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Full grown pigs can actually be quite big and heavy, so I would assume that there's a bunch of weight shifting going on.
I fiddled around with your animation for a few minutes to give you some ideas on how to move forward. Maybe it helps.

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/0OIPflN.gif[/imgzoom]
I know it looks like it's limping a bit, that's because I've never worked with a 5-frame walk cycle before and I have no idea how to balance it properly.

Whatever the color count, I would argue that the contrast is obvious:

Yeah, I'm not arguing that there is no distinction, it just looks less jarring to me in those 256 color games.

As an example of what it looks like, here's an animation I tweeted a while back of characters opening a door to enter/exit a room. (It's a bit sped up compared to how it is in-game, but you get the idea)
Here's another from the same room taking a plant off a hook and then taking the hook.

These animations look good enough for me and thanks for posting that background, it looks awesome. Now I'd really like to see a HD game from you in the future, you certainly have the skills for it (as long as you don't use 4x upscaled characters )

It's extremely common for the character sprites to have a different look than the backgrounds

Yes, I agree, such difference is actually quite common in adventure games, most likely due to ease of animation, and while it's not my preffered visual solution, it doesn't really stop me from enjoying games (though it might be something that separates great games from good ones).

Also, there's a big difference between 256/16 and 40000/20-30. The 256 colors usually spread out evenly enough, meaning that when you take character-sized chunk from the background, it will have roughly the same amount of colors as the character (or maybe 3-4 times more).

Of course, it becomes a little dicier if/when characters have to interact with the environment.

I didn't even think about objects to be honest and now I'm kind of wondering how will it look if the character has to pick something up from the environment. Is this also the reason the game doesn't have an inventory - to limit object interactions?

And Grundislav, would you mind posting an original 960x600 version of one of your backgrounds? Would be interesting to see how it looks in its full glory.

The backgrounds look good the way they are, there's no point in downscaling them to 320x200. If you really want to change something, it has to be the characters.

There are two main issues for me: the double sized pixels look too sharp compared to the smooth backgrounds and there's a huge difference in color count. As Danvzare mentioned, using some sort of upscaling filter would be a possible solution. You could also try to mess around with contrast, saturation and brightness of the sprites to make the colors blend in more with a specific environment.

I recommend that you spend a day or two to test some stuff out and if it's not working, then just drop it, it's not worth it.

It was actually a pretty bold move to make a game that takes place under the lamplights and has such amazing lighting and shadows, because this means that the character shading will often look off, which also adds to the feeling that they don't quite belong in this world.

But as I already said in the production thread, the graphics in their current state are still enjoyable and I'd buy and play your games even if they'd look like the early Ben Jordan releases.

Hey, anyone remember that one time when Slasher posted a link on the forums where people were remembering about the good old times. Feels like it was only yesterday... Ahh, those were some good times.

A bunch of those comments were actually rather interesting to read. Thanks for the link!

1. NickyNyce
2. Mandle
3. Creamy

Bonus: Tabata

1st - Lioness by Grok
2nd - Axololita by Blondbraid
3rd - OctoDoc by Jack!

Am I the only one who's slightly bothered by the visual inconsistency? You've got beautiful (640x400) painted backgrounds mixed with low color pixel art characters from the other dimension resolution.

While both components are well crafted, they don't really seem to mix for me. It just feels somewhat jarring when an 8x8 pixel doorknob uses way more colors and looks more detailed than the character standing next to it. I understand the possible reasons behind it, but I'd say that instead of looking incredibly fantastic, the game only looks adequately enjoyable like this

Loving everything else about it though! The setting is very promising and I'm hoping that having no inventory will be a refreshing experience. Have a fun time making the game!

The game crashes at start for me. Might just be my laptop, but might also be something to look into. I'll test it later on my desktop.

Here's the error:

Spoiler

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/ItKu87J.png[/imgzoom]

[close]

I really don't have any other games in the works besides Ehcilc, so I can't show you any awesome concepts or unrevealed secret projects, but I can release some older stuff, like all the graphics from my first game Don't Drink the Pink, which you can download here. I'm still hoping that I'll update and bugfix this game at some point.

Few examples:



[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/bLowqN6.gif[/imgzoom]

And here's some character sprites that I've doodled during the past couple of years. I've actually posted some of those on the forums already, but most have just been sitting in my practice folder. I'm sure that some of those will eventually find their way into an AGS game.

1st: 4
2nd: 9
3rd: 8

[First: 6Second: 13Third: 8]

First: 6
Second: 13
Third: 8

OK I must say this hread confuses me a lot.

Well, this happens when you run a forum poll   Preferences vary and people see things differently, especially in case of pixel art, because it leaves a lot of room for imagination. Don't you have a person in your team who makes this type of executive desicions?

For the record, I prefer other hat styles over my own. I didn't look at any reference material while drawing it and simply tired to do something different and present more options.

Just for the fun of comparing, a recent simple Indy which never found a home:

I think I'd actually enjoy a short lighthearted Indy game with simple and more cartoony looking graphics, would be an interesting change from the usual style.

Great game, I enjoyed it a lot. Hope to see a larger version some time

Thanks for playing! I do have some ideas for the enhanced version of the game and plan to tell the story from different perspectives, but because of my other projects it will probably take a year or two before I actually get to it.

Pushed a few pixels around, maybe some parts or details will prove useful. The shading and colors of my edits are quite random and I wouldn't really know how to fix them without seeing some of the game backgrounds first.

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/0aLv9g7.png[/imgzoom]
The main issues for me were that baggy right arm and those tiny hands, both of which have already been addressed by others.
The original spirte also had a surprisingly high color count (I personally wouldn't enjoy animating a pixel art sprite with 71 colors), I pulled it down to 30, but with better color choices that number could probably be much lower.

That animation does look pretty neat indeed, the .gif kind of ruins it a bit, though. Also, that's a very inefficient use of the light bulbs, don't djinnis like lamps?

I'm not very big on urban fantasy and paranormal myself, so I was actually hoping that you'll step out of your comfort zone and try something completely different after the Blackwell series, but at least this means that it's guaranteed to be another excellent game. Have a smooth and hassle-free development process!

What a pleasant surprise to see Scenario 5B as the pick of the month. Thanks for the feature!

For a rough draft it looks just fine. A little bit polish here and there and it's good to go. I like the side view, but as Danvzare said, the legs look too short and small on front/back views, also the shape of the face looks more round on the front view.

A small paintover:
[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/AyfCeCu.png[/imgzoom]
I edited it according to my own style and personal preferences, but maybe you'll find some of it useful. First I pulled down the saturation a bit and added more contrast between the colors. Then I added a few extra colors for shading and tried to create some texture for the clothes. Redesigned the face - added eyebrows and eye whites, shortened the nose etc. Made the legs wider, raised the knees, added a fly to ephazise the location of the crotch (otherwise there was an illusion that it's too low).

Remember, at some point you're going to have to animate the thing, so don't overpolish the base sprite and just go with the version that feels most comfortable to animate. Also, if possible, I recommend drawing sprites directly on the game background, it can often help with anatomy, colors and consistency.

Congratulations DarkWater! And thanks to all the other participants, it was really nice to play some new RON games.

These numbers are actually surprisingly low. Has it been like this in the past years?
On the other hand it's good to know that each vote really matters and carries a lot of weight.
My props to the vocal minority