[Feedback] Hearthstead - farming/town life Simulation RPG

[daramon]

Your spume is beautiful! Please tell me you're going to animate it!

Something about the shells in the sea makes me think they're above the surface. It could be the shadows and the spume opacity. I'll try an experiment later today, if it works out I'll post it.

[daramon]

This is a 3 minute edit to remove shadows and increase spume opacity over the underwater shells.



Not my best work but I think they look more underwater now.

Especially the leftmost shell.

[Keops]

This is a 3 minute edit to remove shadows and increase spume opacity over the underwater shells.



Not my best work but I think they look more underwater now.

Especially the leftmost shell.

Oh yeah I think I see what you mean, thanks for the edit!

And yes! The foam will be animated indeed, someway, somehow I don't know how I will be doing it but I will learn or find someone who can aid me.

***

You know, I've been pondering a lot about the game and its art direction. Right now it's like this Stardew Valley inspired 16-bit esque pixel art with biggish sprites (using Suikoden scale) and I know I have already some work done, but I've been thinking about exploring other styles too. I feel a bit overwhelmed, because 1) I like how it looks, even if its a bit generic or common and 2) the game is already massive as is, I figured that if I work steadily on it it'll probably take at least 3 or 4 years, maybe more since I'm by no means an expert and I have to figure stuff out as I go, same for my brother who is helping me with implementation.

I will probably do some studies and end up sticking with something closely resembling what I have but polished a ton. It might be the best choice for this project.

Oh well, let's see how it goes. It is definitely going to be an exciting journey. Thanks so much for the input, I appreciate it dearly.

Ribs out!

[eishiya]

The noisy texture of the sand feels out of place with the style of all the other assets, which uses more solid colours and textures made out of larger shapes.

Here's some potential sand inspiration from Sword of Mana (I've edited the colours in this image to help with clarity, the original colours are washed out because the game was made for the original, non-backlit GBA).

[daramon]

About using different styles, be careful. If you use a consistent style throughout your game will seem tighter, more consistent and more professional. If you use different styles you run the risk of looking like a game assembled from asset packs.

The only game I've seen work with different styles well was one where each level was a different era in computer game graphics.

You're acting as de facto art director for this project, and as far as I can tell, one of the jobs of an art director is to maintain a consistent art style throughout the project...

[Keops]

The noisy texture of the sand feels out of place with the style of all the other assets, which uses more solid colours and textures made out of larger shapes.

Here's some potential sand inspiration from Sword of Mana (I've edited the colours in this image to help with clarity, the original colours are washed out because the game was made for the original, non-backlit GBA).

That's a GREAT reference. I have never played Sword of Mana I should probably take a look at more art from that game.

About using different styles, be careful. If you use a consistent style throughout your game will seem tighter, more consistent and more professional. If you use different styles you run the risk of looking like a game assembled from asset packs.

The only game I've seen work with different styles well was one where each level was a different era in computer game graphics.

You're acting as de facto art director for this project, and as far as I can tell, one of the jobs of an art director is to maintain a consistent art style throughout the project...

Yeah I'm aware of that. I'm not talking about mixing styles, I'm talking about exploring styles and then deciding which one to further develop. Considering the game is this early in development a switch in art direction is still possible.

The other option is to keep chugging along, iterating/polishing and see where it goes!

And to post some art updates, here are the new graphics I made today, some more beach stuff, but this is still heavy WIP and will definitely be improved with help of your feedback. Thanks so much for your input, it's very appreciated.





See you around. Ribs out!

[Chris2balls]

Ambitious project!
Though I have to draw your attention to the cliffs. They act more as a texture and less as a volume - you need stronger highlights  and a stronger sense of depth. The pattern itself is fine, it just needs to pop out more.

Edit:

The light's going to hit the edge of the cliff first, then spread from the direction it's cast from (in the edit it's centre-left).


Hope this helps and good luck with the game!

[Keops]

Ambitious project!
Though I have to draw your attention to the cliffs. They act more as a texture and less as a volume - you need stronger highlights  and a stronger sense of depth. The pattern itself is fine, it just needs to pop out more.

Edit:

The light's going to hit the edge of the cliff first, then spread from the direction it's cast from (in the edit it's centre-left).


Hope this helps and good luck with the game!

Yes! This is a really good observation, right now the cliff tiles are just a texture, no volume or form is implied for the cliff walls except for the top grass area! This will help me a lot. Thank you

[Keops]

So, on todays dev/pixel art stream I decided to take it slow and instead of pushing new tiles without a clear sense of where I'm going, I decided to do some studying! Using the good feedback I've been receiving here and elsewhere (thanks Yuroran on Twitter, https://twitter.com/yuroran/) I put some work into revisiting one of the characters, ALAN.

ALAN is an android and the first version was based on the same scale/template than the player sprite, and also it looks quite stiff. So I revisited the art for him using the 2nd iteration on his concept sketch. Here's the pixel art and below the sketches (left old, right 2nd iteration)



What I like is that I've broken the template so this opens more variety for characters. Mind you this sprite is not 100% pixel art, it's just a quick study, it needs tons of refining still but its me exploring different dimensions for each character, they don't have to be constrained to 32 px x 48 px.



Also made some experiments with a new grass tile, now studying some refs, including Sword of Mana as suggested by eishiya. I think SoM has beautiful pixel art and might use it as an inspiration.

I will continue doing more studies, cliffs too to put the great feedback by Chris2balls to good use.

Stay tuned, and keep the suggestions coming, much much appreciated!

Ribs out!

EDIT: The VOD of the stream is here if you want to take a look or listen to my dev talk/thought process: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/463874271

[Keops]

So, update on the studies. I kept looking at stuff from other games and I think I'm at a place I like more with the "core" tiles. I still need to iterate of the cliffs, so that's probably next.


(I know Pixelation has zoom feature but I had already uploaded it 2X for use elswewhere heh, sorry)

Also made some interesting experiments with maps for lighting the sprites. Of course this will require rethinking the "diffuse" or base sprite, but it's pretty exciting to me. I'm not looking for the game to be pure pixel art so I will probably explore this further, use modern shading/rendering pipeline and stuff like 3D, particles, etc.







I'll keep you guys updated and once again thanks for the feedback! It really opened my eyes.

Ribs out!