AuthorTopic: 2D farm game - Feedback welcome!  (Read 11886 times)

Offline Pix3M

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Re: 2D farm game - Feedback welcome!

Reply #10 on: March 15, 2013, 08:36:41 pm
I feel that it's more convincing. Do not try to go overboard with detailing background stuff though... if it gets to a point where the player is distracted looking at details of minor stuff, you'll want to tone down the detailing. I prefer the top grass over the bottom personally.

I still think it's a good idea to make it so the character is much larger than the game tiles though... think about it... those are some ENORMOUS weeds. Downsizing your tiles to 16x16 also means four times less work.

For shading, here's something I really think you should consider. Your hues don't change going from light to dark. You could have a yellower green for the lightest areas but bluer greens for the shadows and outlines. There's a lot of creative freedom here you're not yet taking advantage of, and it easily creates coloring less boring to look at.


^Why have the left instead of something a bit more interesting like on the right?
« Last Edit: March 15, 2013, 08:46:17 pm by Pix3M »

Offline Rotflturion

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Re: 2D farm game - Feedback welcome!

Reply #11 on: March 15, 2013, 09:21:56 pm
Hmmm, for resizing the character it would be kind of hard to do as I coded the whole engine having 32x32 in mind everywere [layers, collision detection etc], also as much as I love old NES style games, I think 16x16 holds just too little space for detailing, unless you own some pretty powerful skill with suggesting details that are not there [that I do not yet :P]

About the blueish-shadows and yellowish-lights I have read about those in a couple of tuts about pixelling, but they seemed to create a bit too strong contrast everywhere - I will give it a try tho, how is that? [Changed it in the weeds, turnip and flower leaves - also new road and soil]:


Also I'm a bit afraid of using too dark blues, as the day/night system gradually adds lots of blue for the night time [that means things that are already dark blue will turn black]
« Last Edit: March 15, 2013, 09:34:15 pm by Rotflturion »

Offline Pix3M

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Re: 2D farm game - Feedback welcome!

Reply #12 on: March 15, 2013, 10:45:03 pm
Stuck with 32x32? Hmm. Yeah, you may be interested a bigger character, if possible. I still think his puny size is a bit awkward. I still wouldn't worry about detailing too much as what I think is most important is that the player can tell what they're looking at. Besides, I've seen too much 'meh' artwork that focuses too much on detailing and not the big picture - stuff brought up like color choice and character design, and the overall art style. I feel it's possible to drop some needless detailing especially on the weeds so they're easier to read.

As for suggesting details not literally there, in the case of styles I posted earlier, I would say that it's mostly drawing only a few details you're able to fit in. Even 32x32 is far too small for a hyper-realistic grass tile (not that I've seen any at that size). Look at the character's hand. It's like four pixels wide. The smallest literal piece of grass you can possibly pixel is no thinner than a quarter of his hand. That's huge, since grass is supposed to be much, much thinner. That's how pixel art is... it really helps to toss out less important details you can't really fit in a small size. We're not stupid - we can easily fill in gaps of missing information anyways.

You're totally right that shifting your hues will add contrast, but luckily hue contrast isn't the only contrast available. You can just change your value contrast if the hue-shifting creates too much contrast. Besides, it's a bit lifeless to have hues not move anywhere especially outdoors when you have a warm-colored sun and a cool-colored sky creating warmer lights but cooler shadows. Maybe with overcast weather things become more monochromatic, but even then there will be colored objects giving off colored light and such. I find the newest revision to be more appealing overall and without contrast issues. Then again, I dunno how it presents on your particular monitor though.

I wouldn't worry too much about blues turning into blacks... not that I know how your day/night system would change things though.

Offline Rotflturion

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Re: 2D farm game - Feedback welcome!

Reply #13 on: March 16, 2013, 01:14:18 am
Hmmm, do you mean drawing him still in 32x32 grid, but bigger?

And yes, I like it more too - the old one I must admit I just overdid - I kept adding details, applying filters, noise etc. just to make it look good and fit the rest, and then move on to the next thing, but it ended up as just a cluster of noise and darkness

Here's how the day/night cycle looks like [brightest day around 12pm and darkest night around 12am]:


It's going from one to another seamlessly [with a long period of darkness during the night, and a long period of sun during day]
I wanted it to suggest it's night without making it all pitch black, as it's not a survival horror, but I'm not sure if it isn't too bright now

Offline Pix3M

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Re: 2D farm game - Feedback welcome!

Reply #14 on: March 17, 2013, 06:44:23 am
I think there's a number of characters in a tiled world of 16x16 tiles, and the characters are 16 pixels wide and 32 pixels tall. You could go for something similar, though drawing a sprite like 64 pixels tall might be a bit daunting for somebody who doesn't draw with pixels too often.

I think it's funny that the night time effect increases the contrast of your tiles. Might make things more difficult to read when background detailing is cluttering up your screen.

Offline Akira

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Re: 2D farm game - Feedback welcome!

Reply #15 on: March 17, 2013, 07:59:47 am
Hey it looks like you're off to a great start! I've always wanted to make a harvest moon style game.

One thing I'd suggest is to try and get rid of those outlines. They can often make sprites noisy and harder to read rather than clearer like you'd expect. And as a bonus, by removing them you get an extra pixel to play around with! for free!

Here's a quick edit of one of your flowers to show you what I mean:


I know it's a bit of a stylistic change but I think it makes the plant fit in more with the grass.

I hope that helps!
thanks Dogmeat!

Offline Rotflturion

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Re: 2D farm game - Feedback welcome!

Reply #16 on: March 17, 2013, 03:10:57 pm
@Akira:
I will definitely try that - for one thing, I am aware that the outlines make things stick out and catch the players attention - and with the big tile view range that's not always a good thing [large amounts of 'sticking out' purely decorational plants like flowers can distract the player easily and make it hard to see whats going on on the fields] - I just hope stuff won't blend in too much and become a blurryness fest, but it's worth a try; and hey, Free pixels are always welcome! :D Thanks for the idea!

First try [I think I made it blend in too much X_x]

Note: The cow head thingy isn't mine, just a placeholder :p

---

I'm happy I found out about this forum - the game looks changed drastically, and to the better [which in turn motivates me even more to work hard code-wise also!], thanks to your advices guys! :)
« Last Edit: March 17, 2013, 03:53:09 pm by Rotflturion »

Offline Rotflturion

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Re: 2D farm game - Feedback welcome!

Reply #17 on: March 17, 2013, 09:07:12 pm
A new tree, fitting the rest of sprites:


Is it only me, or does it look like a big green poop on a stick? Should I detail it more? Should I use more colours? Should I redraw it? Or is it fine as it is?

Slight Edit:
« Last Edit: March 17, 2013, 10:59:01 pm by Rotflturion »

Offline Seiseki

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Re: 2D farm game - Feedback welcome!

Reply #18 on: March 17, 2013, 10:52:53 pm
The new edit gives it more structure but there's no overlapping of the leaves, the leaves on the top should overlap the ones below.
It almost looks like there's a hole at the very top of the tree.
You have separate patches of leaves that don't interact much since they're separated by outlines. Try making a clearer hierarchy with the top patches overlapping the ones below.

Offline Rotflturion

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Re: 2D farm game - Feedback welcome!

Reply #19 on: March 17, 2013, 11:01:05 pm
Hmm.. Any advice on how to do that? Making the upper part borders brighter instead of darker maybe?

How about this?
« Last Edit: March 17, 2013, 11:08:05 pm by Rotflturion »