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Hey MrColossal, thanks for the info.  I'd like to try and avoid scaling, but some of the screens I have planned will need progressive scaling as you walk further into the screen.  
I also agree his leg could use some work.  He's just a test though, so he's free to stink the place up with artistic mistakes.  ;]

I did one more quick test and it looks like I'll definitely need to increase the size of my sprites.  I draw too thin of characters to try and squeeze them into 20x40.  Time to try a slighter bigger size. (and I'll definitely try the anti aliasing with the scaling, thanks)

I made a test character to figure out some sizing issues.  I want realistic proportions for my characters, but I don't want them to over power the screen real estate.  This character is 20x40, but doesn't really allow for much detail work. (or atleast I'm having difficulty)

Do you guys just create a larger character sprite and rely on ingame scaling to shrink you down?  Does the funny popping of pixels of the dynamic scaling bother you during game play?  Any advice is welcome.  Thanks.

I've never actually played Kyrandia.  I looked it up on the web and it looks like something I'd enjoy.  I did play the entire Quest for Glory series though, and that will probably show it's influence on my game project.

I'm still deciding how involved it's going to be, due to my limited technical side.  I'd really like to include some form of combat.  But I've pretty much decided I'm going to do a fantasy setting with a serious story.  Maybe revolving around a band of elves.
I was also considering an oriental theme.

Thanks for the good suggestions, I agree with everything.  I'd also fix these issues if the background was more than a test.

I'm also guessing that the beam of light could be lifted from the background and superimposed as a transparent object/sprite.  Atleast I hope that would work, as I'm sure I'll be wanting to use the effect somewhere.

I also considered working at a higher res, but I want the old school vibe present in the artwork.  The lower res bg's are also much faster to create, which is great if I ever hope to finish a project.  Then again, my subpar ability to wrestle with the scripting will most likely keep me from completing anything.  ;]

Great sprites!

I don't think I'm following this double pixel talk, however.  Are you guys talking about edges/outlines where you have pixels arranged like a staircase? (as opposed to having the pixels only touch at their corners; and not being adjacent to one another?)  

Explanations, or illustrations,  on this matter would be appreciated!  :]

Here's a background image I painted as an exercise.  Mainly just to see what a 320x200 looks like when palettized and magnified; and to figure out what's a good size for the main character.
If it's a little on the dark side I apologize, but I'm on a flat panel display.  

Thanks Archangel.  But if the player is in the room at night (when the cop is not there) and remains in that room until day comes, the cop will not show up unless the player leaves the room and re-enters, correct?  Even so, that's a relatively minor issue.

I'm dumb when it comes to scripting, even scripting as straight forward as this.

Thanks for the assistance!

I'm not planning to keep track of the days, just the time of day.  One game minute would be equal to one second of real world time.  So a game day would pass in 24 minutes.  

I don't see the clock ever stopping, so interiors would have the clock continue counting as usual.

One problem remaining is what to do when a player stays put in one exterior 'room' when it cycles from night to day.  For instance, if I want a police man there during the day, but not through the night.  How could that be handled?

Deltamatrix: do you have that demo around still?  I'd definitely like to take a look at it if you do.

Has anyone been able to script day and night cycles in their game?  Is it possible?

I'd need timer constantly running that resets every 24 game hours.  I'm guessing I'd need to have each background an animated sequence, and set which frame (one frame representing day, second frame night) is shown based on time.  

Any insight would be welcome.  I'm a newb, but I figured this question would be best suited to the advanced forum.  Thanks.

Thanks again.  Quite a helpful (and quick!) group of people.
I'll definitely be tapping into the wealth of knowledge here as I move on.  

And just as an introduction, I'm Shawn, an artist at Activision who grew up on the Quest for Glory and King's Quest series.

Thanks, Archangel.

Is there any downloadable games that use a high frame walk cycle like that? (especially with a larger character like 50x100, and screen res of 640x480)

I'm afraid I'll bog down performance with what I'd like to do; so I'm trying to get an idea of what's acceptable without completely killing performance.

And is there a document that lists the max number of frames for animated objects, backgrounds, and the like?  Thanks again in advance.

What's the maximum number of frames allowed for a walk cycle?  Or perhaps the better question is how many frames before performance seriously declines?
Thanks.