First background

[Pashers]

I just thought i'd post this image of my first background. I've decided to go for a game with little graphical detail, because i'm new at all this.

Here it is...

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/1431/backgroundtest2bb0.gif

Tell me what you think.

[Snarky]

Hey, that looks good! I think you've made a wise choice in the graphics style: simple, classic, easy on the eyes.

Only a few small things I'd work on:
-In this type of perspective, the inside side wall and the sidewalk lines should be parallel.
-The sign above the window is hard to read against the background texture. I would outline it with a 2 px border in light green.
-The handicapped sign is a little clumsy, especially the wheel part. Try to make the curve smoother.
-Bricks are usually laid with each row offset by half a length relative to the row below. Yours look very irregular.
-The color of the floor (or the amount of light on it) seems to change suddenly between the windows.
-The bar blends in with the floor. Try to use a more distinct color.
-The sidewalk has no height. Add an edge to it.
-You're inconsistent in your use of outlines. The tables, door, windows etc. have them, but the glasses, the stools, the doorknob and the sidewalk don't.
-Technically, given the perspective the things inside shouldn't be any smaller than the things outside. It'll probably look OK, though.
-The edge of the bar comes very close to aligning with the side of the window. I'd extend it a couple of pixels to avoid that.
-You might want to add a floor to the room behind the doorway.
-You use a gradient-heavy style. I don't have a problem with that (some people do), but you should probably add it to the door and maybe the sidewalk to remain consistent.

OK, so maybe A LOT of small things. Shouldn't be too much work, though.

[thebaddie]

yep something wrong with the interior (they are too detailed for this style?), for lights maybe you can manage them by layers

[egamer]

May I add that the inside is very hard to see through the windows.  Unless you intended it that way, I would use lighter colors with more contrast.

[monkey0506]

The first thing I noticed about this picture was...well...the text on the side of the building which is nigh on impossible to read.

But the second thing I noticed was that your "windows" seem less like windows into another room and more like paintings hanging on the wall. This is because of the shading around the border of the windows and the lack of depth. The way the windows are currently drawn the wall itself appears to be only a couple of inches thick.

The perspective is also horridly amiss. I'm not so much concerned with the size of the items inside the bar, as "it'll probably look OK" as Snarky said. However, if we look at for example the spacing between the slabs of concrete, we see that they are nearly as wide as the entire wall of the bar. Or if you prefer, the spacing is nearly as wide as the doorknob. I think in addition to the windows, the sidewalk and the parking space could definitely use some reworking. I don't mean to sound harsh, I'm just trying to provide ideas of what you could do to improve.

The only other thing that majorly caught my eye was that the bricks are all completely irregular in size; presumably you didn't use any type of template or anything in drawing them and simply "eyeballed it." It's not something that I think would say, make me not want to play your game, but it would definitely make me wonder what the construction workers were thinking sawing all those bricks into different sizes and shapes.

I also agree with pretty much of what Snarky said. He's got some good suggestions there as well. That should give you enough to work on for now.

[Pashers]

Here it is, I finally managed to finish it and am quite happy with how it turned out.

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/8030/backgroundtestoo6.jpg

[Jack Sheehan]

O' Horans? Really?

[Pashers]

It's a running gag between my friends and I.

[Tuomas]

Is it the downmost floor of a block of flats, or just a one-floor building? It looks as if the windows start around kneeheight and end where your forehead is so in order to look out naturally you'd have to bend down a bit.

Given, the perspective is disturbing, but as something intentional I won't go into it completely lacking the vanishing point, you already must know that. I notice you're happy with the way it looks. But I might still suggest you add a thicker white outline to the letters on the sign because, really, you still can't tell what it is saying without a long observation. Also with the back door, the PC must scale down quite a lot oto fit through the hole, which would make the inside of the pub look at least, well, scaling to half, 50 metres? deep.

[Ryan Timothy B]

I would love to see some glare lines on the window to help separate the rooms.  It doesn't have to be extreme.  I was tying to find a quick image I could show you, but for some reason can't at the moment.
The only downfall to glare is if there are characters or objects 'behind' the glass, you'll have to assign a walk-behind region to it -- therefor you can't go into too much shading detail on the glare (like layering), but I wouldn't anyway with your style of graphics.
Also for future reference, anytime you are drawing outlines - always make the outlines in the distance small, or dark colors (like the dark green on your green walls, instead of black lines) and the outlines closer to the "camera" thicker/bolder or black to help give depth (3D baby, yeah lol).

EDIT: I guess you could always use a sprite for glare and set the opacity level?  But I'm very new with AGS and am not too familiar with that.  Don't know if it's possible with 256 color, etc.

[Afflict]

I think its too dark, is it night or day?