[Critiquing] Fantasy Sidescroller Tileset - NES Authentic

[RetroNuva10]

Agreed with MysteryMeat. That background has too much contrast, just about any character would be easily lost in it. I recommend having some character sprites in the scene on a separate layer as you work on it, so you can easily gauge how well they stand out.

You could tone down the contrast without losing those lovely blues or any details though, you'd just need to use a narrower range of values, something like this:

I don't have the exact palette you're using so the colours aren't exact, but hopefully it conveys the idea.

. . .

Digging this tileset, by the way!

Thanks for all the feedback, and I'm glad you like it! Coincedentally, after I made my most recent reply, I proceeded to make a version that is just like yours:


My main reason for being hesitant on darkening it was because I didn't want to lose the grey stone feel, since each level will have a distinct color palette. I decided to use the 3rd palette in this level to highlight the important bits: the columns and Minotaur. They might be too bright and not make sense, but they convey them as "landmarks" without being littered really frequently all over the screen, and they also add in some grey-ness that I was afraid of losing. Tell me what you think of it!

[eishiya]

You could retain the grey stone feel by using a grey colour instead of one of the blues. You don't have to use only blues or only greys, you can use both.

I think the Minotaur looks fine since it's mostly midtones with just a little bit of white, but the columns stand out too much. In my edit, I think they're still distinct, but don't distract/clash quite as much. The white-heavy columns would work well if they're meant to be interactive elements, but if they're just background landmarks, I think they're too much.

[RetroNuva10]

How's this? I'm not sure I'd be satisfied removing all the white from the cylinder of the column, as I think it loses the nice depthy nature of it.

[Decroded]

How's this? I'm not sure I'd be satisfied removing all the white from the cylinder of the column, as I think it loses the nice depthy nature of it.

i think white columns have too much visual priority so they appear as obstacles

[7Soul]

Played around with palettes a bit (my colors will differ from yours, idk which nes palette you're using) but I mainly tried to make the pillars look less refined and metallic and gave the main block tile a texture

[MysteryMeat]

ooh, that second one is perfect. good work!