I have a few suggestions for improving the "crispness" of th mountains. Firstly, what file format are you using for the images, and what import setting are you using for whatever game engine you're using? The images look compressed and blurry, which is contrasting with the sharp edges and making them look like paper cutouts or stickers. Assuming this isn't the look you're aiming for, you might want to either save your mountain sprites in a non-compressed format, or (especially if the map can be zoomed in and out of) increase the size of the image.

Also watch out for the line around the edge of the image. That might be caused by settings in your game engine, or you may need to continue the images further outside the line where the alpha cut-off is, so that the image compression at the edges doesn't "bleed over" into the visible part of the image.

You might also want to try removing some of the mossy texture and bumpiness and focusing on making the 3d shape more readable, like with your sand dunes.

I think it would get a bit anoying all the time, but I could see this making a nice "intro" effect that fades out once the level actually starts. Or maybe as a damage effect if you have a tech theme going on.

It looks like the arm and leg are moving at the same time, which isn't how people climb. The natural sequence for climbing is Right leg/Left arm/ left leg/right arm

I made you a simple 4-frame animation:


This can be simplified further into a 2-frame animation where the arms and legs just alternate:

Thanks for the help everyone.  I'll try to get a mock-up put together of what it'll look like in context.

The lightness of the AA creates some noticeable line breaks I think could be avoided.


(make sure to magnify this for detail)

Here're two ways you could approach AAing your font. The A on the left has value clusters based on line weight, and the A on the right is anti-aliased in a more "traditional" way based on pixel edge. I feel as if the traditional one loses some of that calligraphic line style, but that could just be my own human error...The ab on top uses a mixture of both methods.

Also, I mighta over AAed it 

I'm liking the one on the left, it looks a lot more natural.