[WIP] Top-down crawl shooter mockup

[biomechanic]

Hi.
I'm new to this place and new to pixel art, so don't expect good art coming from me for some time - I plan to improve though .

The game is (to be) set on a massive spaceship overrun by aliens, with randomly generated levels and respawning monsters coming from holes in the floor (not pictured, yet).



The thing in the middle is a wall; player character just for scale.

In the upper right corner I squared off the actual floor tile - I would appreciate c&c on any part of the picture, but especially on this.

[Derek_Reaves]

Hey! Interesting piece.
 
My favorite part is definitely the character by a long shot . . . its the only thing that really stands out to me to be honest. Black lines on his left foot and wrist (?)are a little jagged though, you may want to replace those with a color from his shoes/arms.

The "walls" are actually very very hard to make out. They look like they might be walls, but they also look like pits that you can fall in to. I don't consider myself in a position to give more direct crits (like telling you how to go about making it look like a wall, or making an edit), so I'll leave it up to you to make a few more attempts. Maybe check out some games in the same perspective.

Also your floor is very boring and a bit bright/odd. How often do you see bright metal tiles? Surely these tiles aren't brand new. You may want to change it to a metal textured floor rather than a metal tiled floor. And if not, I believe that darkening the floors and adding scuffs/rust/water puddles etc. Could really liven things up a lot! Try mixing in some other types of floor (for paths etc.) to break up the monotony as well. Experiment experiment.

Heres a metal texture I found for you with a quick search.
http://www.darksim.com/Repository/tx_Building/buildMetalFloor.jpg
Notice how the bumps are shaded.

Also heres another metal texture you may want to look at. I believe it would be a very interesting texture which could be used for drains and such.

http://www.filterforge.com/filters/2137.jpg

Try looking at pictures of places that have metal floors if you can find them.

Hoping to see some edits! 

[Dr D]

For the wall, you could try adding cast shadows. If it was a pit, it wouldn't make them.

[biomechanic]

Thanks guys!

Derek:
The tiles are bad, but that's the best I could do other than just filling the floor with bluish grey. I made them so bright on purpose though - for the player, walls, monsters, power-ups and whatnot to stick out more. Still, it looks pretty bad, so I'll try and make it darker and more varied next time (I might even go crazy and use some colours other than desaturated blue). Again, thanks for the tips!

Too bad you like the character - it is a double cheat, painted with pressure controlled opacity and scaled down from 320x320 px. I'm trying to make a "real" one starting with animations.

The first one is choppy, but I think upper body is positioned better for running with a rifle; the second one's left hand is ridiculously overextended, but the run animated in 5 passes (hips -> rifle -> legs -> torso -> arms) is nice and smooth. Next step: combining the two .

Dr D :
Good idea, thanks!

Here's a quick edit, sans the HUD and Super Mario tiles but with new floor pattern, cast shadows, less rounded walls, map borders and two monster holes.



EDIT:
Switching extremes: from monotonous monochrome to monotonous multicolor barf.

[biomechanic]

Run animation

+ double size

and player on 4 floor types I made so far

+ double size


I like the minimal coloring / lack of shading on the character, but it clashes a bit with the rusty backgrounds, so I guess I'll have to either complicate the former or simplify the latter.

Crits and comments always welcome .