AuthorTopic: Golden Hour - a brand new pixel art ARPG in development!  (Read 4497 times)

Offline amantino

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Hey guys! After a year and a half of hard work on Golden Hour, we're proud to present the first screenshots  [smile]

But first, a bit about the game. Golden Hour is a well-balanced mix of a platformer and an ARPG, and while some may call this game type a metroidvania, I'd say it's relying much more on platformer elements to be called so. A cross between Skyrim and Prince of Persia? I wouldn't say that either, but I like to think so [cartman]

Golden Hour features world exploration, crafting, potion making, leveling up with primary and secondary skills, many equipable items that alter the characters abilities, spells and even traps.

All the enemy types have variable primary skills (Strength, Defense, Luck, Magic)...Which means that combat will depend much on the players and enemy's grades, and sometimes simply on throwing of the dice.

But enough talk... Here are the first decent shots:













The first video trailer and story elements will be posted soon on our facebook page:

Thanks for the attention, guys! More info soon on our facebook page!

« Last Edit: May 07, 2014, 09:05:13 pm by amantino »

Offline Manupix

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Re: Golden Hour - a brand new pixel art ARPG!

Reply #1 on: May 07, 2014, 08:24:12 pm
Looks pretty good, but you might want to fire whoever is in charge of kerning    :D

Offline cels

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Re: Golden Hour - a brand new pixel art ARPG!

Reply #2 on: May 07, 2014, 08:41:52 pm
Meanwhile, at the house of the Golden Hour kerning specialist:
"Papa, may I have another bowl of onion soup?"
"I'm afraid not, Mary Sue. That's all we had to eat today. Since I lost my job, we have to save money."
"But Papa, I'm hungry!"
"God, I wish I knew something else besides kerning."


Good looking game. The main issue for me is the design of the characters. They are by far the worst looking things in the game, which is unfortunate, since they're also the most important.

Since the game is finished, I guess it's too late to help you improve them.

Offline PixelPiledriver

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Re: Golden Hour - a brand new pixel art ARPG!

Reply #3 on: May 07, 2014, 08:52:43 pm
Quote
we're proud to present the first screenshots
Quote
Since the game is finished, I guess it's too late to help you improve them.
Anything posted in this section is open to crits and edits.
If this is thread is just to raise awareness of the game I can move it to General.
And knowing that it is, we seek what it is... ~ Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Chapter 1

Offline amantino

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Re: Golden Hour - a brand new pixel art ARPG!

Reply #4 on: May 07, 2014, 09:02:40 pm
Thanks for the replies, guys. The game is far from finished, these are just the first screenshots before the first video and maybe an alpha. We're still in a very early development phase of the game so all the critiques are welcome. Cheers!  :)

Offline JoeCreates

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Re: Golden Hour - a brand new pixel art ARPG in development!

Reply #5 on: May 08, 2014, 05:03:25 pm
The sprites do seem to be of considerably lower quality than most of the world. The saturation in some places seems mega high, too.

The house in the third image down, "emery's boat shop", doesn't fit so well, either. The saturation on the dark parts is very high, and the roof is very flat compared to the others.

I find the pink glow in the background way to bright and saturated in some of the images. It draws my eyes away from the more important bits.

There are some great pixels here and there, but the quality and style seem to fluctuate a lot.

Offline Seiseki

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Re: Golden Hour - a brand new pixel art ARPG in development!

Reply #6 on: May 08, 2014, 05:38:03 pm
There are some great pixels here and there, but the quality and style seem to fluctuate a lot.

I'm quite concerned about this as well..
I assume you have artists of different talent levels working on the project.

The worst parts by far is the text (kerning + pixel size irregularity, unattractive font with only uppercase) the characters which are way too yellow, the contrast is too high and they have too much detail in their faces which makes them look really old, dirty and/or hairy. Their mouths are also really low which makes it seem like they don't have chins.. The ears can't be recognized as ears.
 A lot of the stuff in the background has a great sense of depth, the characters lack this for the most part and look flat or have a very unclear sense of depth and shape.

Offline astraldata

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Re: Golden Hour - a brand new pixel art ARPG in development!

Reply #7 on: May 09, 2014, 02:30:20 am
This is the feeling I get off of your characters:

https://www.google.com/search?q=lemongrab&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=4TdsU8j5I_OzsQT314DYBQ&ved=0CDkQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=645

Which is indeed unfortunate, because your background colors are nice for the most part. You really do need a better color dude for your char sprites. Their outline is too black and harsh and competes with even the darkest shadows in your world ( and wins! D: ), plus their face is very yellow. If this was a stylistic choice, it was unfortunately a bad one unless you exaggerate something else about the head (not just make it a circle as it tends to be now) which would make it more unique.

At the same time, your faces, as Seiseki mentioned above, look too detailed, thusly making them all look pretty hideous (especially the guy I assume is the main character, who has a face so ugly it looks much better with an iron mask on it. ;P )

Partial kidding aside though, try out a few new base style choices, even if you keep the faces for the most part.  Just simplify them so they read better and more like humans (not lemons) since even your youngest looking chars look wrinkly and old with you cramming too many details on their faces, which are already a really small area to begin with. Remember the iconic megaman sprites? They were 24px tall and managed to get across a minimal sense of facial expression (megaman had abnormally large eyes and even a mouth!), though even on the SNES/Genesis versions of the game, where more colors/sizes were available, they still kept the characters' faces almost as simple as the NES games! No, nostrils and wrinkles are too much at this pixel size, despite their presence in many of your sprites. Clarity goes a long way. D:
I'm offering free pixel-art mentorship for promising pixel artists. For details, click here.

     http://mugenzero.userboard.net/

Offline amantino

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Re: Golden Hour - a brand new pixel art ARPG in development!

Reply #8 on: May 09, 2014, 03:26:36 pm
Thanks guys. I'll be doing a complete redesign of the characters.

I'd be glad to hear the impressions about the rest of the graphics though; The environment, the enemies, the items? Do you like them or do they need changes as well?

The game is in a very early stage of development so every comment is much appreciated. Thanks a ton for the feedback so far! Looking forward to new comments!  ;D

Offline Kosvid

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Re: Golden Hour - a brand new pixel art ARPG in development!

Reply #9 on: May 25, 2014, 07:01:36 am
The environment, the enemies, the items? Do you like them or do they need changes as well?
I really like the items` backgrounds. In my opinion, though, you should add some categories using colours. That is to say, make blue background for defence items, red one for weapons, green for potions, purple for magic asf, so players could navigate faster and more easily in the inventory.
And I really don`t like the enemies. They are so ugly that I don`t even want to look at them. :lol: Whereas they should be quite beautiful, I think.
The atmosphere and the palette miss something, but I still can`t understand what exactly. Maybe I`ll tell you later.  :)