[WIP][CC]NES Style Level Environment

[heyguy]

Hello all! I'd really appreciate some critique on what I'm working on. I'm making a game and this is one of the rooms in my Metroidvania game. The game is NES inspired and I'm keeping the color palette within NES limitations. I've created a really large tilemap to create a variety of different looking rooms and this is one combination I came up with.



This is a view of the entire room. The blue robot is a patrolling drone. The silver/gold robot is the main character. The actual resolution of game would be 400x224 so this is what you would actually see on screen.



Would appreciate any and all comments! So I originally wanted the game to look darker, like Shatterhand or Batman on the NES. Black backgrounds and tilemaps that trailed off into blackness. I was having trouble making the tilemap trail off into blackness artistically and I didn't like how the black backgrounds interacted with the black in the characters. Decided I'll have dark backgrounds but not all black. I feel like the currently background is too light though. Right now I'm having trouble creating a variety of backgrounds that will tile pleasantly throughout my entire game too. This current background was custom made for this room and it took some time. Anyway, thanks for looking!

[surt]

You're breaking NES palette limitations all over the place.
Around the purple windows.
Ceiling edge.
Floor tiles.

[heyguy]

Hey surt. Somewhere along the art process I decided to experiment and break NES color limits in certain spots like in Shovel Knight. I'm still not sure if I'll keep the look though. I just thought it looked a bit more interesting. By ceiling tiles, do you mean the orange on the yellow tiles? Yah, I think that was a mistake maybe. Here's what the level looked like with less color and trying to use black as a background.

[surt]

You can up the darkness and depth without making the background fully black by adding shadows and increasing contrast.

[Schwee]

I mean, it looks more like you recolored Metroid tiles than actually did your own art.  I see the Metroid doors and from there I'm not sure what's yours and what isn't...

[heyguy]

You can up the darkness and depth without making the background fully black by adding shadows and increasing contrast.

Wow surt! That looks amazing! Thanks so much for the edit! Seeing your shading and how you use NES colors inspires me to stick strictly to NES limits. I really need to rework some stuff.

So about the shadows... I actually did add shadows to a previous iteration. I removed them because it was going to be very time consuming painting in correct shadows everywhere through the entire game. I really wanted to create a few tiling backgrounds and use those throughout the game. I definitely prefer how shadows give the scene more attention to detail though. I think I might be able to split the difference...somehow. I can create a background with straight, simple ceiling shadows and paint stuff like shadows from extended tiles on another in-engine pixel layer. Still might be time consuming.

I mean, it looks more like you recolored Metroid tiles than actually did your own art.  I see the Metroid doors and from there I'm not sure what's yours and what isn't...

Really? I think it looks fairly different from recolored Metroid tiles. Both scenes.



All art is mine, made in PS and PyxelEdit. It is Sci-fi Metroid inspired though. 100%. And yah, I pixeled "Metroid style" doors. I like the way they transition from room to room. They also work in-game exactly like Metroid doors too. Shoot and there's an opening animation.

[MysteryMeat]

I kid of course. I did think it was the same at first too though, so you might want to look into changing it up some to not be so... well, close.

[Schwee]

When you put them next to each other, I can see the differences but I really don't think you are doing yourself any justice by using their exact same 'bubble door' mechanic.  Unless this is for your own personal enjoyment of course.  I'm sure you could think of something just as engaging and more original if you try!