[WIP] Ninja Jam platform game mockup

[moket]

Arachne you made my day ! Thanks you so much for taking the time to do those edits and explaining in depth the meaning behind them. Truly good points here.
Don't have much time right now, but I will work on it as soon as I get home.
I began to work on the title/menu screen, crude to the max (no depth in here) but couldn't post without at least some graphics after what you did. The steam will be done with particles.
Thanks again !



Robotacon thanks for taking the time to give your opinion too.
Jakerpot, who wouldn't  

[moket]

Gave some try at it with Arachne's advices, hard not to copy.
Comparing my stuff with her edit was giving me headaches so I went with a bit different design.
I added one color (light blue) to the palette also, I was stuck so it helped me to move on by having less contrast.

[ChadHachey]

Man, this looks great! I can't give any critiques myself, but I do have a question. What exactly is the thing in the upper left corner suppose to be? At first I thought it was a mini map, but that doesn't make any sense. Is it the logo or something? 

[moket]

thanks. Next step is the background otherwise I will adjust the foreground forever.
Yes it's the placeholder logo, in fact I could make it look like stylized mountains, more headaches but could be fun 
Definitely lacks concept art ...

[moket]

I tried to put more thoughts on the stage design itself, so I can have a goal to reach instead of banging my head on pixel technics without knowing when to stop.
I haven't really found something gameplay wise for the middle part. I like that big jar thingy but like the trees it's not consistent light wise. Typical mistake of going to far without a proper planning .
Will put all this in the engine tomorow, it should help to make decisions.

[Jakerpot]

Need shading on the machines at far most right I mean the machines on the platforms.

I really enjoy this piece. I love mockups :3

[moket]

thanks Jakerpot.

I changed some stuff in the middle part, conformed some others to the grid and tried to shade the machines on the third part. Dithering is hard and not so effective, I really think I'm gonna upscale to 32px tiles and add some colors to this piece, I'm not good enough at this, I hope playing with the colors will help me not to get depressed
I will anyway have to redo the main character and give him some contrast. I was thinking of a chef since food is involved and I could give him some white clothes and the typical hat. Like Arachne said he's kinda lost in the scenery.
Any suggestions are appreciated.

[Jakerpot]

The sand is great, and please don't use more colors 

Blue is my favorite color, don't mess arround with the pallete please 

The new trees give a japanese feeling and maybe just a chef hat would be enough.

Do you pretend to launch the game or is this just for fun??

[Ninja Crow]

I agree with what Jakerpot has been saying - the praise is well deserved!

The shading on the far right machines is brilliant - just the perfect amount of dithering to make it look like real game graphics.

Please don't change the palette unless all other options fail and the fate of the world hangs in the balance - this is one of the most effective colour schemes I've ever seen.

I fell in love with this project instantly - I don't know how serious you are about it, but for me, I'd put this in a list of Top Ten Most Promising Mockups.  The creativity here (ninja in a cool land of techno-food) is off the charts and you may count me as a fan.  An uber fan.

If the project I'm working for (The Amazing Wilbot Project) winds up looking even half this cool and fun I would be happier than a happy clam in happy sauce.

Your ninja reads fine to me - the minimal style actually concentrates the coolness, and it is shocking to me how much character shines through with such a small number of pixels.  Please don't change him into something like a "chef"!  No offense to chefs, but while they may be something to respect, they are not associated with coolness, and the power of this mockup (for me) comes from the delightful juxtaposition of cool and whimsical.  Without the ninja, there isn't enough 'cool' and thus no juxtaposition to so strongly catch the eye!

I would have posted earlier, but all I had was love and nothing useful - but I am spurred into action now to 'help' the project by giving you as much assurance as I can that you are doing great (better than great, even) and that depression is the farthest thing you should be feeling right now.  Triumph is what you are brewing - I can recognise the aroma from here!

(p.s. if anybody complains too much about your dithering, please ignore them - you've been using it with impressive mastery from the start.  In fact, when you changed your columns, you kinda reduced them to looking like ice or crystal tiles, which is a shame, because the stone you had was simply amazing.  Hope I haven't scared you with a wall of text, I just couldn't help but express myself about your project!  Don't mistrust your incredible pixel instincts, they're spot on so far! )

[xhunterko]

While I do agree with ninja crow so far, I do, however, have a bit of a teeny nitpick.

The machines on the right, I couldn't tell if they were machines unless I looked a coulple times.

Metal is usually a bright, shiny substance. Here it looks almost like the rest of the back dops and doesn't stand out like I'm used to it doing.

And kick that depression stuff. That's a real project killer.

@Ninja crow: Darn you! You made me find a new chiptune label by going to that project page! (that's a good thing ). Although, I don't know if it' be okay to just use any of that music. 8bitcollective might be a better choice for that. All you need to do there is acknowledge the artist and have a link back to the page. Also, on your graphic program choices. Gimp is excellenct for transparency. Just start a new image. Then paste the piece you want transparent. Start a new layer, make sure the transparent option is picked. You can delete the first layer now. Then, using the wand tool, select all the white/color to be transaparent by holding shift to make multiple selections. Once you have all the transparent bits you want selected, hit the delete key. a checkered background should show up which means those areas are now transparent. Simpler then it sounds. Oh, and for color swapping. It's best to use Graphics Gale. It has a color replacer tool. To use it, the select a foreground color. This is the one you want to switch to. Then select the background color, this is the color you want to switch from. Then pick your brush size and only the selected color will be effected. Easy!