Oh wow, the ladder looks a lot better now. I tend to overdither things a lot, but I'll make sure to clean those pixels up. Thanks!

I really appreciate the side run edit you made and actually the arms are probably a lot better than what I did, and I totally know what you mean about the character appearing to run off the platform, but I think I'm going to more or less stick with the 3/4 view: first because the idle stance is also in 3/4 and I think the transition might be jarring, and second because I personally like being able to see more of the character's face   and third it doesn't feel quite as stiff as when facing perfectly to the side.

So actually I think the lack of plot is what's screwing me over (and why I'm having trouble updating). I did the unthinkable and pixelled the characters and tiles without creating a story first, and now I'm at a temporary art block because I'm not sure what to pixel. I have these vague ideas about kid in raincoat possibly being 1) lost and trying to find his way back to the sky, 2) being someone's 'inner persona' and resolving some psychological conflict, 3) helping other NPCs resolve their conflicts, or 4) something cliche like lighting up the darkness in the world. 2 intrigues me the most; not sure where to go from there, though. The moon would be a helper character, but also playable. Speaking of which, I attempted to block her out and came out with this:




Yeah, the run is WIP because it kinda really sucks. I wanted to make it more like she's prancing/leaping (she's light), but animating small pixels is still an art that eludes me  

Edit:

(Sorry that the left edges are still so primitive, but I'm using Game Maker and don't know how to flip tiles without making an entire new set so I'm just holding out for now.)

Desaturated background, tried to bring out the ladder, added hills and variety to the grass. I didn't really know how to make the tiles un-flat so I just added more unevenness at the bottom. If it gets too repetitive I'll probably make some variant tiles, but I'm worried I have too many as is. Out of curiosity, how many tiles do you guys usually end up with in one tileset?

Yes, the tree is totally backlit, although I guess the character himself could be a source of light. I'll mull over that some more.

About the run, I dunno - I kind of wanted the stiffness and bounciness to give him character because of how childish it looks. If it's still bad practice I'll change it but uh ... I'm actually not sure how to do that either

And you're totally right about the graphics. I sorta got carried away and forgot what I really wanted to do with the game (including finishing it, haha). This is as complex as it gets, really! Also the tree will be an interactive object in the foreground if that makes it any better.
I think the longer I work on something the more clutter I tend to add to it, so please feel free to throw additional critiques this way but I'll be starting on other characters/tilesets.

You have a few colors that are barely distinguishable from each other. I tried cleaning it up and adjusting the pose:



Edit: Oops, I think I did something weird to the headpiece design.

The green pixel is supposed to be part of his eye ... 
I'm partial to the new version too, so I'm going to stick with it. I'll tinker with tileset 3 later.

Running animation:


Annd here's a new screenshot:


Do the tiles look better now?
I think the background is too saturated. I'm aware that the ladder is hard to read; I'll add a shadow under it (and all of the other objects) in realtime.