my little world, monsters! ... [please C&C]

[PypeBros]

Hello, all. I'm working on a little "green zone" for a homebrew platformer project on the nintendo DS. I'm a bit "on my own" for the art and code, without a strong artistic background nor digital painting / pixeling guru around in real world, so you guys are my best chance to come with a cute and great world for the game.

So C&C are (more than) welcome.


The overall ambiance of the game is "happy / blue sky" as you'd meet in Zelda: minish cap or Super Mario Bros.

Latest art, please help me improve it

the berry-bat :

Bilou: the main Character

- -- - -

Initially posted prototype screenshot




Tilesets and misc. mockups.

-- - -

Some monsters --

[sharprm]

The green background looks boring. The outlines for the rocks above the ground on the edges don't fit. Can I suggest you work on a mockup instead of posting WIP in game graphics. No mouth for the ball?

[PypeBros]

The green background looks boring. Can I suggest you work on a mockup instead of posting WIP in game graphics.

Hmm, well, indeed. the plain green bg isn't meant to remain, of course. i guess i'm too proud of the result and expected it would be graphically convincing that way 

No mouth for the ball?

as a matter of fact, no. (not unless he shouts)

The outlines for the rocks above the ground on the edges don't fit.

Not too sure i understand how they "don't fit" ... do you mean ?

[Majoris]

First of all, I like the ball...even with no mouth 

And yeah, I think what you pointed out there is what he means by not fitting. It does look a bit...anti-gravityish[?] in my opinion...I think it would look better if it looked more "solid" to the ground.

Also, I think there are some problems with the tree. The big one is where the leaves meet the trunk, the trunk overlaps the leaves and is square. Also the repeated pattern that the tree is composed of isn't very appealing, an neither is that mushroom[?]. It needs to be more defined as a mushroom.

I like the smiley face in the rock tile, nice detail, but there needs to be more contrast in it. The shadows of the specific rocks should be more like...on the right side of the right picture O_o, I don't know if that's the emulators fault, but it looks better.

[Joseph]

have you posted that treetop somewhere else?  I know I've seen it before.

[AdamAtomic]

except the tree tops which still comes from Zelda: Minish Cap.

Good work, detective!

[Joseph]

oh, my bad.

[nova]

Out of curiosity. When you write games for DS, what language to you write them in?

[sharprm]

 No mouth for the ball?

as a matter of fact, no. (not unless he shouts)

Think about adding one to make the character more identifiable.

The outlines for the rocks above the ground on the edges don't fit.

Not too sure i understand how they "don't fit" ... do you mean ?

Yep. The outline is very dark and is inconsistent with the rest of the piece. For example, the grass does not have a dark outline. Also, the hole in the rock is much brighter than this outline.

It is hard to tell if your flat characters (ie. they don't have much shading and contrast) fit the game if you just show us placeholder graphics and a blank background. Try to work out a consistent way to outline.

[PypeBros]

Out of curiosity. When you write games for DS, what language to you write them in?

The game engine is in C++, and i'm using my own ugly scripts for behaviours, events and things alike (drawing inspiration from how Eric Chahi programmed Another World). Most people prefer to stick to C and use 'PALib', a wrapper around the hardware that makes the DS easy to use even for newbies in C (that still have good background in e.g. VB or similar languages).

The outline is very dark and is inconsistent with the rest of the piece. For example, the grass does not have a dark outline. Also, the hole in the rock is much brighter than this outline.

okay. I'll work on that.

It does look a bit...anti-gravityish[?] in my opinion...I think it would look better if it looked more "solid" to the ground.

would something like this do it better ->

(about the mouth) Think about adding one to make the character more identifiable.

Well, i have to add that the character's programming isn't complete (e.g. sub-sprites for feet and hands aren't there yet). The complete character looks right like the blue ball on my avatar. Does it make it more identifiable or does that one still need a mouth anyway ?