Seeing if there's interest in a tall sprites DLC

[WaywardMartian]

Hey, been building some of these tall-but-look-like-they-fit-the-RTP sprites for purpose of maybe I can submit them to the Degica store. So I'm waving around some samples to see if you lot here think it's a worthwhile attempt.

Ideally:
- Yes, there'd be basic face sets included.
- Also there'd be recolours of skin and outfits.
- Static battlers for monster characters, or maybe everyone, why not?

Not happening ever:
- Animated sideview battlers.

Anyway, here's a proof-of-concept for what the sprites would look like. Not necessarily these guys but I wanted to put together a basic adventuring party just to show off the style.

 

[Shaz]

I'd be interested in taller sprites if all the following were true:
- there were enough of them in the same style to make a full game, or there is a generator with enough variety to make a full game
- they matched the style of the tilesets I'm using

That means you'd probably have to release a fairly large number for me to be interested, but you've got to start somewhere, and a smaller number would be good for some of the smaller challenge games we get from time to time where you force yourself to use a small number of characters.

 

[WaywardMartian]

That means you'd probably have to release a fairly large number for me to be interested, but you've got to start somewhere, and a smaller number would be good for some of the smaller challenge games we get from time to time where you force yourself to use a small number of characters.

Totally understandable. The current plan is to put together something with a mix of heroes, villagers, and villains so I can have a basic pack to wave at Degica, something like sixteen different characters. If they bite, then expand. The dream is to build an entire world, but better to not sink an entire world's amount of time in without knowing if there's interest first.

 

[Schlangan]

Concerning the generator, mine (free) can accommodate any format, so this could easily be implemented. This shouldn't be an issue for that part.

The lack of sideview for your sprites, however, may be a rebuttal for some people.

 

[Candacis]

I think, this is a wonderful idea! I like the colorscheme and the look of them, but for my taste they are a bit too tall.

I also like the diverse range of skintones. That is something that the original rtp sprites are sorely lacking.

16 sprites would not be enough. Having made tall sprites myself, I know how timeconsuming they are, so I get that you need to figure out, if this could be successful or not.
Face graphics for every character is a huge plus, because those two assets go hand in hand. I even think that they are necessary. I'm not so much bothered about sideview battlers.

 

[hayahay]

I always love tall sprites (specially the XP one) and like what Shaz said if its plenty enough to make a game people will surely be interested.

 

[Anyone]

Not sure if Degica will bite, but it shouldn't surprise you I'm a fan of tall sprites.

You may have trouble with creating enough varied assets for people to go "Oh yes, I'll be able to outfit an entire game with this."

My suggestion: make parts, not character outfits, and use Schlangan's generator.
That's what me and K2Loid are currently doing. We can still turn the part layers into additional outfits, but allowing people to combine belts, shoes, gloves, pants & more is incredibly useful and with Schlangan's Generator, you don't have to deal with some limited gradient masks, allowing you to allow users to use recolor in detail every part of clothing.

Those things will, by their very nature, allow vastly more combinations & different outfits, and also allow even novice sprites easy edits of existing parts to come together neatly in the generator.

 

[WaywardMartian]

My suggestion: make parts, not character outfits, and use Schlangan's generator.

You say this like I am not the Reigning Monarch of Modularity. That is totally what I'm doing, though paper dolls in Photoshop than using the generator. I do love me some character generators but I get more control doing it by hand.

( Though that reminds me, I've been lurking the generator project Discord and I got some stuff I keep meaning to put together for it. )

 

[Anyone]

You say this like I am not the Reigning Monarch of Modularity. That is totally what I'm doing, though paper dolls in Photoshop than using the generator. I do love me some character generators but I get more control doing it by hand.

( Though that reminds me, I've been lurking the generator project Discord and I got some stuff I keep meaning to put together for it. )

Well, you can check out the SV templates K2loid is working on. If you'd like to make SV battlers for those templates for your supertall sprites, you're welcome to do so. It would probably make it even more interesting for people if there are SV battlers.

In fact, I don't mind providing super-tall character slots in the TAB generator base for you. They could have a couple of base assets, plus whatever RTP stuff you want people to be able to combine with yours.
Then you could, either through degica, or by publishing content packs on itch.io or similar yourself, allow people to buy your handcrafted parts to be used within the generator.

That'd also allow you to draw on whatever assets we make for facesets & battlers - you'd just have to introduce a variant that's compatible with your supertall sprites.

The only downside is that the creating parts stuff can be a bit finicky, since there's a couple of tricky things that pop up and requires a bit of time to work your way into the layer system. (e.g. shoes & boots, and how they're split up. It sounds super-easy to have a boot layer, but when you look at skirts, pants and then a character without any pants, and you wonder how to get boots that work on all three characters without the wrong stuff overlapping or getting cut off - well, 's not easy. )

 

[Sharm]

Layering is a huge pain in any generator or paper doll, especially for linked items with a front and a back like long hair and cloaks. The best is if the generator itself allows you to change the layering of an item, but it doesn't happen often. This is going to always be an advantage for art programs.

At the moment there are a pretty good variety of tall base options to choose from, especially if you include things found outside RM, so for me to be interested in a new base it'd have to be both visually appealing and have a lot outside the base adding to it. Like a lot of interesting clothing items, beautiful hair styles, or fluid animations. Just being tall isn't enough right now. With yours the proportions are appealing, and the designs are really nice. I think you'll get a good amount of positive attention, so if you're interested in doing this long term, I say you should go for it. The color ramps are a bit weak though, the outlines are sometimes quite harsh and the rest of the color ramp is close in range both in contrast and in hue, so they look soft in comparison to the linework. Here, I've done an edit on one of the characters to show what I mean.


Yeah, it's not a huge change, but sometimes the difference between looking "pro" and "amateur" is in the small things like this. That difference will be a difference in sales numbers, so you should do what you can to efficiently stay on the "pro" side. Since you haven't sold anything yet, now is the best time to tweak it carefully so you have a good standard to be consistent to.

 

[WaywardMartian]

The only downside is that the creating parts stuff can be a bit finicky, since there's a couple of tricky things that pop up and requires a bit of time to work your way into the layer system. (e.g. shoes & boots, and how they're split up. It sounds super-easy to have a boot layer, but when you look at skirts, pants and then a character without any pants, and you wonder how to get boots that work on all three characters without the wrong stuff overlapping or getting cut off - well, 's not easy. )

Which is why I build stuff in Photoshop where I don't have to figure out layers that work in every situation. Thank you for the offer on the extra base slots, but I am nowhere near that point yet.

The color ramps are a bit weak though, the outlines are sometimes quite harsh and the rest of the color ramp is close in range both in contrast and in hue, so they look soft in comparison to the linework.

The bonus joke is, aside from the darker skin colours, I straight-up pulled colours from the MV sprites so I'd have a starting point. ( They do shade things differently, so I ended up washed-out. ) But, yeah, I see what you mean there and now have a reminder to watch out for that when I come up with my own colour ramps rather than just pulling from the RTP. Colouring by pixels is still fairly new to me.

 

[41728280]

Of course I like it, but it's difficult to form a complete collection

 

[Sharm]

I thought I recognized the ramps, guess I was right. Still, that is pretty funny. I think the trick is that different ramps will be better or worse depending on how exactly they're used. I think the ramps work better on MV's sprites because they have larger areas of flat colors, so the shading itself is distinctive shapes. In the smaller spaces like the body it's not enough room too even realize that there's shading, so the low contrast doesn't matter too much. Your sprites don't have that setup, your shading style is a bit more blended so you need a bolder ramp to make it feel more rounded.

Sorry, I'm getting a little off topic here, I'll leave it at this.

 

[WaywardMartian]

Sorry, I'm getting a little off topic here, I'll leave it at this.

No problem. The advice was totally appreciated.