Oblique perspective EGA RPG

[Adam]

Right, very creative title.

I had some free time this weekend, so here's how it ended.

I started with the mockup I did two weeks ago:

(Piece of paper in the bottom right corner heavily based on Arachnes fantastic cavern mockups, fence tiles on Ultima VI.)

I really liked the result, and as I was dreaming to make an RPG for years now, I decided to play with it a bit.

To be useful in my never-to-be-done RPG it there had to be tiles, so I did a small test tileset:

(Again some tiles are heavily edited Ultima 6 tiles - wattle and daub walls and the bear)

Tree recolors for autumn versions.

Unfortunately there are no oranges in the EGA palette.

GUI. Plain gray was a bit boring, so here, are some variations. I'm not very satisfied with them.


Although I liked that chubby paperdoll guy, I redid him in Ravenloft-Menzoberranzan stance to facilitate further work:

(chainmail pattern based on Might and Magic)

So that's what I have now:






There you see the different seasons, and how the tree tiles can be used for larger trees and bushes.

And some dropped tiles:

That wide ring is based on some icon, but I don't know exactly where I found it.

Any comment and critique is welcome! Especially for the GUI.

[Seiseki]

I love this!
Very funky colors due to the palette.
But the skin colors are quite unfortunate

I've never made any pixel art with a specific palette, so I had a go at it because it looked interesting
And I think the bright yellow for the hair really clashes with the skin tone contrast wise, so I attempted other hair colors and skin color.



edit: Attempted to combine the two gui versions, since I really like the depth the dithering adds.
It looks too messy though xD

[Adam]

Thanks!

Yeah, EGA skin is almost everytime that awkward.

Hmm. The game is intended to be 320x200, so at least 3x. I think the yellow hair isn't  that disturbing against the skin with that big clusters.

I really like what you did there with the inventory slots! I tried to recreate it, but couldn't achieve the same effect somehow.

Then I solved my problem with a GUI redesign: the text window was too small for longer text messages, so by moving the inventory beside the paperdoll I won some lines and lost the big empty area to fill. Two birds with one stone.

I also like what you did with the paper texture, though I think it may probably make the text a bit harder to read.

[Helm]

Adam, this is lovely in so many ways.

However, I must urge you against usage of 'flowery' fonts with EGA colors at 320x240. It's just a pain to read even if it's genre and fantasy-apropriate.

One solution is to go and do a manual AA pass on each letter of the fontset to add to readability. But then you will be able to use that fontset only against the paper bg color or other really bright colors. Which might suit you fine (and you can always inverse the aa-ed fontset for use against pure black perhaps).

On your actual tiles I got nothing, I really love them.

[Mathias]

Agreeing big time on the font choice. The phrase 'form follows function' can't be truer when a viewer is simply trying to read text in your game. It is a tasteful font, but sure could read easier. It's a balancing act of course, but I recommend weighting that balance a little more towards "function" and less towards "form".

Wow, I am not used to that perspective. Disorienting.

[PypeBros]

Wow, I am not used to that perspective. Disorienting.

It has always been, since Ultima games.
I remember developers back then had special rendering routines for trapezoďdal tiles, to avoid something like a window to spawn over 2/3 tiles...

[Adam]

@Helm, Matthias
The text was just a placeholder at first, though I kinda liked the result. As text will (would - it will probably never be done) only appear on that paper and tooltips, background color would not be a problem. The problem is I s.ck at AA with this palette. Colour values are so badly distributed, that there's only four or five levels, and up until now I couldn't find a way to make it work.

I did played a bit with the text though.
Original text:


Original text with AA:

(I think I overdid it a bit, and just made it less legible)

Also tried to make some more legible font:








@PypeBros
That sounds interesting. I would gladly read your experiences there.

[Ymedron]

I like the first clear-font type (the third picture down) but if I remember right, text is easiest to read when the small letters have different heights -> change the word silhouettes so it's not a block. So perhaps something like that... Hrm. The t:s are the most fun letters in that font, though just 'fun'ness might not be enough to justify it..?

[Seiseki]

I really like that font as well!

For the other fonts, there seem to be a problem with consistency.
The lower cap letters should follow the same line. With letters like, lkfdbh ascending above the x-height and jygq decending below the base line.
t's do also ascend slightly above the x-height and it's important that the bar aligns with the median.



(I'm not an expert so if anyone knows more I'd love to hear it, typography is really fun )

[Mathias]

Wow, I am not used to that perspective. Disorienting.

It has always been, since Ultima games.
I remember developers back then had special rendering routines for trapezoďdal tiles, to avoid something like a window to spawn over 2/3 tiles...

Not super rare I realize. I've just always hated it. There are better alternatives for game perspective.
What that type of perspective does do is infuse the game with a retro vibe. But this makes us realize, it's "retro" for a reason. It's usage all but died off, due to unpopularity I bet.
Same could be said for the palette, really.