xoferew

The "Demon Realm" is just going to be one map in my game, but it will be the most otherworldly so I'd like to get feedback on the graphics. I'm trying to go for alien/creepy/beautiful. I don't need comments on the actual mapping right now, I'm just seeing how the graphics look in various combinations. You can't tell from these screenshots but some of the plant life (?) changes color or flickers with light. Thanks for any input.

Those autotile tables are pretty easy to recolor. There must be recolors for download somewhere. If not, and if you can't do it yourself, I'll bet you could request certain colors and someone would be happy to do it for you.

I'm kind of wondering, does your game have giant screws in it? If so, great, but if not, why not work on a plant or a rock or a bench or something that you will be able to use?

The autotiles in the A tilesets are tricky but for everything else you can just paste your own 32 pixel square or smaller graphics over graphics in an existing tileset, save it with a different name, and import it into your game. Say you edited dungeon_b. Then under "database" you can copy the dungeon tileset to a new slot and rename the new one "edited_dungeon" or whatever, and keep the a and c tiles but change the b tile to your new edited b set. when you make a map you can pick "edited_dungeon" to be the tileset for that map (under map properties). In this example below, I have made changes to the c file so that one has a different name (for my bunny tunnels) and the whole thing is called Dungeon Bun.

Nice start! Metal generally has a lot of contrast. Look at the RTP bars of silver and shovel and such. If you are using mostly RTP then put your creations into a map along with RTP stuff and look at how those things are shaded with a light source from the upper left, often with a shadow around the base. Is your screw standing on its end, or lying down? Are the details easy enough to see? With such tiny graphics we often have to sacrifice what it would actually look like so we can tell what it is supposed to be. Many people start by altering existing game graphics rather than starting from scratch.

Teacher gets a cushy chair! Maybe you should move all the desks up one so the lower door isn't blocked? What is the room with the big red carpet?

When I was your age we didn't have seasons like Spring. The earth hadn't started moving yet.

The icon you made looks pretty but I can't picture how you'd wield it with any control. Does your whole hand go in there, or just a finger? And how is the blade attached? (I'm not criticizing your graphic, I'm just curious about the weapon you based it on.)

When I was your age we told those over-hunting young whippersnappers to get the heck off our gosh-danged consarned lawn!

When I was your age we made our time machines out of DeLoreans.

And we didn't have proper ponies, we had hyracotherium!

Back in my day we only raised offspring of different species because we liked the challenge! (And because we'd offered up our own biological offspring to the White Walkers.)

Back in MY day when I was about 150 years old I had to change little toddler Lonequeso's diapers after he had an accident at the giraffe petting zoo because he got so freaked out when one of them licked him with its big purple tongue.

You know you want to give me feedback about these trees. Right? Right? Please?

In my day we carved the sprites out of Ivory soap bars.

Thanks!! I wish *I* could do the awesome drawing *you* do. You're right about the trunk. The trees started out much more stylized and when I made the leaves more realistic I didn't change the trunks. Lonequeso: You better keep a leash on that Charizard or I might just leap down out of a birch tree and eat him.

What do you think looks ugly about the outside? That the roof is so big? I have to say I find the interior confusing. Because you're using a cutaway style that I'm not used to seeing and also I can't tell if the back wall is straight across or if parts of it go back further. It seems odd to see the floor behind the headboard of the bed as if the bed is pulled way out from the wall and the space back there is wasted. And are those wall-mounted cabinets over the stove and sink? But they have feet, as if they're sitting on the floor? And there's nowhere you can really put the table and stools where they won't look in the way. As Lonequeso says, there's a reason interiors are typically made larger than exteriors. All those problems would go away and (in my opinion) your house would be great if you gave yourself a liiiittle more space.

Is there room in there for all the furniture and for the people to walk around? I think people generally find when they try to make the inside and outside proportional that the outside has to end up so big that it's a pain to get around the town map. Can you show us an inside map with furnishings?

Hey, I can be demented and ruthless too you know! (...Just in a fuzzy way...)

Aw, she's looking great. I love how she's attractive, but not because of makeup and long eyelashes and a giant chest. She looks confident and kind but strong. *Sings* "And that's what makes you beautiful!"

Sounds good, but you might want to alert the player to the fact that their choices may randomly have different results so they won't get a rare death and think they made the "wrong" choice. I liked how they did it in the sims -- once in awhile when your sim is at work you get a choice card but you get familiar with the random weightings and you realize this one has a strong chance of a little gain and a small chance of a huge loss, so you may choose to skip it, while another card may have a balanced chance to gain or lose money, so you might choose to take a risk on that one. In other words, it's up to the player to take a chance and shake things up, or ignore it.

Looks like a great start! You really got the trees looking round - I tend to make mine too flat and have to fix them later. Some more shading on the right side of the green part of the tree would make them look even more three dimensional. The texture on the dirt road is a good small size but you might want to shrink the size of the grass texture. What program are you using for the graphics? I think making a game look distinctive is so important, and the graphics don't have to be amazingly skillful art as long as they are solidly done and look like they go together, so good for you for taking the plunge!

I agree! Graphics have always been hugely important. They were never seen as simple. I remember the first time I saw Pong on a friend's TV. It was amazing. How can you make a square of light move around on your TV screen? And control where it goes?! I remember an old JRPG (Legend of Mana?) where you got shot up into the sky from a cannon and got to see the graphics transition to the whole continent below you - I had no idea that was possible! I remember the first Flight Simulator where you could maneuver UNDER a sketchy wire frame bridge. The first games that added animation to the background. The mind-blowing graphical detail of those Final Fantasy 7 video cutscenes... I remember the delighted terror of the tent coming to life and trying to kill me in Mother 2 - how could background art suddenly become a monster? Game developers have always been pushing graphics capabilities and being as innovative and as realistic as possible.

Are you going to have potions and protective gear and such? Or will you not need them?