Gameboy Attempt

[bengo]

Alright, now I can see them. I think the black outline is a tad much, so I'd go with the second one. Great work, it looks especially good with the CGA palette.

[Overkill]

Okay, I like the second one, but maybe it would look better if all foreground objects (like the grass) have the outermost outline in the darkest shade, so they're more distinguishable from the background.

[elise]

Thanks overkill... 


I made an animation of the sprite running (or more like walking kinda fast)... I had to make it relatively simple so no bad guys, jumping or other stuff. Just running and collecting points.


Still doesn't look very... fluid... but not bad for my first attempt.

[Jericho]

I like how the apples ( ? ) disappear

I think maybe an easier way to make characters stand out other than thick lines is to actually give them a light outline  like in my example below.

I think someone else also mentioned something about the plants? Well you don't need to give them a full outline, just a little something to make them stand out more from the trees (again see example)

[TrevoriuS]

Are you gonna build a ROM? 

[elise]

jericho - I really like how the sprites look with the light outine, but I don't think I could put it on the apples because it would add another color. Right now they're 3 colors + transparency. Maybe I could change them to lighter colored apples, though it would change the way they look when they disappear. Hrm. 

trevorious - I don't think so... although my kids want me to.  I'm just doing this for practice in case I ever want to make a rom or mobile game. I still have a lot to learn about tiling and animation.

[PypeBros]

imho, the animated picture is the one that reads and looks the bests ... the thick outline just makes things somehow clumsy and the white super-outline gives an odd feeling that the characters and foes of the game are paper-cuts displayed over a background (many many GB games suffered from this, esp. Disney ones).

Super Mario Land 2 (and iirc other SML) had no such outlines and read quite well.
If you're worried about fruits readability over the background, i'd suggest you try to make them giggle a bit: that typically improves recognition more than any kind of outline scheme you could think of.