palette, and corrected the number of tiles available (128). Keep it coming, folks!

Offline Kasumi

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Re: Commercial Critique Challenge - Tilevania: pixel's quest

Reply #12 on: March 28, 2016, 08:01:42 am
Hey folks. It may surprise you all to know that I didn't have a program that checks restriction breaks. I've been checking manually, but enough people have been asking me stuff that I made a program. I may try to release if I can make it a little more user friendly. (But that... may... prove difficult. There are also probably times it can say you're not in restrictions when you are, just due to ambiguity of how palettes can be put together.)

One test image was Phoenix849's (Sorry man!)

Blacks are areas that are using too many colors. (The only useful output right now is that, but it does keep track of all palettes and other useful information, so if I clean up its output it could in theory help one detect more than 4 palettes and where they are.)

Anyway, it caught some stuff I didn't see. The gray beneath the stairs is different than the two grays of the banisters, so those three colors plus orange plus black is five colors in a 16x16 pixel area. The green vines underneath the bridge are similarly too close to the "orange" palette. (Apologies if I just have it offset wrong)

Wolf's edit of Ryu's start checks out. Anyway I'm not going to really check everyone's unless people actually want me to. I don't wanna ruin the fun of this.
I make actual NES games. Thus, I'm the unofficial forum dealer of too much information about the NES

Offline Phoenix849

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Re: Commercial Critique Challenge - Tilevania: pixel's quest

Reply #13 on: March 28, 2016, 09:51:42 am
One test image was Phoenix849's (Sorry man!)
I actually didn't check it for 16px regions yet, so I presumed it contained mistakes. It's still unfinished, so I'll be manually looking through when I merge these 3 mockups into one. Right now it's in 3 different Pyxel Edit files, where you can't switch grid from 8px to 16px without resizing tiles themselves.

Considering my shallow knowledge about NES, could you also link or talk about palettes? Why choose Bisqwit's over Nintendulator's?

Also, finally played Castlevania myself first time ever. Keep falling to death on medusa heads on 2nd level :D
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Offline Prism

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Re: Commercial Critique Challenge - Tilevania: pixel's quest

Reply #14 on: March 28, 2016, 09:54:31 am
Here's my take.

TILE COUNT - ~70


Experimenting with NES limits is a real joy. I haven't tried anything NES for...years, really. So seeing what tricks I could use was refreshing. (seeing how negative space could be used as an advantage, technically and visually, turned to be useful)


Since Kasumi is the fucking bomb, he was kind enough to run my piece through his NES checker, and gave me pointers along the way to keep this thing within limits.
Having a little less than half of the tile space left over is also nice. The foliage could still use more cleanliness, variation, and form, so it may be worth revisiting to see how those extra tiles could be put to use.

Offline Ryumaru

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Re: Commercial Critique Challenge - Tilevania: pixel's quest

Reply #15 on: March 28, 2016, 10:01:53 am
Awesome stuff prism, was great seeing this one take shape! The lighting and atmosphere is spot on. If you do revisit it, I would love to see you tackle the foliage more in depth, as that might be the weakest part currently. I actually enjoy it from a certain aesthetic standpoint; looks like a cool base for procedurally generated trees, but I think a more organic presentation could be found with more tiles. Also since you have so many free ones, maybe the fence posts and foreground could have more variation!
« Last Edit: March 28, 2016, 10:04:27 am by Ryumaru »

Offline Prism

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Re: Commercial Critique Challenge - Tilevania: pixel's quest

Reply #16 on: March 28, 2016, 10:20:35 am
For sure, it's appreciated. I still consider it a WIP for that reason! Trying a few completely different approaches to how the foliage is tiled would only help...Also, I maaaaay take a peek at the rest of stage 01's assets to see what could realistically need those remaining tiles, but using them to give more organic life to the stage is also resources well-spent.  :)

Offline Ryumaru

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Re: Commercial Critique Challenge - Tilevania: pixel's quest

Reply #17 on: March 28, 2016, 10:29:41 am
Oh yeah, you would want to keep the castle in mind as that can be pretty resource intensive. Peeking is totally allowed! Goodluck  :crazy:

Offline Night

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Re: Commercial Critique Challenge - Tilevania: pixel's quest

Reply #18 on: March 28, 2016, 09:11:29 pm
Was pretty fun! Not sure if I've done it all correctly though.
There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Offline Phoenix849

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Re: Commercial Critique Challenge - Tilevania: pixel's quest

Reply #19 on: March 28, 2016, 09:44:49 pm
Night, that looks awesome! I think Belmont stands out too much in the picture. You probably should've made him a bit darker, or made floors more contrasting with background.
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