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Have you thought about something along with "changeful as the sand" / "deceitful as the sand" or something similar as a more ambiguous alternative to trap? Partially because sand landscapes are always changing as the wind blows, but also changing beneath your feet when you walk beneath it, things hiding beneath the sand, like ant-lions.

Magical, simply magical!

Man that background is MASSIVE how many years did it take you to complete?

I'd hazard a guess that some of all the identical cells were copy-pasted, but it's impressive none the less.
Just the scale of that thing!

Congrats to everyone, especially you Creamy!
It will be exciting to see what you come up with!

The key to make any creative work *really good* is to paste together a series of vague ideas of what the Kidz today think is hip,
and businessmen age 50 or older is an excellent source of information on what kids today like.

And if you are ever in doubt about how to make your work seem more contemporary and relevant,
make the protagonist wear a backwards cap and add rave music. Lots of rave music.

Thanks for the tips, your tweaks look really nice and I might try something similar with the focus and contrast.
I'm happy to hear that you liked the background!

Technically, studio Laikas movies are stop motion animated, but they are pretty dark and have some very intriguing and nuanced characters.
I especially recommend ParaNorman, a movie about a boy bullied for his ability to speak to the dead. It has an especially dark twist near the end.

I'd also recommend some of Max Fleicher's short movies to anyone interested in animation or vintage.
These shorts were originally made to show before feature-length movies at the cinema and intended for adults,
so they contain lots of weird and surreal imagery and were often pretty fascinating experiments in how far you could play with different shapes and elements in animations.
Here is one example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNttqN1wUMY

The backgrounds and portraits look simply marvelous, I look forward to seeing more of this game!

First one looks better, mainly because the second one is inconsistent. It looks jarring to have the black outlines only on the edges of the wall logs and not anything else. If you're going to do that, I suggest making all the outlines black.

You are right, Here is an updated version where I also added a character for comparison, which one of these looks best?

* Cassiebsg looks confused

what umbrella stand?

Well, technically it's a wicker basket serving as an umbrella stand, tough not exclusively for umbrellas.

Anyway, after the feedback here I've decided to make the backgrounds in the style of the first one for now, but I did experiment a bit with darker lines.
Here is another background that I spent the last weeks working on, and it'd be nice to hear if you have any thoughts or opinions on it.

And here with darker lines on the walls:

(the background outside the door and window still isn't finished in case you are wondering)

Congratulations!!!

It grinds my gears that some people complain that the presence of female fighters or black people in medieval fantasy is "historically inaccurate" but will readily accept things like:

Horns on viking helmets

Everyone, including poor peasants, having good teeth

Warriors wearing their swords strapped to their backs instead of their belts

pumpkins, potatoes and tomatoes (native to the american continent)

Zombies, orcs and other creatures that have never been part of European folklore

You could also suggest a more atmospheric font

Seeing that it's supposed to be horror, I'd pick something Gothic!

Another alternative could be something like courier or a similar font that looks like old-timey typewriting,
or one that imitates handwriting (But avoid cursive, it tends to be hard to read for most people, especially against a varying background!).

I suppose that has been used in many similar games before, but I think that's what would suit the atmosphere of what I've seen so far...

1st: Mick the Wombat by VampireWombat
2nd: Lioness by Grok
3rd: Khan the Rottweiler by Jack

#10-11 is another one of those, based on one of HPL's short stories.

Which of his short stories?

All in all, they are some truly beautiful screenshots!

Looks exciting!

The textures look much better, but I liked the dark golden light in the first pics, it looked mor atmospheric.

Awesome! And the shadows of the mattresses are a nice touch, really gives a sense of space in the pool, and the water looks crystal clear. Lovely!

Cool lion, Grok!

And the ant eating an anteater was a fun idea!

I saw the cutscene, and it's a bit of an awkward pause once the animation finishes, everything just freezes and is still for a few seconds.
That could probably be one or two seconds shorter in my opinion, but otherwise it loks suitably creepy and mysterious.