Helm: It goes without saying that at the very least in the inception of these characters, and their development as I refine their design, personalities develop as well and are tailored to the concepts they are to represent in game. I have briefly seen Sandman before and would like to read it- Maybe I can find some used issues on ebay.
On the matter of " demon forearms" I can only say that your mode of thinking towards my work is inherently limited because of the fact that often what I show here are these common things.
http://chrispariano.blogspot.com/My blog shows various examples of school and personal work- much of it very far from demon forearms. I find it a bit shortsighted and offensive that you think this entire creative process is to cover up, or expound upon liking to distort human anatomy. I've had just as much fun, if not more, with the development of the tileset- exploring the creation of a more organic environment ( taking away some of the formulaic appearances of some tile work) while Ironically bringing attention to the 8x8 tile grid.
Why for you is there no allowance of a middle ground between a decent concept and demon forearms? Would it really make sense to render epic physical forces with anorexic limbs? If I were a regular deviant art poster who literally had hundreds of images solely about this subject matter I could see that, as a way of personal growth, that you might wish for me to branch out; but this is not the case. Environment work and economic tile usage has inspired me much more, especially in my later pixel " career" than demon sprites ever have. There is a lot of work that goes un-shown and while I don't expect you to be able to see the works on my hard drive from Greece, I do ask for the benefit of the doubt that demonic musculature is not 100%, or even 50% of my subject matter.
I have no argument against this currently not being game design, what I have brought here is a work in progress. Last year I attended a game design lecture where the speaker noted story based creation and mechanic based creation, and I am certainly in the story based mode- with ideas of the overall scenario and how I want them to pan out, while finding mechanics to make it a playable experience. Your post has gotten me to scale down the scope of the game, especially for the playable demonstration I hope to have for the installation. Especially in this media I agree that the sum is better than a display of various well pixeled assets. I've been working on an actual design document and have tried to take your points into account. With how expansive the idea originated, I couldn't boil it down to the two levels you suggested but I believe what I have currently written is far more concise due to your suggestions.
Your final comment especially rings true given the deadline for this project. I would say that with the creation of randomly generated maps and other features that a game would not necessarily have to be about predestination ( especially if one to were include random outcome multiple endings and things of that nature) but for this project, a smaller, linear concept will be more successful. I am working on ideas to make the game experience as non linear as possible with things such as randomized, or at least somehow changing or otherwise uniquely developed game maps- but I have taken the demo in a slightly different direction that deals with cyclical nature- where the main character's fate is to set off a chain of events that destroys and recreates the universe to have him born again. I will show the design document here once it is in a complete form.
Conceit: Perhaps we will give Void some of those characteristics. :]
I REALLY like the idea of inventory as thought bubbles, as there are less than 10 items to appear in game. I've created some inventory images that use the concept that I will show soon, I'm interested in your thoughts about it- currently I am relatively satisfied with it, thank you!
The aesthetic of the font does not worry me as much as how to implement it. I don't know if traditional text box is how I want to see it. I've been throwing around the idea in my head of the text as " trash" tiles that imbed themselves within the environment so that the text doesn't become another " layer". If that falls through I may perhaps settle for a more glitched approach to the common text box- which could be nice as I would be able to alter surrounding tiles and perhaps even the way the text appears to indicate tone, something that is not common in most text applications.
Thank you both for dedicating time to give me honest opinions and helpful suggestions.