Game & Map Screenshots 4

[Makio-Kuta]

Hey! I haven't posted here in eons! Well, I spent all day working on just the title screen for my game, so time to brag about it! Err, well it's the first time I did anything like this before, so what do you guys think? Did it turn out well? Beginners luck? Or am I blinded by pride that I can't see how bad it is?


Behold, my title screen!

I saw your status, I think when you posted this I was at work and I know I had some thoughts, but no good way to type them at the time. First thought was 'why is the title on there twice?' feels redundant. I like the colours and the logo stands out nicely from the background, which is good. I think that perhaps tightening the logo up a bit would make things look a bit more balanced out overall though. It's taking up a lot of space right now. Try bringing the words closer together and making that little squiggle line a little less tall and I think that would help a lot. Don't worry too much about overlapping elements of the logo with each other.


And then, with it being less tall, you can make better use of the overall space on your screen by pulling the logo down from the top some. Empty space is just as good as filled space.

 

[Chaos Avian]

Just a few screens from me~

 

[Makio-Kuta]

I love the look of that town, Chaos. The colours are all so easy on the eyes together. A part of me wonders how it would look if you added a bit more of a cyan blue to the windows so it brought all the blues in the image together though, but that's like tiny little nitpick. I really love it either way.


Nice work on the battler too! Though, she seems a bit like she is falling over. I'm not sure how big your original file is for the image and whether or not you'll suffer a quality loss from rotating her counterclockwise a bit, but might be something to watch out for for future battlers. I enjoy the dynamic use of black for shading in your art though; it really draws your eyes to the person talking and then, subsequently, to the text.

 

[Chaos Avian]

@Makio-Kuta: Thanks for comments!~ The choice for the dynamic art for portraits is due to the some-what dark nature surrounding the game, plus I wasn't sure how the flooring would look to others with the modern-punkish setting. Plus I made a rotation to the battler and it does look much better~ (Hooray 1000+ resolution xD)

 

[EFizzle]

Thanks Makio! I'll see what I can do to change it up based on your feedback!  And funny thing, the vertical name was just a spontaneous addition... I think it looks cool... (Beginner here, haha) I may end of animating it so it scrolls downwards, and the little sparkles dance a bit, if I have the time though, who knows.

Oh and Chaos, I don't see the point of having your tiny sprites standing around on the battle field. They clash terribly with the large graphics, (which look great by the way). I'd consider just plain removing them. Just my 2 cents.

 

[T.Bit]

This is the main floor of the protagonist's home using the basic DS resource pack. The roof tiles can be passed under where doorways should be.



And here is the house outside. What do you guys think?

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

@Chaos - unless that enemy is a giant, I'll agree with Yonma that the sprites look out of place in there...


@Irili - The outside and the inside doesn't seem to reflect each other... like you have the door on the right side with only a few spaces behind it, but the doorway on the inside is at the middle and has A LOT of space behind it...

 

[B.Ultimus]

@Chaos - Your town is futuristic and sharp...great job with what you've done.  You improved greatly from the battler.  I don't know how I feel about the actors being on screen though... it makes them feel very VERY small, more smaller than usual...it might be the combination of the large battler, and the door in the background.

@Irili -  Good starts with your maps.  The inside, while the carpet suggests movement between one room and another, took me a few moments to figure out.  Players may struggle with this as well...perhaps have an npc pass through every once in a while to suggest that you can go through?  Or maybe even change the color of the roofing?  Unsure about this one.  Your outside is a good start, but right now is very blocky and empty.  Feel free to add more objects, and break up the stone ledges a bit more.

 

[Minnow]

Testing out some custom tiles I've been working on in game
Still working on adding shadows and blending the road into the grass.

 

[Kes]

@Irili

I think consistency helps the player.  For the rooms on the left you have a piece of carpet on both sides of the door (at least, that's what I assume is going on) so the player has a strong visual hint about where to go to access those rooms.  For the room on the right there is no such visual clue.  Where do I access it?

Engr. Shana's point, though is an important one.  You have given the external house a distinctive shape.  There needs to be some correlation between it and your interior map.  It doesn't have to be exact, but there needs to be enough for the player to feel that these 2 belong to the same location. 

 

[ipei]

@Minnow

It's so good!

I love the taste of your tiles.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

@Irili - if that inside is actually the left side of the house ( which I guess it is), you should at least have a path from the mid-lower rug that leads to the right since from the outside, the door is on the right...


though normally, a house like that would have the entrance on the right (on the direction of the small part where the door is)... but again, that is "normal"...


so at least make a path to the door so that it's clear that the inside map is actually the inside of that house...


@Minnow - ah, those pixels... so cute... reminds me of the Harvest moon games on DS

 

[T.Bit]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I added a small "mud room" to keep consistency with the interior of the house and exterior. I also added a cat to the inside of the house. The little guy will move between the hallway and the dining room to show the player this is possible. I also added some stuff to the exterior of the house.

What do you guys think?

 

[Bloodmorphed]

@Irili

Looking better! I'm liking those tiles, is that modified version or the RTP? Or your own tiles? Anyways the only thing I'd have to say is the red part above the door. I know what you were trying to do, but for me it doesn't quite look right.

 

[Stridah]

@minnow that is a nice tile set.

@ everyone else this post will be long and image intensive sorry in advance LOL!

Here is the town map that i have posted plenty of times for reference, i really like this map do not want feedback but you can use it as a base for the indoor images.

Spoiler

Originally i had done my indoors with cliff ceiling tiles, i had mixed reviews on this as it seemed to confuse some people (please not the basis on this map is that the buildings where chiseled out of the stone in the cliffs.  Here is the original image.

Spoiler

Based on some feedback i played with using a darker floor tile and a normal ceiling tile here is the latest version.  I may make one more version leaving the walls as cliff tiles with cliff ceiling tiles and see how it looks.

Spoiler

 

[Kes]

@Stridah

Darkening those floors was definitely a good idea.  Makes the whole thing hang together much better.

I was one of those who was perfectly happy with the cliff ceiling tile, and still can't understand how/why people found it confusing when it's a standard tile.  So keep that in mind when I say that, for me, the change to normal ceiling tiles doesn't work.  It removes all suggestion that this has been carved out of a cliff.  This now, for me, looks like any 'normal' building except that there are no windows.

 

[T.Bit]

@Bloodmorphed: Those tiles and characters are from the DS resource pack. It's a beautiful pack and I love the art style. Thanks for the feedback. I'll play around with it some more.

 

[B.Ultimus]

@Minnow - AHHHH! OLD SCHOOL! I love it!

 

[Allerka]

@Stridah: I didn't think the rock tiles were confusing, they just didn't seem to blend well with the wood walls. Otherwise they looked fine to me. The new look strikes me as more odd knowing it's inside a cliff, because there's no sense of that at all. I would definitely look at rock walls or some way to tweak the graphics to blend them together.

I've been working on the exterior village map for that house. Still pretty early, I mostly just have basic blocking and layout established. Thus far, how does it look?

Spoiler

I'm going for a rural logging/farming village look, with most of the plot- or game-relevant buildings designed to stand out, such as the military academy at the top, an armory, a school, a tavern/inn, an item shop, a smith, a temple, main character houses, etc.

 

[Bloodmorphed]

This is not a map, but I think it should still go here.

How does it look? Is the font okay? Need to be bigger or smaller lettering? Also I was debating on removing the border completely and just let it look like a normal piece of old paper.