Designing an Appropriate Platformer Background/Parallax?

[The Law G14]

Hey everyone,

I'm currently working on a small-time platformer project. While having a lot of the core game features mostly incorporated, I started working on some of the graphical appeal. Now I noticed that most professional platformer games have a parallax background that fits perfectly with the style of the game and is also not too instrusive on actual gameplay. Below are a couple examples:

Notice how the background is clearly visible yet it doesn't intrude on the foreground (where the main player runs). Furthermore, the background also fits the style/theme of the game.

Again the background is distinct from the foreground but is also clearly visible and fits the the style/theme of the game.

With that being said, I'm trying to aim for the same thing. My game has a very bright and colorful style. I'm using RPG Maker VX Ace and trying to keep the music and graphics light, fun, and essentially happy (despite the semi-serious main conflict of the game). Think Mario - there is usually some semi-serious main conflict in the game (find bowser, save the princess). Yet throughout the whole game, the graphics and music make things feel upbeat, bright and happy. Therefore I'm attempting to create a parallax background with this style in mind. The way I'm going about creating this background is throughout some parallax tiles created by Celianna on Photoshop. I've tried many different things but nothing really looks good to me. Here's what I currently have:

I think the main problems with mine is that 1. It's too intrusive on the foreground (even though that's not the foreground I'll be using..but still) and 2. I feel as though this background is too...frontal. As in the other backgrounds were more side-view like but this background feels like a frontal view which produces a jarring contrast with the foreground. Then again, I maybe be wrong, I don't know...

And ideas on how I can make this better?

 

[Archeia]

I noticed the things you're doing looks like they're 3D? Either way, Backgrounds should be a lighter color and the foreground has to be darker since they're nearer to the audience. Here's some excellent comparisons:







Right now, the problem with your background is that it's way too detailed (in Mario they're simplified). My suggestions would be:

1.) Throw in a blue overlay and fade them so they won't drown the sprite out.

2.) Recolor the sprite to fit with the palette of the backgrounds, albeit darker so they'll pop out.

3.) Change the floor tile haha.

4.) the perspective...is also off.

 

[kerbonklin]

Definitely the perspective, but I don't think a tile-based parallax will pull it off properly.

 

[The Law G14]

Thanks for the repsonses guys.

Throw in a blue overlay and fade them so they won't drown the sprite out.

Great idea, thanks!

Recolor the sprite to fit with the palette of the backgrounds, albeit darker so they'll pop out.

Well yea, the character sprite along with the foreground are placeholders...as of now I just working on the background. But I'll definitely keep that in mind when I start incorporating the real sprites.

 Change the floor tile haha.

Yea lol that was just a placeholder for the foreground..will definitely be changed!

 the perspective...is also off.

Agreed. After looking at your examples it really does need to be more side-view-ish.

Definitely the perspective, but I don't think a tile-based parallax will pull it off properly.

Gotcha. What do you think will pull it off? Do you think this requires an artist to hand-draw all of it or is there another way that I personally can go about doing it?

 

[Jawnsunn]

Well, your background can SORT OF pull off the parallax effect you want to get. You need to split up your layers of your background to create that illusion of depth though. After that, you have to make each layer lag behind the player, with farther layers moving slower than closer layers.

For example, Emerald Hill Zone in Sonic 2:




As you can see in the background, flowers scroll faster than the hills and ocean to create that depth.

Sorry if I worded this to the point where it's a bit unreadable.