AuthorTopic: A Casbah tile for a tile-based game  (Read 1978 times)

Offline pixcel

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A Casbah tile for a tile-based game

on: February 26, 2019, 07:48:08 pm
Hello everyone,

I made a remake of a Carcassone tile (a tile based board game), in a different theme of the Casbah (Algiers, Algeria) which is: "a unique kind of medina, or Islamic city. It stands in one of the finest coastal sites on the Mediterranean, overlooking the islands where a Carthaginian trading-post was established in the 4th century BC. There are the remains of the citadel, old mosques and Ottoman-style palaces as well as the remains of a traditional urban structure associated with a deep-rooted sense of community."
The link of the wiki page of the game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcassonne_(board_game)
The link from UNESCO: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/565

My work:


To explain what this work is, here is a the differences between the original artwork (non pixel art) of the game and mine:



And if you are confused of what you are looking at, here is a photo that shows you the view in the real world:

https://imgur.com/a1dTuCQ

The reason I'm doing this is because I created an online game that is a clone of the Carcassonne board game, and because I'm not allowed to use their artwork for copyrights reasons I had to do one by myself and because I'm not an artist I thought I would try to make it in pixelart although I'm still a very beginner and this is my second pixelart work.

So what do you guys think? And if you are familiar of the Carcassonne game, you know it has like +20 type of tiles, this is just the first tile and I don't know honestly to whether proceed to work on the other tiles or not, so that's why I need your feedback.
« Last Edit: February 26, 2019, 08:10:28 pm by pixcel »

Offline strawberry

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Re: A Casbah tile for a tile-based game

Reply #1 on: February 27, 2019, 04:54:46 am
First off, congrats on making a game! This idea you have is very unique.
The large empty grey area behind the houses doesn't read well. Is it gravel or stones? If so, adding details (or even adding more houses) will make it look more lively. Your castle walls look flat because there is no shading or highlights on them. While with watercolor paints, you can get away with not shading as much because the paints add hues and values, pixel art needs shading to avoid looking flat.
With the grass, I would start looking at grass tilesets from various artists and games and study their composition. While the Carcassonne game could get away with adding dots and lines to make it look nicely textured, pixel art can't do that.
Rough rework of what I explained:


Sorry if my wording is a little hard to understand. I'm currently very sick  :blind: Good luck!

Offline pixcel

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Re: A Casbah tile for a tile-based game

Reply #2 on: February 28, 2019, 01:31:39 am
Thank you very much Strawberry for your ideas. With your help and other people's feedback I think I have made an improvement in my work:

Offline pyxelbit

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Re: A Casbah tile for a tile-based game

Reply #3 on: February 28, 2019, 12:00:24 pm
Thats a nice idea for a game and a good start with pixel art.

I think the dimensions look a little off, for example the size of the fountain compared to the wall. Or the path and the grass tuffs. I doesnt look like a massive castle to me.

More brownish colors and different vegetation appropriate to the climate would be good too.

And the style of the wall itself looks more like a european castle wall to me, afaik islamic architecture is really blocky and geometric. I think this one in tunesia is kinda similar to the one in algeria:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasbah#/media/File:Sousse_Kasbah.JPG

edit: there some really interesting maps from that time, maybe they inspire you. for example this one: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~287221~90059226:Vol-II--59--Algiers--Algeria--
« Last Edit: February 28, 2019, 12:10:38 pm by pyxelbit »