X-Ninja

[adcrusher524]

Hello everyone! I've been reading the threads on getting Pixelation back to the glory days, so I thought I'd help out by being a bit more active. Here's a mockup of a game I'm working on, temporarily named X-Ninja. (X is the only key you use in the game)




As you can see I'm almost done with the background and tiles and all of that, except that pesky foliage on top of the bamboo  is very difficult to pixel. I can't seem to get the middle section of it right.  If anyone has advice or critiques on how to get the foliage to look right, that would be awesome. If you want to make an edit, the tiles are 32x32 and the foliage tiles every 2 32x32 tiles,(so I guess 64x64) If you have any other other critiques, I'd love to hear those as well. 

PS. The background will have parallax scrolling in game so I'm not worried about the alignment of the bamboo thing.

[Ambivorous]

Just add some shadow underneath leaves on the top half and highlight more leaf tips on the bottom half?



Like so, then it'll look more like this (the right side of the image has my edit, the left is the original):



Oh, and i added an extra colour to the top leaves, because shiny.


Everything else looks amazing! I'd love to give this game a go!

[PypeBros]

--

Imho, unless you target device with poor readability, it should be possible to avoid the need for that un-esthetical white outline on the ninja.

I love the color palette and the idea of the ninja running on the water, btw

[tyrannotorus]

I agree with PypeBros. Either adjust the contrast, brightness, and colour of the background to make it much darker and shadowier, making the stylistic choice or the white outline functional (keeping the ninja visible) and aesthetic (almost like the ninja is moonlit), or, like PypeBros, ditch the white outline.

World needs more ninja games.

[rikfuzz]

Some alternate colours, I tried picking colours that made me think of sort of dusty ninja scenes like off Ninja Scroll. And tried to differentiate the fg/bg layers a bit better, so you don't need the outlines.

I don't actually mind outlines that much at this kind of resolution, but it helps to know what's solid, not just aid you finding your sprite.

[adcrusher524]

Thanks for the critique guys! Ill make sure to post an update soon.

@ambiv
Thanks for the edit! I'll try something similar and see if it works out.

@pypebros
Yeah I should definitely take out those outlines. Ill tweak the colors around until they aren't needed.

@rikfuzz
That is such and awesome edit. I love the atmosphere it has. I'll definitely give that yellow haze a shot.

[Seiseki]

Although I like the dirt/rock, I think you should make the pieces bigger. Since it's looking quite cluttered with all the tiny pieces of grass, leaves, etc.

[adcrusher524]

Thanks for the suggestion Seiseki. I tried out the bigger rocks, but I didn't seem to think it worked. Maybe I just didn't give it enough love, Konjak seemed to have made it work
(reference)

and





How does the canopy look? I also added texture to the closest set of bushes, but I think it might be too much and it will be difficult to keep track of the character. I implemented the yellow tint, but I miss my old pallet! I'm not sure which one looks better, and I might be bias towards the old one so I can't tell. Thanks for the feedback so far guys!

[Wanyo]

I definitely like bush texture but maybe it doesn't need to come down as far as it does, it might be creating too much visual noise at that level. Perhaps just keep it around the top edge or only use light sprinklings of it.