I’m somewhat new to pixel art, and would like some insight on designing sprites for a top down 2d game.
Originally what I planned was to create a sprite for each direction the character was facing. So, I’d have an idle, attack, movement, ect, animation for up, down, left, and right. But when I got to drawing the characters, it became clear that drawing 4 different orientations for everything is too much work.
When looking around at the style similar games used, I came across Hyper Light Drifter and noticed they simplified things by drawing enemies in a slanted way that works for 3 directions of movement, and simply flip it around for the other direction. (Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7Avr7OmRnw#t=24m28s) This allows a single animation to work in all directions.
But it seems you need to work around this style, designing attacks and animations that can work in all directions.
(Slashing attack example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjZeICRepyk#t=01m42s)
For ranged attacks, it seems they rotate limbs through the game engine to line up the attack.
(Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjZeICRepyk#t=04m49s)
What’s everyone’s opinion of this slanted orientation, and is there anything I need to look out for when using this style?