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Because they discuss what works, but not WHY. Well, they sort of discuss why, but its a very literal why, not a very conceptual why. (if that makes sense?...)
This tutorial is NOT end-all be-all. I will write it assuming everyone knows there are cases when I'll say DON'T DO THIS but in a particular situation, it will be the right thing to do. I really mean, DON'T DO THIS UNTIL YOU HAVE ENOUGH PRACTICE TO PULL IT OFF. Or, really, DELETE IT IF YOU TRY IT AND IT DOESN'T WORK.
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So. Lets start from the basics. How long did you spend on your grass tile? Longer than 2 seconds?
Thats a waste of your time.
SECTION 1: THIS IS IMPORTANT: THE GRASS TILE IS NOT IMPORTANT.
This is basically (it might be a different color of green) the only grass tile I will ever use in the OHR:
(at least until the OHR gets a bigger walkabout sprite size)
Whaaaaaat? But its sooooo boring. I know, I know. But look:
(from vampiducki's blu eternal, posted elsewhere on the forums. Beautiful, beautiful looking game, and this is even an old screen shot)
And here is my first concept that i don't think anyone explains to people who are just starting out:
You need to draw attention to the important things. This means, the player, and the places the player can go, and to a slightly lesser extent, the stuff you want them looking at for immersion. Grass doesn't have to be a solid color, but it needs to be the background. You don't want people looking at it.
I know-- but-but--Secret of Mana. Yes. The grass was lovely. They could afford to do this because:
1.The sprites were bigger. In the OHR, that style of grass is the size of an average walkabout FIST.
2.For all of its visual complexity, it was very low color. The highlights were not terribly bright either, and the game was very very bright.
--but the kicker:
3.The rest of the game was EVEN MORE BEAUTIFUL. When you played that game, before you started making your own RPGs, you never thought "wow look at that grass!" because, as detailed and awesome as it was, it was still very clearly the least engaging part of the screen to your eyes.
OHR example:
From Lucier's (also very pretty) genesis (also an older screenshot)
The long grass is slightly distracting to me, but I don't have the time to make or find a better example. Its not a point-killer so I'm using this screenshot.
1.The walkabouts have outlines, while nothing on the map does. (this is a great design decision, i think, but i do tend to enjoy outlines on my tiles in my own games)
2.The houses are primarily solid colors, in contrast to the grass
This serves to make the hero and the places she can go stand out more immediately. This is most important. And...
3.The trees are beautiful so no one is examining the grass and thinking "man, those blades of grass are flipping HUGE!"
Ok. So this seems like a long time spent on grass mostly to convince you to just use a solid green square, but look at what happens when a player doesn't stand out enough from the background:
(Sorry Mogri. It was a fun game even though I sucked at it, but it had this problem a lot)
If that doesn't make it clear, I am not just talking about the grass tile. I'm talking about any tile which has nearly no significance. ESPECIALLY a tile which has nearly no significance but is used far more often than any other tile.
This brings me to my next point.
SECTION 2: DON'T JUST FILL THE SCREEN WITH A GROUND TILE
I know, I know: "Shakey, you haven't taught me ANYTHING about pixelling yet!" Trust me. I am getting you to the mindset you need to be in to start doing things right. First lets look back at Blu Eternal:
The right side of this picture is far, far superior to the left. Yes, this is mostly because those trees are awesome, but its also just because it has STUFF and it feels much more like a real place.
Yes, there are real places that are vast expanses of grass or brick. Why would you want to make someone walk at a movement speed of 4 through that? Maybe a better title, actually, for this section is...
SECTION 2:MAKE YOUR SETTINGS VISUALLY INTERESTING
Let me show you some bull i just threw together. Here's take 1:
This is gameplay minimum. Boring, but passable, enough to identify what everything is. But just a minute of thinking about a city building (chich is inexplicably in grass right now?) and i think:
"Wait. The roofs aren't totally flat, they have raised borders. Wait. Doors have frames. Wait. Windows come out from the wall. Wait. Symmetry is boring..."
This is about 1000x better, using really no artistic ability, no interesting ideas. Just common sense. Lets take it a step further...
Wait actually we won't because I'm out of time. Shame, too, because we need to take this about 3 more steps before the point of this section becomes clear. Tomorrow.
And yes, it will be a few more sections before I get to actually telling you how to make things look good. The problem is, you need to know WHY things 'look good.' And most people who are good at drawing/pixelling let people figure out the "common sense" stuff themselves, totally forgetting that it isn't even kind of common sense to someone who doesn't have that artistic sort of background.
