Facet:
Thanks! Yes, the frame is meant to be a global UI. I wanted to design it a little big; I was hoping to give a sort of cramped/claustrophobic feel as well as use it to limit the player's view somewhat. If it gets in the way too much, I may have to scale it back, but that's my plan for now, heh. :3

You're right! I forgot about a mockup. I'll get right on that.

It's haunted but it's not abandoned, so I'm having a little trouble with the atmosphere. I'm hoping some darkness will help. I Googled "mansion interior" and have been using the pictures I found for inspiration thus far. Thank you for the link!

Tourist:
Oh man! I didn't even think of Scooby Doo! The only thing that I was directly thinking of was Sweet Home. More boatloads of inspiration, for sure. If the story seems a little cliche, that's because I wanted it to be reminiscent of a campy horror movie, and Scooby Doo has a lot of the same tropes. Only, you know, less gore and death.

Just for that, I will have to have a character that insists that the monsters are just the groundskeeper in a costume. Until someone dies horribly.

Urrgh I'm pretty sure the perspective is inconsistent. I'm so awful at top-down perspectives. I'll keep working at it.


Mockup:

Incredibly boring so far. I'm not 100% sure how I'd like to do the lighting yet (not to mention that I haven't pixelled any light sources yet) so I left everything as-is. I'm thinking of adding a black shadow to some of the other stuff, to match the sprite.

I think its  smooth and flows rlly well what about you guys

First, I'm going to second that it looks like it's walking backwards. I also think the horizontal line on the feet makes them look odd, like he is wearing some kind of weird boxes with holes in the front for shoes. For some reason, it really disturbs me.

Here is an edit that fixes some of the things that were bugging me; sorry for the lack of transparency, I did it quickly in Paint because I don't have anything else on this computer....

On the left is my edit.
- I made the head rounder - it looked flat on top - and got rid of the shading at the top of the head. There's no reason for that.
- I changed the eyes - the original ones had only one pixel between them, making it look like a cyclops at first glance. I fixed the highlight in the pupils to reflect a light source rather than just mirroring them.
- I changed the nose and mouth.
- I got rid of the manly pecs on the chest - I don't know why people insist on giving these chibi sprites detailed chests. Sometimes less is more.
- I got rid of the odd lines on the feet and replaced them with shading.
- I changed the arms to make them look more relaxed; I just didn't like the way they looked before... so stiff. They're hardly perfect, but they get my point across, hehe!
- I got rid of a color that was almost identical to one of the others.

Anyway, not perfect, certainly, but food for thought. :3 Hope it helps!

  Episodes are a great idea! In that case, I won't be needing the little girl sprite for a while (unless I make kid NPCs or somethin... hm.)

Well anyhoo, I've been working on some menus and programming and stuff, but I'm back to this now. The south-facing one still isn't 100% done, but I'm taking a break on it... ^ ^;;

Also started on a portrait for her:

She won't actually be naked, armless, and boring, haha. I haven't started on the clothes yet and this is her "expressionless" expression.

This is a bit besides the topic but if you want my opinion, from all the types of games you can attempt to make on your own or in teams of two, a 20 hour jrpg is one of the most improbable ones to reach completion. Have you considered something of a smaller scope?

That's all right. I'm glad to have the opinion. To be honest, it's never really occurred to me to try to make anything but an rpg. I can't think of another genre that would allow me to practice the skills I want to the way an rpg can - those skills being pixelling, character design, story writing, and worldbuilding. In the end, I don't know if this game will ever see the light of day, but in the meantime, it is allowing me to practice my skills, which is really the point of it. On that note, though, I would still love to work on something else that is more likely to actually get finished (in a reasonable amount of time), especially if it means I can work with someone else. Collaborating is my favorite thing about working on a game! (Well, next to character design, hehehe!)

Also if you're getting stuck in that 'ugh what was I thinking, complete redo of art assets' loop you might want to hone your skills for a year or two before you sit down to make a game that'll take you 2~3 years to finish. Just to get on that certain level when even when you look back at your art you won't be annoyed by it being too bad.

You're probably right, here. I don't know if I can really just hone my skills without working toward a goal, though. If I wasn't working on this game, I wouldn't know what to pixel, haha. I'm reasonably sure that at some point, I'll hit that wall at which I stop improving. Until then, I'll keep doing and redoing until I'm happy. It's the only way to find the perfect style, I think.

All that said, I think your end sprite here is stellar, has lots of character and a nonstandard animation, which is a boon. Why not make something where you only have to animate 3-4 characters to such finish instead of an rpg?

That's wonderful to hear!

All excuses aside, you're still very right. What sort of game would you suggest as an alternative? I've seen a lot of work on sidescrollers, but I've never had an idea for one myself. I'm not sure where I'd start.

Wow, I wrote an awful lot. Anyway, I know it's a bit off-topic, but I enjoy the discussion nonethless. Sorry about the lack of a sprite in this update! I shall include a new character in the next post to make up for it!

Im pretty sure its just the torso/stomach wiggle thats a problem. The left arm (our left, not hers) COULD use some tweening, right now it kinda jumps from bent to fully extended a little fast, but it wouldnt be that noticeable in a game, without me staring at it in place at some ridicules zoom.

I think I've finally fixed it.

It should just be her hips moving now. I'll tweak the arm a tad to match the right one better.

If you want a coder/audio monkey shoot me a PM, Iv been wanting to make an RPG for awhile, but I always get bogged down creating the art assets and loose interest before I have much done (basically, I make the main character and like one party member, and enough tiles for an area then start on NPCs and say screw this. I usually already have the engine done at that point too, so its just making the characters and plugging stuff in.)

Hehehe, you too? I'm the same, except that I've been working on the same rpg for a while now. XD I've got characters designed, got a good idea of what I want to do, but then I'll start on tiles and sprites and get stuck somewhere and then drop it for a while, and then by the time I pick it up again I'm like, "Ugh, what was I thinking? Better redo this stuff...." and then I never get anywhere. 8D Fun fun. This is the third time I've redesigned the sprites. Hahaha~

I kind of suck at programming, honestly. XD I mean, I'm not completely code-retarded but something like building my own engine would probably be way beyond me. I'm using the RPG Toolkit, and I've been designing and coding my own systems because the engine's default ones are a bit lackluster. *rambles* Anyhoo, I may indeed send you a PM. This game is one I've sort of determined to tackle myself, but a collaborative project at some point would be amazing.