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

[PypeBros]

Good post, zeid! The character really does need some unique flair. A specific way I think you could give Bilou some more personality is to simply add a mouth. That's not gonna solve the problem completely, but I think it'll help.

Edit (based on zeid's):


Hope that helps any.

I really love your edit. it's impressive to see how close it is to hand-drawn personnality, and the sub-pixel effect in the eyes opens many perspectives in the animation. And, yes, considering the way you dotted the mouth, i think i'll re-work my sprites to show it more (after all, Bilou *has* a mouth. It's just almost invisible when he closes it).

I realise now that my #1 error was probably that i wanted to stick to the 'good old' deep-blue of the EGA palette for Bilou's body, but that color is just too dark to let any detail appear, which forces things like mouth, etc. to be shown in plain black (which is both not nice and hardly readable on dark blue anyway).

(now i need to fix my Sprite Editor damn quickly and push those cute colors of yourszeid in my palette for some testing

[PypeBros]

<-- tel :: me --> -->
I think i'll saturate the body a little more, though (the DS' colors aren't that shiny), or i'll have to de-saturate my whole palette. It takes more colours (since i didn't re-saturate hands and eyes, for instance), but the whole guy remains under 15 colors.

edit: i gave a try at a small "surprise" animation in the eyes, but it doesn't work as expected. I missed to animate the outlines of the eyes, obviously, and the body as a whole (hands, feet -- noone would get surprised and stay perfectly immobile ) ... i definitely needs my editor on DS to be back: Gimp is no good for spriting.

edit: @infinity: yes, he's got more "style" that way, but imho, that wouldn't match the 'children-oriented' universe i've got around him 

[madPXL]

PypeBros -> never take the pixel made by other for yourself with 2/3 corrections on it... REcreate it !

[PypeBros]

PypeBros -> never take the pixel made by other for yourself with 2/3 corrections on it... REcreate it !

#true; though i wanted to quick-test the possibilities. I'll re-create for the game, of course, or it wouldn't be fair (and i'd learn nothing)
yet,

i definitely needs my editor on DS to be back

hence the quick-edit in the Gimp, which is too unpractical during coffee-break for a complete remake.

[madPXL]

a try...

[PypeBros]

a try...

heh. reminds me of loco-roco (is that feathers on his head ?) more than bilou, but nice anyway ... it's amazing to see how every artist has his own style and vision of "a blue ball with eyes".

Btw, i'm trying to depart from Rayman and Kirby gameplay (who have beaten me on the abilities/super-powers i planned years ago), and comments such as "His shape may also be a gameplay mechanic in and of itself; he may roll and require momentum in order to jump." makes me come with a nice alternative: powerups that alter the material Bilou is made of. I'll have fun pixel'ing "steel Bilou" that crash into walls, but indeed needs to gain momentum or "superball Bilou" that bounces again and again (and is more translucent like Zeid's first edit), etc.

Well, anyway. Let's get back to work. I'll keep you updated when something concrete happens again.

[AdamAtomic]

I hate to drop this bomb, but...http://indygamer.blogspot.com/2006/05/within-deep-forest.html

[tehwexxl0rz]

I hate to drop this bomb, but...http://indygamer.blogspot.com/2006/05/within-deep-forest.html

If PypeBros is going to keep Bilou's hands and feet (like the drawings), I'm not convinced that's really such a bomb.... Also hopefully the environment will have more personality than those screens.

[chriskot]

I hate to drop this bomb, but...http://indygamer.blogspot.com/2006/05/within-deep-forest.html

I actually started playing that game a couple of days ago. I'm enjoying it a lot and the game actually has a good chunk of atmosphere without any really elaborate graphics.

Anyway, I wouldn't consider this much of a bomb drop considering that, apart for the ball character and changing materials feature, the two don't really seem to be all that similar. "Within A Deep Forest" is more of an open, ambient, minimalistic sort of adventure than this seems to be.

Also, it's not like either of these games invented the "change materials for strategy" idea. (I'm not bashing the idea. In fact, I'm in full support. It almost always works out nicely.)

[Helm]

I hate to drop this bomb, but...http://indygamer.blogspot.com/2006/05/within-deep-forest.html

If only you read other people's posts in the threads you post in, before you post, moderator