Art direction WIP

[big brother]

I think the abstract item/monster tiles look cool here, but could become monotonous in gameplay.

[Yngar]

Doing some work using surt's stuff as a base, I think I like this style a lot.

[PixelPiledriver]

Watch out for contrast especially on the skeleton.
Using the disc class color as an accent around the rim is still quite recognizable compared to turning the entire thing red.
 


Also kind of makes the characters look like stickers put on top of a playing piece.
I googled "Board game tokens with stickers" and found this as an example of what I mean.
Magic cards, among others, seem to have a similar composition.

It could also be related to a traditional playing card design
The card type color is an accent:


Instead of the color dominating and the icons being the accent:


Of course with the simplicity of surt's designs, the dominating class color actually works quite well.
Just some thoughts.

[Voxxitronic]

You could paste the heads of the characters on the disc, or to take it a step further, make the heads the discs themselves.

Example:

[Yngar]

Watch out for contrast especially on the skeleton.
Using the disc class color as an accent around the rim is still quite recognizable compared to turning the entire thing red.
Also kind of makes the characters look like stickers put on top of a playing piece.
I googled "Board game tokens with stickers" and found this as an example of what I mean.
Magic cards, among others, seem to have a similar composition.

Yeah I will totally be doing this, that looks great. I have actually had the idea of making them look like stickers on wooden discs for quite a while. Even my original hi-res concept pieces had white borders around the art to make it look that way. I like the idea for aesthetic purposes but also so I could make stuff like this for some cool swag. (that one is obviously a prototype).

You could paste the heads of the characters on the disc, or to take it a step further, make the heads the discs themselves.

Example:

I like that idea, I don't think it would quite fit with the theme of this game, but it does look good. I like the guy on the bottom.

[Mathias]

I like that idea, I don't think it would quite fit with the theme of this game, but it does look good. I like the guy on the bottom.

Too bad all discs don't as much space as your game's larger minotaur disc. But here's where PA excels - using tiny dimensions to convey clear images. So, it isn't a problem. Your versions in post reply #21 show just the right amount of the chars I think.

It may be a little beyond your current PA skills, but I still think the char illustration style ought to be simpler, more cell-shadey. Like LTTP. This'll help recognition.

[Yngar]

It may be a little beyond your current PA skills, but I still think the char illustration style ought to be simpler, more cell-shadey. Like LTTP. This'll help recognition.

Not fully sure what you mean by that but you are probably right about both things.

Made the new minotaur disc. There are definitely some issues but I like it.

I kinda screwed up the disc, I'm going to work on those after work.

[Mathias]

PA meaning pixel art. I don't know about you, but for me - simplicity is more difficult than highly detailed stuff. I'm disposed to adding lots of detail.

DO NOT go off on a tangent and try to improve your skills before continuing your project, though. Just do the best you can this time around. Then do better next time. Here's an article I recommend for you.

[Yngar]

PA meaning pixel art. I don't know about you, but for me - simplicity is more difficult than highly detailed stuff. I'm disposed to adding lots of detail.

DO NO go off on a tangent and try to improve your skills before continuing your project, though. Just do the best you can this time around. Then do better next time. Here's an article I recommend for you.

Yeah I knew what you meant by PA. You are right about simplicity being more difficult. I'm pretty happy with what I have been doing and I am going to stick with that style, mostly because I am getting a good workflow and I am confident about it.

That's a really good article and it hits home in a lot of ways for me. I have been fighting the urge to rewrite all the code for a while. I am already re-doing all the art, but I think that is for the better. Thanks for the link.

[Mathias]

Ah ok.

Yep, just keep going. Like that article says - better to have an imperfect but finished game than an unfinished game. I think we all have WNIP piles are that quite large enough already. I do.
Glad you liked the article. I also thought it very good. All game dev wannabe's should read it.