Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: coffee on May 21, 2008, 11:19:06 am

Title: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: coffee on May 21, 2008, 11:19:06 am
Hi again!

If you dont remember, I uploaded a mockup maby a week ago. I have done a few updates since then.
This is what i have changed and done:

mockup:

(http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj114/johanaronson/realmockup.gif)

1. A closer background
2. new palmtrees
3. The "heros" brother (by the tree)
4. portrait of brother
5. Boarders for the icons and for the conversation text
6. new crewmember (the girl)
7. small pictures to choose player

What do you think about it? :D

Title: Re: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: Fool on May 21, 2008, 11:50:57 am
Ptoing had pointed out on arms length difference on old dude and a boy on the left. Are palms silhouettes on a back look paper cut on purpose? Also not clear enough what waterfall coming over - can't tell if it are stones or plants...other than that pretty stylish. Colors are bit washed out for me, but it could be also monitor adjustments as well.=)
Title: Re: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: Ben2theEdge on May 21, 2008, 01:27:49 pm
The biggest problem I see at this point is the use of space. You've got a screen here that is mostly empty sky and what there is to fill it is very timidly hiding in the corners. It's a shame that such nicely drawn characters are so tiny in this resolution, and with the scale you're working in the player is constantly going to see nothing but empty sky in the top half of the screen. This is kind of subjective so it's up to you but if it was me I would either work with larger sprites or a lower resolution.

The BIGGER problem however is the HUD. Scale and importance are linked in our minds, this is a rule of graphic design. Rules can be broken, but only if you know why you're breaking them. If we were to rank the importance of the elements of the HUD based on how easy they are to see, the health and dialogue text is slightly LESS important than the borders! When people play the game they're going to have to frantically scan the screen looking for their health during combat, and they will have to squint to read the dialogue, so they'll probably just skip it. Look how far away those elements are from what's going on, on the screen.

Please consider this very hastily done edit (I didn't redraw anything for this, I just quickly rearranged/resized stuff to illustrate my point)

(http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f230/ben2theedge/croppedpirates.png)

Compared to your original screenshot, which one is more "comfortable"?
Title: Re: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: coffee on May 21, 2008, 01:42:15 pm
Hi Ben2theEdge

This can appear to be a problem. However, the thing is this is not a DS game. It's a computer game and it really has to be 640x480 this time.
Warning singnals will be heard when your life is low though.

about the empy sky. Well, right now im working on a sun some birds and stuff.. hope it will make it look better

I placed the conversationbox in the middle, you can see the edit right away.
Title: Re: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: ndchristie on May 21, 2008, 01:59:04 pm
This can appear to be a problem. However, the thing is this is not a DS game. It's a computer game and it really has to be 640x480 this time.

then you should strongly consider changing the size of the characters and elements, or simply stretching 320x240 to fit, because my only gripe with ben's point is that he beat me to voicing it.  what you've got now is an empty screen :/
Title: Re: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: madPXL on May 21, 2008, 02:02:55 pm
+1 for ben2theEdge, he said what I would do for this mockup.

@coffee : if you want a game in 640x480, you can use the pixel doubling method ;)

Also, you can add crows on the sky ;) (or parrots...)



Title: Re: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: Ben2theEdge on May 21, 2008, 06:46:29 pm
FYI, my edit was not DS resolution, that's even smaller  :P 320x240 is the more or less the "standard" resolution for most pixel art.

Even if it has to be in a high resolution, the same design rules still apply. With all of that screen area to play with there's no conceivable reason to keep important things like your health meter so small and hard to read (and in a strange location), or to use such a tiny font for the dialogue. (And I would say if it has to be high res, make your characters twice as big. That would be a lot of work which is why most pixel artists prefer to stay in low resolution, even with modern precessing speeds)

I'm making a big deal about this because I like the art a lot, and it seems strange for such nice work to have these issues.
Title: Re: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: TrevoriuS on May 21, 2008, 08:32:48 pm
What you could do is scale your current sprites to 200% and ONLY add anti alias after doin so, it will give an interesting feel to it that I'd like to see in an entire game/mockup  :lol:
Title: Re: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: Joseph on May 21, 2008, 09:54:32 pm
ew.  the 2x scaling is great, but there's no need to do any aaing in it.  2x pixels are gorgeous, and honestly, it's simple no matter what programming language you're using.
Title: Re: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: coffee on May 23, 2008, 10:14:44 am
Hi there!

hmm, i dont know actually... I think that x2 ruins the details when do low-resolution sprites.
However, if i wanted bigger sprites I should have done it in the first place and the game have come to
that stage that it will destroy all the code if I make bigger sprites.

I think too that some of the charm will dissapear if  it is larger. This is of course not a finished mockup yet and
many other things will appear.

Finally
A game is not all about the graphics, my job is doing the sprites. BUT, a great idea and story is
the MOST important thing. I have played many games with great graphics BUT with a terrible story and it sucks playing
such games.

I hope you understand what i mean.

Thank you for the critics!

I hope you will enjoy the game anyway :D
I will post it here when its done!

thank you!
I hope you will enjoy the game when its done, even with these small problems :)
Title: Re: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: PypeBros on May 23, 2008, 12:29:10 pm
well, if you are to keep that sprite size and 640x480 resolution, i think reorganizing the screen could benefit the overall readability. Of course, that will mostly depend on your gameplay. My comparison point is Jazz Jackrabbit 2 that had gorgeous gameplay in e.g. 400x300 but also let you play in 800x600 if you wanted increased resolution (keeping the sprites untouched). Being a "shoot-and-run" game, the extra resolution turned out that you see too much of the environment in advance, completely killing the fun.

So maybe you could want to use 640x480 but only use 480x320 for the "game area" and keep the rest for inventary, dialogs, and so on. That could save you from doing dialog "overlays" that might get in the way during the game and would easily allow for a larger, more readable, font (imho).
Title: Re: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: ndchristie on May 23, 2008, 02:14:26 pm
hmm, i dont know actually... I think that x2 ruins the details when do low-resolution sprites.
details aren't visible at x1 unless you've drawn them, which you haven't.  Heck, i need to search for your characters on the screen!  And 80% of the image is taken up with rough cutouts.
However, if i wanted bigger sprites I should have done it in the first place and the game have come to
that stage that it will destroy all the code if I make bigger sprites.
Very few games are highly dependent on resolution.  Also, game projects are HUGE, this screen and your other sketches are a drop in the bucket compared to the final project.  if your design has a serious flaw, which I believe it does (nothing screams NEWB DESIGNERS NEWB DESIGNERS like a huge empty screen), you're still well within the zone where you can redesign.
I think too that some of the charm will dissapear if  it is larger. This is of course not a finished mockup yet and
many other things will appear.
You'll never know until you try!  And now is the time I think.
Finally
A game is not all about the graphics, my job is doing the sprites. BUT, a great idea and story is
the MOST important thing. I have played many games with great graphics BUT with a terrible story and it sucks playing
such games.
We're here to help you with your job, and with graphics.  People around here obviously have other talents (I am a writer, there are a number of musicians, everyone can at least code a simple website :P), but this is a graphics forum.  We're not really (and i mean this honestly) concerned with the rest of the game in this setting.

I hope you will enjoy the game anyway :D
I will post it here when its done!

we may well, I'm looking forward to it!


even with these small problems :)
I think the problem is bigger than you think, you're so far 5 for 5 against the empty screen style.  5 people hardly make a quorum of the universe, but.. well, I wish you wouldn't brush off critique soo readily.
Title: Re: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: tehwexxl0rz on May 23, 2008, 02:35:29 pm
I hope you will enjoy the game when its done, even with these small problems :)

I hope I will enjoy the game when it's done, without these small problems. ;)

The health meter is TINY at the moment. That's not just a graphical quip, it's a design flaw.
The text for the dialog is also irritatingly small for the resolution. It will make the viewer squint and interrupt his/her experience.

Also (a purely graphical critique), the main character's right arm is still waaay shorter than his left one. It looks like a physical deformation rather than a style choice.

(OT: Speaking of the dialog, the missing apostrophe and the comma splice are driving me crazy.)
Title: Re: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: coffee on May 23, 2008, 03:16:03 pm
Oh, im sorry.. i got a little head of myselves.

You know, the time pressure and stuff.

I will take your critics Seriously and try my best to change the problems!

thank you!  ;D
Title: Re: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: megane on May 23, 2008, 03:50:34 pm
One way to look at it, IMO: imagine playing this game.  Where are you going to be looking during action sequences?  At your character, of course.  Now, looking at your image, and focusing my eyes on the character, your whole HUD -- now something like 5 inches from my area of focus -- dissolves into a homogeneous purple blob, which is a Bad Thing.  On the other hand, if I perform the same exercise with ben2's edit I can clearly tell the number of hearts without so much as a glance in their direction.

Consider the Zelda games, which have, over time, gotten larger and larger health meters, and at some point began massively enlarging the "current" heart; HUD information needs to be readable even using only ones peripheral vision, and thus it should be almost too clear and obvious when looking directly at it, if you see what I mean.
Title: Re: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: .TakaM on May 23, 2008, 09:50:57 pm
and I think a smaller resolution helps with level design, especially for a platformer.

I've never liked how some platformers will have you move from screen to screen or a large resolution, it takes the fun out of exploring, and if you want to put something special in a spot out of immediate view you'd have to make it excessively far away.
(of course for some games it works, take 'n' for example, since it's focused entirely on pure platforming action and huge smooth jumps you need a large view)
Also with a smaller resolution it may reduce any slowdown (I don't know what your game is gonna be made in :P)


with that said you have a neat style and it looks like it will be a lot of fun to play already :y:
Title: Re: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: victorX on May 27, 2008, 05:16:52 am
First, new here :D

The game looks cool. There is one thing that caught my eye though. I saw a tree that was all the way in the left of the image that looks like it was copied and reversed. I suggest you just redraw the shade of the tree so it could match the light source of the other sprites.

rough edit:
(http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/4166/shadeeq2.png)

I also agree with Ben2theEdge on the screen resolution. Other than that, awsome.
Title: Re: New Pirate game mockup
Post by: TrevoriuS on May 27, 2008, 11:51:51 pm
First, new here :D

The game looks cool. There is one thing that caught my eye though. I saw a tree that was all the way in the left of the image that looks like it was copied and reversed. I suggest you just redraw the shade of the tree so it could match the light source of the other sprites.

rough edit:
(http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/4166/shadeeq2.png)

I also agree with Ben2theEdge on the screen resolution. Other than that, awsome.
Well in fact characters also have a different lightsource than the trees and (so far?) the ground has again another light source.