The VG Resource

I got an idea for a game based on silhouettes. You would be a ball, (I used Gooey in the Smash Project for a reference.), and you played through a platformer. Everything is either composed of Black, White, and a grey color directly in between. (Only these three colors.) The greys will be used probably for effects, like smoke, etc.

Heres my character:

I added a hurt animation, and an idle.

First Enemy, he would be found in a City themed level:


Im not sure yet if this my character will be able to attack, or if this will simply be an "avoid everything at all costs" kind of game.

Im working on an alternate run/walk, an idle animation, and other basic movements.

Black for platforms and such, with gray for a background and white for effects would probably mix together a bit better.

I like the concept, but I think it might be used a bit much.
As for criticism on the sprite, the animation would run smoother if you cut out frame five.
Thats all I got for now.

I dont think im using that walk animation, im going to use a slight bounce for movement, i like the rolling idea, but it would be hard to animate if they eyes jump from where they are rolling, back to the center of his face. It wouldnt look good.

This was inspired by the two coolest Donkey Kong Country Returns levels ive played. Sunset Shores and Foggy Fumes.

a ball has to be the most cheap and lazy enemy desing you could try.

Its not an enemy, its the main character.

Also, not everything is this simple, just the character.

a ball has to be the most lazy and uninspired main character desing you could pick.

so everything except what the player or viewer is going to focus on is going to be detailed?

....Pretty much. You make it seem worse than i thought it was. I just wanted the game to have character physics like when you play as Gooey in runouw's smash demo. Thats pretty much the inspiration for this game, that, and the DKCR levels i mentioned above.

are you aware that making a completely black character in an absolutely gray enviroment is, to an extent, a way to avoid working in stuff like shading and linework? i certainly can't complain on what direction you might want to take, but after you said you wanted to improve and the your spriting skills seriusly, though you would at least work on something more elaborated than this.

I don't think you're being totally fair on the guy, granted they're not exactly the most elaborate graphics in terms of the sprites themselves, but plenty of games have been done in silhouette to amazing effect, if it's done right it can give it a sense of style you just couldn't get even with the most detailed graphics.
The real trick to pulling something like that off is to hint at detail, give people the right basic shapes and movement so they can fill in the blanks themselves.

Only other thing I would say is that if you're trying to go that route, your animations have to be smooth, and I mean REALLY smooth, if it doesn't feel like it flows effortlessly then it will just look like a mess, I've recently been working on something that isn't so different myself, and I can tell you right now it's actually much harder to make things look "right" when you have so few visual cues and points of reference.