Shadow Wave (previously an unnamed RPG)

[SuperGoomba]

This game is an RPG I am working on for a school project, using RPG Maker VX Ace. Here's some information, including some terrible attempts by me to be funny.

Gameplay:

Spoiler

Battles:

Spoiler

There are four commands that can be used in battle, Attack, Defend, Special, and Song.

Attack and Defend, attack and defend. Not really much else to say about 'em.

Special attacks work like in other RPGs. They're special. And they're attacks. And they use special magical point thingies (called Special Points in this game, yay originality). However, if you use the same attack multiple times in a row, they become weaker, and build up less Resonance. (ATM they don't, but I'm working on it.)

Resonance is used for Songs, which are like special moves... but different. They use up all Resonance (which is built up by all other battle commands, and goes from 0-100%), and are more powerful more the more Resonance they use.

Another important element of combat is Skill Upgrading. You like skills? Good. Then you'll like skill upgrading. Probably. The skills you learn through leveling up are only the "base" skill. In order to make it more powerful, you have to use other special magical point thingies (called... SKILL POINTS!). Each skill has three (maybe four?) levels.
Here's a boring example;
Power Smash: Deals 150% of basic attack damage.
Power Smash SP: Deals 175% of basic attack damage.
Power Smash EX: Deals 200% of basic attack damage.

Also, do you like shiny things? Cause they're in this game. They're called Shards, and they do stuff. Like, well I don't really know yet, but they're special. And they do special things. They come in two flavours. Major Shards do major things. Minor shards do minor things. I'll post some examples later.

Also, I would really like to add Paper Mario style action commands, but unfortunately I haven't been able to find a script that adds this to engine, and I can't script. I might try and learn, but I have a limited time frame so it probably won't happen.

Overworld:

Spoiler

Jumping. That is all. And falling into pits/water, and moving platforms.

Story:

Spoiler

Yay, cliched backstory time!

NOTE: I might change the races of the two groups of gods later.

In the beginning, there were two god-like races; the Lux, and the Umbra.

The Lux were beings of light and creation, whereas the Umbra were beings of shadow and destruction. The Lux created all the realms in the universe, while the Umbra created the void between them.

In order to watch over the many realms, the Lux created the Elder race, and sent one to inhabit each of these realms, and observe their growth. The Umbra were allowed to occasionally cause destruction to these realms, in order to preserve a balance between light and shadow.

However, the Umbra became jealous of the Lux's creations full of life, and began to create a great army made of pure shadow in secret, built to destroy the Lux's realms. A great war was waged between the inhabitants of the many realms and the shadow creatures.

It appeared as though all the realms would be lost to shadow, but the Elder race, with the help of the Lux, were able to create a great weapon, which drove back the Umbra's army. However, in order for this weapon to function, the Lux had the seal themselves within the crystals that powered it.

After the Umbra's army was defeated, the crystals containing the Lux were scattered across the universe, so that the weapon could not be misused.

Anyway, onto the main reason I posted this here, the sprites. There's not a lot at the moment, but here they are anyway.

Tiles (currently working on a better palette):

Spoiler

(I hate the scarecrow. I'm going to make a new one. Also, I'm having problems making a grass tile. I've tried a few times, but they keep ending up looking terrible, to me at least.)

Characters:

Spoiler

Flurble (Playable)


Adult Male Shrubling (NPC)

[Sengir]

It could just be my school's monitor (which is already fairly cheap), but the wood is way too neon orange and the blue/gray is way too dark in comparison. I'd recommend using another palette to get the hang of spriting in general before moving on to color selection.

I haven't seen too many RPG's with jumping (except the Mario ones), so it'll be interesting to see how it works in a fantasy setting.

[SuperGoomba]

It could just be my school's monitor (which is already fairly cheap), but the wood is way too neon orange and the blue/gray is way too dark in comparison. I'd recommend using another palette to get the hang of spriting in general before moving on to color selection.

I haven't seen too many RPG's with jumping (except the Mario ones), so it'll be interesting to see how it works in a fantasy setting.

I'm working on the tile colours, because some of them were pretty horrible, such as the ones you pointed out.

I only really added the jumping as a point of difference from other generic fantasy rpgs, so I haven't really thought about what I'll do with it yet.

Also,

Flurble battle sprite.

[SuperGoomba]

I've just about finished Flurble's battle sprites.


Poses from top to bottom are;
Idle
Move forward
Move back
Use item/magic (note: when using magic, he will have a purple glow)
Hurt (note: will also be used for when he is falling down after being K.O'ed)
Victory (note: frames 3 and 4 are for when he is jumping up/falling down)

I just need to make the K.O'ed pose. The notes are what I can do within the actual game engine.

[Previous]

Have a quick edit to illustrate some thoughts.



I think you should increase the contrast and merge a few similar colours (I cut it down from 13 to 9). The shading of the head and leave body doesn't match - the head is shaded on the right, but the body is just as bright there and should be shaded, too, to have a consistent lightsource. You can use your outline colour to apply deeper shading to some areas, too. The other ear should still be visible judging from the eye position. The stem should be less bright as it's fully in the shade - plus, sopme frames use a dark outline at the bottom, but others don't. The front-facing sprite's faces look a bit pillow shaded because you applied a band of shade on the left side. The nose doesn't match between the front- and side-facing sprites, either.

[SuperGoomba]

Have a quick edit to illustrate some thoughts.



I think you should increase the contrast and merge a few similar colours (I cut it down from 13 to 9). The shading of the head and leave body doesn't match - the head is shaded on the right, but the body is just as bright there and should be shaded, too, to have a consistent lightsource. You can use your outline colour to apply deeper shading to some areas, too. The other ear should still be visible judging from the eye position. The stem should be less bright as it's fully in the shade - plus, sopme frames use a dark outline at the bottom, but others don't. The front-facing sprite's faces look a bit pillow shaded because you applied a band of shade on the left side. The nose doesn't match between the front- and side-facing sprites, either.

Left: Mine - Right: Previous

I changed the shading on the body (which is actually meant to be fur, not leaves), and added some extra contrast. Also, the "nose" is actually his mouth, so that's why it looks different in some frames. Now that I think about it, I don't know why I thought the shading was correct when it clearly wasn't. I'll work on fixing up the other frames now.

EDIT:

I fixed up the shading on the rest of the frames, and made a new 4 frame walk cycle.
Note: The victory pose frames will not play in the order shown, I just didn't want to make the sheet bigger than it needed to be by showing duplicate frames.

[SuperGoomba]

I've started the battle sprites for the main playable character, using an enlarged version of a sprite made with RPG Maker's built in character generator as a base for the lineart.

[Previous]

Super-long gummy arms! The front hair bangs look quite jaggy and are a tad too long and there's a bunch of banding on the hair and arm shading (don't just shade along the edges, but try to show the volume instead. You don't need to cramp shading into every single small corner, this applies mostly to the bangs).

[SuperGoomba]

Super-long gummy arms! The front hair bangs look quite jaggy and are a tad too long and there's a bunch of banding on the hair and arm shading (don't just shade along the edges, but try to show the volume instead. You don't need to cramp shading into every single small corner, this applies mostly to the bangs).

I made the front bangs a bit shorter and got rid of the jags. I also toned down the shading a bit, fixed up the shading on his face (under the hair), and moved his right (screen left) eye back a bit. Now that you point it out the banding on the arms and goggles is really obvious and looks pretty horrible, so I removed that.

I've made an idle animation for him too;


BTW thanks for your crits Previous, they've been very helpful

[Previous]

NP~

I'd say he shouldn't move back and forth as much and the hair should react to the movement.

Maybe these should be moved to Sprite Discussion so they get more attention by other pixelers?