Heart of Darkness

[Skullduggery Studios]

Okay, so got back from camp last Sunday, and...

No progress on the game whatsoever. I really need to kick myself in the seat of the pants...

Sometime this month, I'm gonna post the beginning, just to see if I'm overdoing it on the tutorial, cuz I did mention earlier that the game's supposed to cater to EVERYONE, including those who have never played a computer game before, but I think that's really slowing it down, seeing as how I'm also tutoring the player on the use of the interface.

Wow. Now, THAT is a run-on.

[Skullduggery Studios]

Well, I went and redid the graphics majorly. Opinions?

[NeoSpade]

The darker shade on the character's skin is too dark compared to the lighter tone, and probably just personal preferance here; but one arm seems much larger than the other.

Apart from that the graphics are decent.

[Baconlabs]

The darker shade on the character's skin is too dark

I read this just after reading HEART OF DARKNEEESSSSS in a death metal voice

But anyway, when it comes to skin tones, I think having a sharper contrast works better for small, small graphics like walkabouts. I thought the skin looked fine.
The eyes, on the other hand, seem too light. The irises just kind of blur in between the skin and the... sclerae.

[Skullduggery Studios]

but one arm seems much larger than the other.

That's SUPPOSED to just be perspective, cuz it's in front, and the other one's behind, but I obviously need to make that clearer...

Apart from that the graphics are decent.

Decent? Any more suggestions to make them better than decent?

The eyes, on the other hand, seem too light. The irises just kind of blur in between the skin and the... sclerae.

Oops... Didn't even see that.


Actually, the whole game's gonna have to be redone, cuz my computer crashed (yeah, I'm on another one right now...). The computer that crashed had a missing CD drive, a dysfunctional USB hub, and apparently write-protected files. (I hooked the hard drive up to 2 different computers and could not alter the files in any way.)

So... I lost all my work. 'Sprobably better, though. I heard somewhere that the more times you redo something, the better it turns out to be. (Unless that thing you're doing is that danged game level you just... can't... frickin'... BEAT!!! Then the more you play it, the worse you get.)

[Baconlabs]

Goodness, you seem to have taken the loss rather well.

If you have to start anew, I'd recommend using placeholder (or maybe Vikings) graphics on the things you find most boring to draw - that way you can move on to rebuilding your maps and cutscenes and such faster.

[Sh4d0ws]

First of all, please don't upload screenshots with Jpeg artifacts.

And about your actual graphics: They're decent looking. The game certainly has a distinctive styling, which is always good. But they're also very simple, and lack flair. There are also some flaws, such as the horrible scale and sheer monotony of the second shot. They should be fine for the most part, they're just unimpressive. If you really want to impressive, try making alight adjustments to the style, such as using more complex and natural shapes vs. the flat-primitive style you currently use. Use more eye-catching colors, add more general detail, add more variety and more interesting things to your maps, smooth out shading and lighting, etc.

There's quite a bit you could do; but do you really want to do it? As personal advice, I think you should stick to the current, simplistic style, because having an extra 2 - 3 (Or more) hours of story and gameplay probably outweighs more impressive graphics. and the graphics aren't really bad to start with.

[NeoSpade]

Decent? Any more suggestions to make them better than decent?

There's something higher than decent?

[Skullduggery Studios]

Goodness, you seem to have taken the loss rather well.

You have to expect crap from a crappy computer.\


@Sh4d0ws:

What's wrong with JPEG, and what would be better?

I was planning on adding pictures to the walls and stuff, just to add more to it, but that's kinda nixed due to PC crash.

The complex style does take a little longer, but not by much, so which style do you guys prefer? It's really no strain to do either.

There's something higher than decent?

Lawl.

[Baconlabs]

What's wrong with JPEG, and what would be better?

"JPEG Artifacts" are what happens when you save an image as a JPEG - the colors become impure and get a bit scrambled, and suddenly a big red square with one color has a thousand.
Me, I've always preferred PNGs.

EDIT: I just tested the "red square" thing, and I was wrong. If a JPEG has only one color, it's fine. If it has two or more colors, they'll get blended and then we've got a problem.

[Skullduggery Studios]

H'okay. Will post pics in PNG from now on.