[WiP] A village sim game, pixel by pixel

[Catman]

Hello! My name is Michele and I am making a village simulation game, think of 'The Settlers'
I am not an artist, but since I decided to use pixel art for this project, and since I've always been interested in learning it, I'd like to give it a try myself. If I really screw up, I'll contact a real artist.

Anyway, here is a screenshot from the current prototype:


As you can see, I chose to use large pixels. This is because I want to create dozens if not hundrends of sprites for buildings, pipos, tools, hats and so on, hence why I wanted a small grid size for me to be able to create a lot of them (and keep the memory size small). Also, it seemed easier to create them!

I welcome suggestions and critiques on anything, be it style or readability or whatsoever, but I do have one precise question, to start out.

I first present to you a Pipo:

This is an inhabitant of this game's world, and is your most precious resource.

I decided to use a 8x8 sprite for the Pipos, as they are really small in-game and using a larger sprite the detail looked too much in respect to the rest of the game.
As you can see, the Pipos' pixels are still half of the rest.
Is this, in your opinion, a correct way of doing it, or should I make the sprite even smaller (so it has the same pixel size as the rest), or make everything else more detailed, to the same effect, but having then to create bigger sprites for everything?

For reference, here are a few more Pipos:


And an alternative Pipo, in a different style, where he gains beautiful blue eyes at the cost of his own hair, in an effort to reduce the number of colours used him (now just 3):


Thank you to anyone who can help!

[Manupix]

Hi! 
Well there are some major issues here 

One is resizing: you have created pixels of various sizes and shapes through uncontrolled resizing, mostly in the smaller sprites.
You should definitely not resize: editing large pixels is hell, and mixed resolutions are usually ugly.
There is no need to scale either for presentation here as we can zoom the images by clicking them (and btw use another image host that doesn't click-through-link images: try imgur or myfrogbag).

If you do need to resize, for instance for presentation of the final work, you must do it by integer factors only (200%, 300% etc) to avoid the misshapen pixels.


Sprites: I think you're making them too small. I don't really understand your reason (memory size is certainly not a problem with pixel-art) and I think it is much more difficult to make them that small. But I'm no spriter so I might be wrong.


Colors: they are all over the place. You'll have to create a palette and stick to it (or pick one).


Here's a good tuto that you should read. Have fun!

[Catman]

Hi Manupix, and thank you for your many tips!

I see what you mean about resizing. The screenshot is from my game, so it was obtained by printing the screen. I will try to get a more precise screenshot, next time.

I decided to use very small sprites for these main reasons:
- the game will feature a huge number of sprites, so I wanted a mean to create many sprites easily.
- since there will be a huge number of sprites, the memory footprint should be large. Not a big problem, but still I'd try to strive for the minimum memory size possible.
- I thought using smaller sprites was easier, but I seem to struggle with making sure the player understand what the sprite is with so few pixels.

However, you are not the first to say that to me, so I will try to double the sprites' resolution and maybe I'll get a good result! After all, maybe using small sprites does not mean spending less effort doing them, I seem to realize!


I see what you mean with the colours. I thought palettes would be used per-sprite, not for the whole scene. I realize I was really wrong with that! I did read that tutorial, but I'll try to follow it again in order to fix the images I posted.

Thank you once again!

[Catman]

Hello again, here are my new attempts. I had a lot of fun, and indeed increasing the resolution makes it look really better.





Any comment?

[Meanapple]

hmm your metal (if it is metal, but I supose it is) is blue.. intended?

[Manupix]

Much better colors and sprite!

But you didn't fix the resizing problems, and got more 'wrong pixels' in the new sprite.
Zoom into the sprite: can you see how your large pixels have different sizes, with some not even square (height =/= width)?
You have this issue everywhere, and this comes from resizing by non-integer factors.

DO. NOT. RESIZE!

Yes, this means you'll have to redo the whole thing at 1x, and the more you wait the more work it will take! (although not an enormous lot since there are not so many elements and they're all rather simple).

[Catman]

I see it now, didn't notice it when posting, sorry. You people here have a sharp eye.

I did the work at 1x (pixel-per-pixel), this is however a screenshot taken from the game. I think it is the engine that is resizing my pixels to appear like that... I'll find the culript!

@Meanapple: do you mean the shirt of the Pipo? It is not metal, just a random shirt.


Edit:

Here it is, 1x1:


And resized to 200%:



Please note that the small icons and the menus have not been fixed, so they have weird sizes!

[Meanapple]

No I meant this axe

[Catman]

Yeah, I changed it to follow the new palette now, refer to the new image.

Although, I've always been a fan of blue metal anyway, so it may return one day!

[Meanapple]

Diamond axe huh?
I'm quite interested in your game, I hope you can give me a alpha version soon