Wow! Thanks for the advice, guys. I don't feel so lost anymore.

@XLR8ED
I haven't picked any specific console limitations, but if you think that's something the game would benefit from, maybe I should consider it.
You have a great point about the squares. I guess in the programmer hat one wants to keep things all nice and organized, but once it comes around to graphics it all looks pretty strange! I'm going to change the thin horizontal edge pieces to be tapering overhangs.

@questseeker
I see what you mean about blobs! I de-saturated the picture in Photoshop and everything turned into an awful mid-gray. The materials that are supposed to be pictured are rock in the foreground and background, and the green sludge is bamboo. I'll add some footholds for the bamboo in the rock, so it looks like it's actually growing out of something rather than just sitting on top. I'll see what I can change about the pillow shading on all sides of the rock. I guess my reasoning behind that was to communicate that the sides of the object were solid. I'll keep your advice in mind!

@PypeBros
The red dude is in the middle of a jump (this is a straight-up screenshot of the game in motion) and the green thing is in fact bamboo, which can be cut down. Perhaps I should add tiny branches on the sides to communicate this more? I'm thinking a subtle blue under-light for the rocks might work well... I'll study some reference photos for inspiration.

@Seiseki
Wow! Awesome re-color. Very inspiring to see how far a color change can take the graphics alone. For whatever reason I like the bright bamboo- I think for some weird arcade reason having it stand out from the rocks makes it seem like it has a clear function. But I suppose it can still have that effect without burning people's retinas.
I tried some re-colors of my own to get a good idea of the thinking that went behind yours. I like the extra leaves in the bamboo, too.

The first color edit was sort of an aged-movie style thing with the colors leaning toward bamboo paper or something. Maybe it's too brown? It feels good to have the goofy blue of the original gone, but I appreciate how in older games like Shatterhand or whatnot that you have no problem believing that the factory is bright orange or that the sewer is acid green. I won't die if I can't achieve that effect though.


I like this one too, because I like the color ramp between blue and gold- I feel like it's farther from a game-boy feel or something. Colors are nice is all.


I'm still working on the rest of the changes I mentioned, but do you guys think this is a good starting point?



P.S. if a moderator sees this and notices that my name is now Teknopants and not Teknogames, it's because I tried changing the e-mail for Teknogames, but something went wrong and now Pixelation says the account Teknogames no longer exists. I prefer this name anyway : /