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[Fizzick]

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The game is planned to be a sidescrolling beatemup game with randomly generated, hopefully infinite/large map areas, quests and lots of loot. Currently gameplay is in a very basic groundwork stage with nothing really to show. I need some advice on artistic direction and layout, so naturally I came here for advice!

I'm not a very experienced artist, but I will gladly take as much criticism as I can get.

This is the latest mockup, mostly focusing on technical aspects of the layout and clean sprites for our programmer.
http://imgur.com/TMMJBq5,qZJynhM,OeP4JXl,q9aeUOf#0 old mockups with scrapped ideas

On the left of this image is a more cleanly pixeled knight character, left is a trash knight in a quicker, less neat style. I want to be able to make lots and lots of sets of armor without doing a shitload of animation for each and every one, so I plan on having a few basic upper body poses and a running anim. I also might put in rudimentary arms so it doesn't look so stupid, but I also want to have tons of weapon shape/size variety without having to animate a whole bunch of sets of weapon stances. Obviously I'll have to strap down and do the work if having no arms looks too lazy.

Other concerns are how nice the UI looks, seems pretty bland to me right now and composition help would be appreciated.

tl;dr:
i'm a baby who can't make any major decisions on my own. help please

[Pix3M]

Yeah, the UI is very unclear to me as-is, but I am going to guess.

Large boxes labelled 1-2-3, are probably inventory shortcuts

Smaller boxes labelled Q and E are for action shortcuts

H is for health, M is for mana, S is for stamina.

I cannot tell what the orange bar labelled 2 stands for.

I'd make my own attempt to design UI but it would greatly help if I have an idea of what they stand for, and how important they are in your game design. Health bars can be bigger than mana and stamina bars because Health is more essential than mana and stamina (you usually don't die if they run out)

[Fizzick]

Yeah, the UI is very unclear to me as-is, but I am going to guess.

Large boxes labelled 1-2-3, are probably inventory shortcuts

Smaller boxes labelled Q and E are for action shortcuts

H is for health, M is for mana, S is for stamina.

I cannot tell what the orange bar labelled 2 stands for.

I'd make my own attempt to design UI but it would greatly help if I have an idea of what they stand for, and how important they are in your game design. Health bars can be bigger than mana and stamina bars because Health is more essential than mana and stamina (you usually don't die if they run out)

Oh sorry for lackof clarity. 1-2-3 are major slots for spell tomes, spell tomes can have levels put into them and are destroyed if unequipped so a pretty big deal you have to invest in. Little boxes are inventory shortcuts for rare items that have active abilities, little orange bar is EXP. Everything else was spot on.

[Pix3M]

Made some edits that's mostly focusing on placement, and scribbled some icons to make their functions even more clear

Moved the spells to the center as I am picturing they are the core feature of the game, where vital stats are less important. Stats are moved to the side and all organized into one place. Stylized the health so it is more visible in peripheral vision, and the same could probably be done for the other stats. Health is changed to red since it's common and has greater visual weight than green

Borders of the spells can change to show what level they are at. Maybe gold border could stand for a mastered spell.

[DatMuffinMan]

Assuming it's too much work for the programmer, I think a floating HUD makes for a nicer look overall. The sprites you drew are very 'clean' and modern, as is the bg, so some simple icons overhead would complete the feel.

[Fizzick]

Made some edits that's mostly focusing on placement, and scribbled some icons to make their functions even more clear

Moved the spells to the center as I am picturing they are the core feature of the game, where vital stats are less important. Stats are moved to the side and all organized into one place. Stylized the health so it is more visible in peripheral vision, and the same could probably be done for the other stats. Health is changed to red since it's common and has greater visual weight than green

Borders of the spells can change to show what level they are at. Maybe gold border could stand for a mastered spell.

Great stuff, thanks a lot.

[Fizzick]

[YellowLime]

Right now, I can't help much since everything is currently in simplistic place-holder mode

I don't know the least bit about composition, so I can't really criticize the HUD either

The only thing I can really say right now is that the screen feels too empty right now.
1-You can add more interactive instances (i.e. enemies) But I think this is unadvisable, because the player can only handle so much at once.
2-You can work out the background tiles to be more visually interesting, but you'll have to work extra to make it not look repetitive, since there's so much space being shown at the same time, being subjected to the players' eyes' scrutiny.

Those last two lines are probably bullsh*t to some degree ,
but what I'm trying to say is that I feel that there really is too much horizontal space in display right now.

[Fizzick]

Right now, I can't help much since everything is currently in simplistic place-holder mode

I don't know the least bit about composition, so I can't really criticize the HUD either

The only thing I can really say right now is that the screen feels too empty right now.
1-You can add more interactive instances (i.e. enemies) But I think this is unadvisable, because the player can only handle so much at once.
2-You can work out the background tiles to be more visually interesting, but you'll have to work extra to make it not look repetitive, since there's so much space being shown at the same time, being subjected to the players' eyes' scrutiny.

Those last two lines are probably bullsh*t to some degree ,
but what I'm trying to say is that I feel that there really is too much horizontal space in display right now.

Thanks. Dev is at a bit of a standstill so I'll come back to this one in a bit.


I know, there are a lot of jaggies. Currently working out composition and color, then I'll get to that. May also turn the house so it's 3/4 view instead of dead on, give it a little more depth.

[Fizzick]

Sketch, to be further blocked out and refined