Zelda Gameboy Color inspired stuff

[Friend]

I have a few things to say that are HIGHLY subjective.

Perhaps the shrubs are too perfectly round. I suspect they are supposed to be cabbage instead of shrubs, but something about them bother me. Maybe it's the lack of contrast from the grass making them blend in too much and like like green medallions. The whole palette has a cool tone to it whereas links awakening has really high contrast and hue differences in one place at a time that contrast well. Like redder greens aside notepad yellow and a very pure blue roof for a house. Maybe the work could benefit from more contrast and hue juxtaposition.  And making visual points of interest such as the hedge in front of the house, cuttable foliage etc visually distinct

[Dusty]

Did a more proper mock-up in Tiled with all the new cliff work and some newer stuff. This is giving me a lot more insight into the practicality of the tiles so I can add/tweak/adjust to more properly work:

[Grimsane]

great work so far, was going to ask if you plan on doing day night cycles with pallete swapping, and thought I'd shamelessly test my palette at the same time



just noticed the grass bordering the cliff in a few sections is flush not sure which I prefer actually, instances like the cave as a subtle indicator look clever actually, and maybe where you can jump down from cliffs if you are going to do that, I can see how you've done it for areas that need buffering like where it goes past the path top right, and with dirt chunks like that shrub under the cliffs, so if you choose both you won't get away entirely with autotiling unless you are doing the mapping manually in areas

[Dusty]

Ya, this isn't a very well-designed level. It's just me tossing stuff around to try to fit in stuff as I create it. I had actually pondered the idea of night/day game mechanics but I think ultimately I wouldn't do anything like that.
And the roundness of the shrubs may be, this is like my... fourth iteration of the bushes and they're pretty hard to work with in such a limited space.

But here's some more props and stuff; tree is giving me a hard time.

[Grimsane]

something like this maybe?

also GBC spec stuff, 56 colour cap

32 are for a background palette, plus 8 hardware sprite palettes, with 3 colors plus transparent each. Typically, the sprite palettes shares some colors (black, white or others), so the total colors displayed are less than 56.

so 32 colours for your tiles, you've got 26 already, and technically I think you can have any 15bit colour within your palette, because it uses the 15bit colourspace like the SNES. And I'm sure the 8 x 3colour combos for sprites will be manageable for you, judging by the vague idea of the monster/NPCs you'll have.

[Dusty]

something like this maybe?

Ya I'm gonna have to keep stabbing at the tree until I get something I like.

also GBC spec stuff, 56 colour cap

32 are for a background palette, plus 8 hardware sprite palettes, with 3 colors plus transparent each. Typically, the sprite palettes shares some colors (black, white or others), so the total colors displayed are less than 56.

so 32 colours for your tiles, you've got 26 already, and technically I think you can have any 15bit colour within your palette, because it uses the 15bit colourspace like the SNES. And I'm sure the 8 x 3colour combos for sprites will be manageable for you, judging by the vague idea of the monster/NPCs you'll have.

As far as I know the 56 colors applies to colors on the screen at once. Though I'm not interested in going this deep into the restrictions. My interest is to invoke the feeling of a GBC game, not necessarily to strictly adhere to the hardware restrictions. Though what I do want to try my best to stick with is the 4 colors per 8x8 tile, though I've already knowingly cheated on that with the roof windows.

[Ryumaru]

I would urge to stick with the 4 colors per tile even on the roof windows. I think it's important to understand that the closer you follow the restrictions the more you will invoke the GBC feeling. It is impossible to make assets that don't follow the restrictions to invoke more of that feeling than the same graphics tailored to fit the restrictions.

It will lower the subtle rendering a bit, but this would be something that a GBC artist would have to deal with.

[Dusty]

I would urge to stick with the 4 colors per tile even on the roof windows. I think it's important to understand that the closer you follow the restrictions the more you will invoke the GBC feeling. It is impossible to make assets that don't follow the restrictions to invoke more of that feeling than the same graphics tailored to fit the restrictions.

It will lower the subtle rendering a bit, but this would be something that a GBC artist would have to deal with.

I am actually trying hard to stick with the GBC restrictions. While the window was a conscious decision, I was also playing around with alternatives that did adhere to the restrictions. The last version I toyed around with was this:



I also tried a method similar to yours but I didn't like it originally because I felt a blue window frame would stand out too much when it didn't match the wooden frame of the house. But now that I added various colors house I could sneak it in while still matching.

[r1k]

maybe something like this

I notice that the dark brown isnt very noticable at 1x, and can be replaced by black, allowing you to add in the blue for the roof.  having the beige where the roof should be does not seem like a good solution to me.

I also kind of prefered the first version of the bushes.  Im not sure if the dark purple is the best 4th color you could use for the bushes, perhaps replace the purple with black and bring back the dark green.  I think its worth trying but Im not sure if it would be better.

this is looking pretty cool  so far, though I id like to see more tiles that are derived from links awakening, like the hedges.  I also just noticed the signs look a bit blurry.

[Ryumaru]

I would urge to stick with the 4 colors per tile even on the roof windows. I think it's important to understand that the closer you follow the restrictions the more you will invoke the GBC feeling. It is impossible to make assets that don't follow the restrictions to invoke more of that feeling than the same graphics tailored to fit the restrictions.

It will lower the subtle rendering a bit, but this would be something that a GBC artist would have to deal with.

I am actually trying hard to stick with the GBC restrictions. While the window was a conscious decision, I was also playing around with alternatives that did adhere to the restrictions. The last version I toyed around with was this:



I also tried a method similar to yours but I didn't like it originally because I felt a blue window frame would stand out too much when it didn't match the wooden frame of the house. But now that I added various colors house I could sneak it in while still matching.

I really like that, much more unique solution and it looks really pleasing to the eye (imo) also breaks up the grid a bit.