Retro-Style Sprites

[Jon]

Hey everyone, I've been pixelling since last year, but only for fun, so I'm relatively new to this. I am trying to make some game sprites with Arne's palette.

Here's the main character, seen on a black background (but he works on dark blue BGs also).


Here's the transmission screen, with a larger-sized image of the main character. I've just started doing AA so it's not as smooth as it could be, and I'm also looking for general feedback. Inspired a little by Doukutsu Monogatari, obviously.


Some tiles for the first level.

[Moribund]

Hey Jon! Looks great. The only I thing I can think of is it's weird seeing the same guy with both a wide rectangular head and a perfectly oval head.

[Jon]

Here are some WIP tiles

The part in the middle is a sample part of a level made with the tiles.

[Jon]

Updated and (I think) finished the tiles:

[Lizzrd]

You might want to have the tiles be a bit more gray and a bit less blue.
In other news, welcome to pixelation you maker of dropships.

[tehwexxl0rz]

I agree that it looks weird for the detailed portrait to have a round head when the sprite's head is rectangular. It doesn't need to be as angular as the sprite, but it should still convey "rectangle-ish head." Also, rather than simply reducing the saturation of the rocks, I think they'd benefit from some hueshifting. Your blue ramp doesn't have much range, so some colors are going to waste.

[EyeCraft]

Pretty hasty edit. Hue shift, cut out the extremely bright speculars (they're too distracting for tiles), cleaned up some of the noisy pixels, smoothed edges out.

I agree, hue shift will bring out the potential of these rocks

Remember to shade in terms of planes. Think of the form of the rocks, translate this in to planes and light accordingly. Speculars only appear at the points of maximum angle of reflection relative to the viewer. This means when you have a lightsource above and between the view and the subject, as edges curve away from the viewer, the speculars will diminish.

Also, welcome

[Jad]

BUT I LIKE THE SUPER WET SINGLE PIXEL SHARP SPECULARS

THEY DON'T FOLLOW GOOD FORM BUT THEY ARE SUPER ATMOSPHERIC

and I had to shout that at the top of my e-lungs

[Jon]

Hello Eyecraft, thanks for the critique. I tried to make the tiles a little more grey:

Is it an improvement?

Jad, I am assuming your comment was sarcasm, but its hard to tell on a forum.

[EyeCraft]

Jad, I am assuming your comment was sarcasm, but its hard to tell on a forum.

No no, Jad stands by what he shouted. I'm sure of it.

He has a point about the speculars adding a wetness and atmosphere to it. I still think they're too distracting as they were, though. Maybe you could go for something a little in between my edit and the ULTRA SPECULARS. Worth the experiment.

Hmm, lowering the saturation like that washed it out, which is the opposite of what I imagine Super Atmospheric Cave (it's name to me now  ) to thrive on.

You'll notice in my edit, I generally increased the saturation of all the tones... probably to an extreme degree. But extremes are good at finding the limits. What I mainly did was tone down the brights and fiddled a lot with the values of all the other tones to compensate for that.

I think a step in the direction of high saturation, deep indigo shadows, cyan midtones and (within reason) sharp speculars are the way to go in bringing out these rocks atmosphere.

[xhunterko]

I like what jad said. He has a point. Tiles looked much better in the first screenshot. In the new edit, the tiles seem to 'droop', or sag down a bit.

And just a bit off topic:
'Maker of drop ships'? Okay, now these I gotta see! Link to pics?

@tehwexxl0rz: I actually disagree. Giving the character a more roundish head in the dialogue would bring the player more into the game world and make the player more interested in the character. If the player starts caring about what shape a protagonists head is then the developer has already lost them.

[tehwexxl0rz]

@tehwexxl0rz: I actually disagree. Giving the character a more roundish head in the dialogue would bring the player more into the game world and make the player more interested in the character.

Buh-what? Dramatic visual discontinuity draws the player into the game world? Sorry, but that's just plain wrong. Anything that destroys the illusion that the little dude on screen is a real little dude is bad design (unless there is a clear reason for breaking the fourth wall.) A portrait is meant to enhance this illusion with detail, not damage it with blatant contradiction.

If the player starts caring about what shape a protagonists head is then the developer has already lost them.

First of all, the developer's intention is irrelevant. Always. This is a fundamental rule of game design. Everything MUST be communicated through the content of the game itself. If the developer doesn't want the player to care about the shape of the protagonist's head, it's his job not to make it stick out like a sore thumb.

EDIT: Sorry xhunterko, that sounded a bit harsh reading it over a second time... I was just trying to get a point across.

Anyway, here's a color edit with hueshifting and more saturation. I also played around with specular highlights and the glow of the lantern:

[bengo]

I second what tehwexxl0rz said, sorry xhunterko, gotta disagree with you too. Speaking of his big head, look it looks like nothing in his portrait and its a bit distracting, I've made an edit making his head smaller and given him a bit of a stance instead of him just kinda... standing normally.

I'm guessing he'll contrast enough against the dark bgs you got, but this is just a suggestion of what you should do, just doesn't seem like he can carry that head around, its bigger than a chibi's head. I hope this edit helps in one way or another.

[xhunterko]

@tehwexxl0rz/bengoshia: Eh, no biggie. I just think of things a bit differently I guess.

[Jon]

Update v3...
Oh, and about the character, I realized that the current one is about as big as a single tile, so I will make a new one that's larger and more chibi-like. The squareness in the current one will not be carried over.
EDIT:

[Jon]

Here is the basic enemy, a cyborg arthropod called the plode.
The one on the left is a basic worker plode, which just runs towards you at high speeds once you near it. The one in the middle is the S-plode (yes, I chose the name for that  ) which does exactly what its name suggests. The yellow thing on the right is the Hunter-killer, the most advanced of plodes, which actually houses a laser machinegun that it fires down at you. There would only be a few of these throughout the entire game.

[Jon]

Here is a full mockup...

[alspal]

The resolution is a bit big? Makes it look quite empty.

Also, don't mix pixel sizes it looks ugly. The upscaled HUD really doesn't look so nice, or fit with the rest at all.

[zez]

I second what alspal said, I would honestly recommend up scaling everything to a 200 zoom, leaving the hud as it is, and the actual screen size around the same, that way everything will look good (that hud will look awful at 1x zoom) and you wont have to worry about large open spaces so much. Its amazing what zooming will do to make caves seem more claustrophobic.

[Jon]

Sorry about the grave-dig, but:

I tried to start from scratch here on the tiles, and I'm also working on a boss (seen to the right). What do you think?

[Singularity]

Well the surface of the ground looks a lot more illuminated than the lower parts, which I think is an improvement. The quicker the drop off, the more decisive the ground line looks and the less distracting the rocks underneath are. It emphasizes the parts important to play.

Is it safe to assume the character is going to run on the red line across/through the ground tiles?