DDP's Sprite Workshop

[TheShyGuy]

I still recommend reading a book on C++ than relying on the videos since you're likely to get more in depth information, explanations and be told about subtle caveats. Though, goodluck! Whenever you get to the C++ dev part, it would be awesome if you kept a devlog of the more interesting parts!

[DarkGrievous7145]

This spritework is pretty nice!

[DragonDePlatino]

Here's a little mini-project I just finished! I wasn't all that happy with how the costume sprites looked in Super Mario Maker, so I took up the challenge of redoing them to be NES-authentic. This includes making the bottom halves of sprites symmetrical whenever possible, which is something SMB1 did to save on ROM space.



In retrospect, I think Nintendo may have made a wise choice in throwing out NES restrictions for the costumes...Even though their sprites clash a bit, they look better than these IMO.

Except for those lazy HG/SS edits. Screw whoever thought that was acceptable. 8I

[Gors]

yeah. while yours is more authentic, a ton of detail is lost. I for one prefer those that you made, but for character "branding", nintendo did better

[DragonDePlatino]

A little more progress on my Dragorogue mockup. I embellished the tiles, broke up the monotony of the background, drew some objects and added some wooden features. Everything here except for the walls/windows/pillars would be randomly generated, with the vines being random climbable objects.

Next I think I'll draw some enemy designs. Anyone have any suggestions? I'm looking for enemies and mythological creatures that would fit into a medieval setting. Preferably, something a little on the obscure side like Coatls or Jackalopes.

[Koh]

The chest lid looks bigger than the chest itself. That sort of thing would be okay if the game were topdown for perspective reasons, but...

The walls in the back seem to be of an axometric perspective too, with the tops being shown. It's comes off as jarring, as the foreground doesn't do the same and is instead full profile.

I think the walls should get darker until they reach a solid color state as they go inward, like this.


Adds more color variety (especially when combined with hue-shifting), but also breaks up the monotony.

[DragonDePlatino]

Here are some tweaks. I fixed the perspective of the back wall, gave the foreground its own ramp and added a fading effect along the edges of the walls. I also tweaked the designs of the climbable vines and pushable block.

I left the chest alone because I think I think the current silouette gives it some personality. The chests from Spelunky have lipped edges like that.

I'm also not sure I like the fading effect on the wall tiles. It looks nice, but its a lot of work and I'm going to be making a lot of tilesets. It also conflicts with the clean, bright look I was going for. Thanks for the feedback, though. I know for sure I'll be keeping the rest of the tweaks.

[Gors]

I don't like the climbable vines. They're too bushy - it doesn't give me the urge to climb it.

This is part of design - the objects must 'invite' the character to interact with it, and this is where design comes in mind.

For example, if I were the character, I'd never be able to climb on that vine. Reasons being 'they actually look like hanging bushes' and 'there's nowhere for me to hold on, just leaves'.

Let's take a look on other games and how they do that:



This is an example of climbable vine in OoT. As you can see, the vines are rugged and with branches everywhere. There are some leaves, but there's plenty of spaces for link to hang on.

Having a more obvious visual for the vines will help making your game intuitive.

[DragonDePlatino]

Thanks for the feedback! Here's something a little more sparse, vaguely modelled after Skyward Sword's vines:



I like the old design a lot more but this one seems more functional. I'll probably use this design for climbable vines and the old one for decoration.

EDIT:

Here's another idea! Something dense like the old design but a lot more vine-y.

Spoiler

[Gors]

I think you should combine both, I like the addition of brown vines and the detail of the second one

[DragonDePlatino]

UNDERTALE!!!



I'd like to do a thing like this, but maybe add some animations. I'm not very happy with my base animation, however. Diagonal-walking animations are super-hard in this low resolution...

[DragonDePlatino]

Whelp, seeing as nobody had much to say about the WIP, here's the final sprite!



I'm really happy with how this came out. I wasn't very satisfied with the diagonals at first, but I think they look pretty OK here.

EDIT:

Fixed image link; Added Papyrus and Sans.

[DragonDePlatino]

How're you folks doing this Christmas season? It's been pretty relaxing for me so far and the break from college has rekindled my motivation to pixel. I've been bouncing between several projects for the past few weeks and I think I finally found something that sticks.



In theme with my ongoing roguelike obsession, I decided to start work on a supermassive creative commons tileset. I'm trying to push myself and go for a more serious look than my usual work.

[Quirby64]

I like how these look, though my only complaint is that some of the enemies don't seem to be in the right perspective w/ each other (unless you wanted it that way). Example : The dragon and horse(?).

[DarkGrievous7145]

WOW

That's a pretty nice tileset!

only issues I really have are that you can clearly see the tile boundaries on the floor,
(Is this just because it is WIP?) and that the horizontal (I guess that's the right way to describe them???) doors seem taller than the others because of the perspective.

One definite suggestion though, perhaps some variety, like cracked or mossy variants, or something. A few more decoration elements also would be nice.