Rodent Pixel Platformer

[Mozu]

I've been working on a small game by myself for a while now about a rat that goes on an adventure to find his missing family. I need feedback to help grow my idea to be better then just I can think of.



The game is going to be a pixel platformer where the main character is a rat that wears the top of a sock as a jumper. I've been experimenting with a rubber band weapon design but I'm still trying to make it look right. All the enemies and characters are based off real animals. For example a lot of the smaller enemies are insects. 

If you have cratiques or suggestions I've love to hear them.

[eishiya]

Could you please not pre-zoom your pixel art? Pre-zooming makes it hard to see your art at different sizes and to make edits.

The design is cute, but it's a bit hard to read as a rat because the nose looks like it's one entity with the "collar", so the character has a round silhouette, not very rat-like. Have the noise a couple of pixel above the collar,or move the whole head forward a bit so that the nose can protrude and give the character a more rat-like silhouette.

There's some very intense rotation happening in the hips, which isn't bad, but the rotation isn't continued at all into the upper torso, making it look like the character swivels at the waist.
Since the character is always facing slightly towards us, that means they'd have to rotate a lot more for us to see their butt, so the swiveling is very intense. It's fine if you want to exaggerate the movement so much, but make sure you do it for the other side, too, that is, we should be able to see more of the front of the character when the other leg is forward. That might be too much movement though, so it might be better to tone the butt rotation down instead.

I like the idea of basing enemies on real animals, however, they look out of place with the main character because they're so realistic. There's also a scale problem, most of these insects are much smaller than a rat. If you stylise them the way that you stylised the rat, that would make the realism and scale issues go away.

[Mozu]

I experimented with his run cycle and I tried to make his body less ridged, as well as changing his nose size and head shape but I felt that his head being stationary makes his animation less distracting. What do ya think compared to the old one?

[eishiya]

I think it's better, though the front leg still moves more than the back leg, I think.

The sweater seems to move least near the legs (which are what's causing it to move), and the most far away from them, that's a bit backwards. The collar should move the least, since the stationary head is holding it in place.

The backpack should only move as much as the shoulders, which should be moving in the opposite direction to the legs, not with them.

I think you misunderstood what I meant about the head. I don't mean moving the head as part of the animation, but overall, so that in every frame, the silhouette is clearer. Here's the current silhouette on the left, and what the silhouette could be on the right:

I think the one on the right reads much more like a rat or mouse.

(Also, see what I mean about it being hard to edit when you pre-zoom? I don't even know if my silhouette is possible to achieve because I don't know where the actual pixels would be. Please, post your stuff at 1x!)

[Mozu]

I know all the tricks and rules for animation, I have a diploma in it. I wasn't to sure about the bottom half of his sock moving more but looking at after some time lets me see what you mean. I know all about how the backpack should only move as much as the shoulder and how they aren't alternating, I did it they way I did because I think it looks better for my character. The first time I tried drawing my rat character I had him with his nose sticking out but I just didn't think it looked right so I wanted it to be that he his almost hiding in his collar.

I promise you that I've only broken these rules because I know why they are used, thank you for the critiques regardless, they were very helpful.