First of all, hi everybody. I've been lurking here for a long time to get insparation and I love the stuff I find here!

I've been working on a game that uses pixel art for a few months now. First of all I want to state that this game is based on a mockup by Setzer (http://www.pixeljoint.com/p/4064.htm) from Pixeljoint.  The screenshot can be found here: http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/51884.htm. I've asked him for permission to use it as a base for my game and I'm now trying to add some things in the same style since the stuff I can take from this mockup isn't enough to provide for a full game.

Here are three ingame screenshots:







The things I added are the coins, spikes, the corals, which you can climb later on and the dude right from the mermaid on the first screenshot.

Here's his walking animation in which I would be most interested to get some tips on:



Anyway I would like some critique on this stuff and maybe some tips on what I can add to the game. I'm thinking about adding some more colors to the pallette but given how carefully chosen the colors in this wonderful pallette are its too much for me to handle . Well at least every try in adding some colours failed miserably   .

I also want to add another layer in the background moving at a different pace but I'm not sure about the "how" there either...

If someone's interested I'm going to create a video for people to see how things look like in motion.

Updates:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o1U--rCYAE