Platform game tiles

[Gil]

That latest screenshot is really good, if this is not taking you too long to make, I'd love to see you do the graphics for the game yourself. It's a unique take on it and I'd hate for your talent to go to waste. You might want to work with someone to advise you on the aesthetic to double check that the visual flow in the entire game is good.

I also agree with Atnas that the latest screenshot is the first one that's starting to work for me.

[Pixelnick]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I'm certainly going to have a stab at the graphics, I have found drawing these tiles easier than I expected, using lots of references online. I will be stuck with character animation, though. The human character you see in the screenshots is not mine. The simple mushroom enemy in the first pictures is mine, I found that relatively simple to draw and animate well.

Any critique welcome.

[rocifier]

Hi PixelNick I really want to follow your project. I saw you were advertising for an artist as well, have you found one? The main problem you are having in all versions is good separation between foreground and background. On a game style like this it's critical to get right. Just my 2 cents. EDIT: here is a super quick photoshop tweak to show an example of what I mean (the latest one was too difficult to isolate):




Because the new one is so different, here is a quick way to check your separation. Hue will help slightly but the most important way is with value. To check that convert the scene to greyscale:



Notice how the different layers contain large amounts of the same value. This is confusing and makes the eye really work at what it is seeing. You want people to relax and enjoy the game, knowing where they can jump to safety without having to "find" the land. The foreground, mid, and background should be receding fairly dramatically in lightness overall.

[Pixelnick]

Thanks rocifier, that's a massive help, I hadn't though of checking it like that.

Artistically, should the background be lighter in an outside area, and darker in an inside (cave) area?

[rocifier]

99% of the time the sky is lighter, even in night scenes. Just look at some night photography to see this. A cave may well be an exception but I would be tempted to light the back walls anyway unless you have a way to swap some of the sprites for that particular scene.

[Pixelnick]

Any critique welcome. The game has a lighting shader modifying some sprite colours.

[rocifier]

Any critique welcome. The game has a lighting shader modifying some sprite colours.

I think there still isn't enough value difference between foreground and background. It looks really good on the right side where there is a light, the foreground is popping. Maybe it needs more lights through this section of the level?

[Pixelnick]

Thanks rocifier, I'll give that a go but it might be tricky - the game is randomly generated each time you play.