Zombie Tower Defend game (W.I.P)

[Tobe]

I'm trying out some visual styling for my new zombie game... so here's some sample of the characters.


There's 4 character here, sharing the same color scheme till I get the styling right. They are, Man in spects, Cameraman, Biker and zombie.
I'm mainly trying out the way the guy holds his gun for the Man in spects. Tell me what you think.

Anyway, I was refering to the game - "chaos engine" for the view, but the style is completely different.
Does anyone knows where I can find more reference for this view? I haven't started yet, but I find the animation kinda awkward just thinking about it.

Thanks

[LoTekK]

Bahaha, I like. Love the messed up teeth on the Z.

Not a huge fan in general of the wide-crotch look, though. It's bearable on the first three guys, but really overdone on the biker. I might also suggest making the glasses on the first guy taller by a pixel, just so they clearly read as such. Weapon-wise, glasses guy's top-view pistol grip is a bit weird, mainly because his straight arm is tilted so far center. For something with so few pixels to play with, I'd either go full-on isosceles (both arms straight out), or a weaver grip (similar to the Chapman, but both arms remain bent). If you go with isosceles, though, I'd still recommend offsetting the right foot backwards a pixel or two.

[Tobe]

I thought I'd wait till I receive more comments before I reply but... lol. The forum seems to be less active then usual. Or is it just my thread?

Lotekk, thanks for the comment. I've tried fooling around more with what you mentioned, but I couldn't seems to do it right. But I'll post again when I have decent update on the characters.

Anyway, I'm changing this and making a Zombie TD instead. Has been working on the GUI and environment. The Characters are all place holders atm, but let me know what you think of it.

[rikfuzz]

Love the style!  Looks really good on background. Just a couple of things I noticed:

• Careful of your (inner top right) corner pieces, the shadowing doesn't make much sense where it's on the wall.
• Skeleton debris is brighter than your streetlights too, something to be mindful of.
• I'd maybe reduce your grungy frame's colours so it gels with the pixel art a bit better too.

[HughSpectrum]

I would increase the contrast between the top level and the zombie corridors so that the difference in height is more noticeable.  If you just briefly glance or squint your eyes, all of the characters pop out but the top level fades towards the back, making it look like everything is on the same level.

[7321551]

Neat!

I'll second the depth issue. Initially, I saw a street & pavement. The wall's value needs to differ from the floor's more.

Also, the entire backdrop is too dark - I think when you work on something for a while, your eyes become completely accustomed to the brightness or lack thereof. It's happened to me before.

[JDog053]

Those sprites look alot better in a game scenario! Good luck with this project

[Tobe]

Minor Update :


I took the advise to tone down the skeleton. I tried to brighten things up a little, but I couldn't bear to push it as much 7321551 did. But let me know if its already better.

[Dusty]

I was just about to post that there were some serious priority issues going on, but I'd say that's mostly resolved now Maybe the humans on top of the walls might be a little hard distinguish from the zombies and the overall picture, though, but definitely an improvement.

[twodayslate]

I have to agree with Dusty. The sprites are too similar... hard to tell who you are (if you didn't have the giant red circle I guess)

but the game looks super fun!

[Xuferluses]

I think its supposed to be a "defenders" game (Idk if that's the right nomenclature). Correct me if i'm wrong but appears to me that in this game you got waves after waves of zombies and your goal is to prevent them from reaching the end of the path maybe. I think that's why the characters look the same or repeated, because they're supposed to be classes and not actually characters.

Or not and i'm being completely dumb here 

Apart from that the stile is simply amazing! And you can never be wrong with zombies!

[Dusty]

It's not that sprites look too similar to each other, but the main characters(whom a player is MOST interested in) don't stand out enough from the zombies, or to a degree, the backdrop. Your character should be the main focus of your attention, and making it hard to spot on the screen will be counter-intuitive to even the best gameplay.

[Tobe]

Alright, seems like the title has been pretty misleading for those that missed my 2nd respond.

It was meant to be a zombie shooter, but I changed it to a zombie Tower Defense game.
The character are in their early for now, as they probably need different colors to avoid confusion. Right now, they are looking too similar and even blending into the background. But that will probably come later. Same thing for the zombie.

Point is, Xuferluses is actually right. And completely genius 

[Xuferluses]

Yay! I've always suspected that I was a genius man, thx! 

But seriously, keep them coming, it's really looking good so far. I would suggest you to go nuts and create some more character classes like one army guy or soldier, and maybe a girl you know? Stuff like that. You could as well come up with other kinds of zombies, like the usual big fat bald guy!

You probably thought about that already, right? Yeah...

Ok, bye!

[buloght]

Very cool concept, and a very agreeable graphics! I wonder if you could make those lights have stronger lights on the ground, maybe bring a shadow-light gameplay dynamic, but in shadows zombies are still somewhate visible. Maybe some zombies are good at hiding while others continue normally. Maybe this is not such a good idea though.

[rikfuzz]

Just a quick edit to show the tiles more consistent with your global lighting.

[Tobe]

Thanks a lot for the suggestions, guys. The 1 army guy is definitely going in now - probably as a Sniper. The light thingy is something I've been think about, it worked for the 8way zombie shooters, but I my main concern if it complicates things too much in a TD game.

Anyway, I re-edit the tile set taking rikfuzz advise. And here it is...