No problem, I am glad you didn't take my comment in bad way
. As far as I have perused pixelation there is no zero tolerance vibe.
Getting general artistic direction feedback is well within pixelation scope, I have got it myself here.
As for you sample/mockup I can't really say that it implies "mystery" to me in a quick glance (it doesn't
) but then again, mystery and and aventure sense are things which might very well come strongly from what happens in the game, how it is laid out, rather from what it looks like. To me a game can look cute but feel mysterious, or look grim and feel relaxed and comical.
As for the style, I dig topdown pixel art more than anything else, but as far as topdown goes, I am not found of stardew valley art at all, and do not consider it to have outstanding pixel art to be held as standard in no way, seriously. If compared to stardew, your mockup actually has better style for my taste even if it can be improved, as it has cleaner surfaces, and much less banding/gradients which are eyesores to me in SD, and were frankly one of the reasons I didn't got it on the last sale which ended yesterday.
Please notice thay my taste probably wont match your player's demography, that I am not a very experienced nor skilled pixel artist to begin with and that am speaking against the style of a widely successful title based on taste alone
.
As for individual technical aspects of the mockup, that would really be more productive to give to Joe, but if I were to give my two cents it would be to:
1- adopt/create a single pallette to make the color of stuff a bit more cohesive
2-favor individually shaped characters instead of paperdoll base (which is a very hard decision considering the additional work time, but it pays off)
3-make characters look ahead instead of directly at the camera to reinforce the perspective (took me a while and valuable hints by eishiya here to learn that)
4-try to keep consistent geometry after you have set a perspective, for example, the backwards slope of the roof shouldn't really be visible from this perspective (I can explain my opinion better to Joe if wants, but it might be a conscious distortion to match a similar distortion on the interior's tile set like in Zelda games, I don't know).
As I said those are technic suggestions from someone still learning the trade, which would be more useful for Joe to evaluate/reject as he see fit.