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the only thing which i am a little confused about is the palet at the minute  how many colours do you think i should be using? i wanted the sun to be quite bright. but by the looks of it if  i am to make it the best it can possibly be i will have to darken it   is there any way in which i could use the bright yellows and still have the best effect or by doing this will it just make my picture less effective?

I'm far from an expert, but what I think the original really needs is contrast, not necessarily to be darker. If you want to keep him light, you'll probably want to use white (or almost white) for the highlights, instead of yellow.

You don't really have to worry about the size of your palette if you're using the hi-color option.  8)

But of course there are people who will tell you that you can make a better, more detailed sprite with 4.5 colors, and then to prove it they'll do it. I'm not that magical, though.

I had some fun with this guy as a nice break from what I'm working on. 




It's rough because I didn't "finish" it, but I played with an idea of how to do the hair/flames and played with his expression.

I gave him some eyelids so he looks less surprised or scared, and brought his eyebrows down a pixel or so in the middle to help with that.

I made his teeth show more under his lip (just copied and pasted the teeth already there a couple of pixels higher).

I did some work on his cheeks and nose to give them more definition and shape.

I played with the contrast and saturation to try and get something that was easier to make out.



There's some really good pixel work on the sprite you posted, but it's very difficult to make out at such a low contrast, and as a result of the colors you used. I especially like the outer edge and the eyeballs. The things I changed were really just to give you ideas of things you could do with it.

I had a go at the wand thing, too. The second one is a blatant ripoff of the magic wand from Willow. 

This is a cool background and I love what you did with the sidewalk in the latest edit. Because most of it looks so neat, the blood seems to be a bit flat in comparison.

also pslim  please could you give any reason to why you chose them particular ones

Well, it's really hard to pick because we don't know what the character's personality will be like. We can make inferences, but if you told us more about his demeanor it would help.

I picked J and K because, to me, they read most clearly as being The Sun. Part of this is certainly the sunglasses, though not necessarily because they add anything to character... more because we're accustomed to seeing the sun wearing sunglasses, so when we see that we are immediately prepared to see the sun. Whereas, the toque on L - O is cute but not something we're used to seeing on the sun. Hope that helps. 

I'm not saying I think you should stick with the expected sun accessories, just that at this level of detail and contrast, those accessories help to identify the character as what it's intended to be.

I prefer J and K, though D could work as well.

All of these have personality and seem fun and inviting for a children's game. My only real criticism is that their features would be more discernible if you upped the contrast. 

cobra -- I'm not sure what you mean by the perspective of the window. It's a bit hard to read at this stage, but I've only drawn the plane parallel to the viewing plane. It's one of those slide-to-the-side jobs and it's mostly open.

I'm glad you mentioned the height of the bookcase and entertainment center because I was unsure about both of them and have altered them several times. I wanted to make them taller, but when I put my main character next to them they seemed too large. When I made them shorter, there was a lot of empty wall showing. I think I'll just make them taller and see if I can mitigate their largeness some other way.

As for moving the monitor: it looks really good that way but then the chair won't be facing it and that would be so uncomfortable to use. 

I took another shot at composing this one. What do you guys think? Is this an improvement? I tried to take the comments here into consideration, and I'm posting at a very early stage in case I later want to move things around.





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I like both of the paintovers for what they are, but the problem with moving the couch to the wall opposite the tv is that it makes the room quite small, otherwise you wouldn't want the tv to be that far away from where you sit when you watch it.

I do, however, quite like cobra79's curving the couch around to the foreground. I might just do that, and move the liquor cabinet under the mirror.

The reason the doors are dramatically different sizes is that they're different types of doors and one is much heavier than the other. I can still make that one a bit smaller, but I want to make sure it matches what the same door looks like on the other side.

The main issue I have with radiowaves' version is that it hides some of the important furniture and emphasizes stuff that isn't important. It also dramatically reduces the size of the room overall.

And in response to cobra: the furniture isn't meant to be boxlike, but I have to draw everything geometrically to start out in order to draw it the right perspective. I'm just not very good at eyeballing things. At the rendering phase I'll do my best to soften it up. This tends to be carried off with varying degrees of success for me.

I think part of my problem is a certain aversion to taking up foreground space and walkable areas with stuff. Obviously I need to get over that somehow.

I can't fool with this now because I'm at work, but I'm going to try to test out some of these suggestions when I get home.

Now that I'm home it seems I can't see a way to reconcile either of the paintovers with the scale of my main character sprite without shrinking the room down quite a bit, which I don't want to do. The apartment doesn't have a lot of rooms (making it small) but the rooms themselves aren't tiny. I'm thinking about redrawing from scratch. 

Prog--

Thanks for the comments, first off. They gave me some important stuff to think about. To answer some of your questions:

I'm not really certain where I want to draw the viewer's attention, I guess. This is partly because much of this room is important, plotwise, I guess. The bookcase IS very important, but now that you've pointed out what an attention hog it is, I'm not sure it's as important as it appears to be based on the composition.

I like your idea about moving the window, but in order for that to work I would have to revise the door composition because at the moment that door leads elsewhere in the building, not outside. It's clearly the front door of the apartment based on its size and bulk compared to the other door, so I'd have to move the outer door and nix the other door altogether. Still, that might be worth doing, the more I think about it.

Another note that I forgot before -- it's a sort of quasi-basement apartment, so the window will need to be quite high wherever it is.

The thing behind the couch is sort of a two-tier liquor cabinet. I can get rid of it without any plot consequences, but I'm afraid the left side of the room will seem empty if I do that. What do you think?

I'm working on another background, but I'm really unsure about the composition. Right now it's only in the design stage, so nothing has been detailed or shadowed or anything like that. Okay, I might have gone a bit wild on the ivy, but nothing else has been detailed. 





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It's the main room of a small but smart modern apartment. These guys probably shop at Ikea, if that helps. It will be simple and absent conspicuous displays of wealth, but not shoddy by any means. The window is absolutely necessary, but it doesn't have to be where it is.

I'm primarily concerned with my usage of floor space, and where I've placed everything. Does it make for a reasonable composition? I haven't placed most of the small things that people have lying around their houses yet, because I've been struggling with this aspect of it.

To give you an idea of where it is in relation to the final product, I put together a small comparison of the other room I've done for this game so far.




Any help or comments would be greatly appreciated.

I found another bug trying to cross the river in a different way. Can anybody just spoil me on this one? I'm getting frustrated.


About the bug:

Spoiler

I went south along the seashore from the city, and then west to the bridge screen. THe message about the fox not wanting to get near the bridge popped up (although I hadn't triggered the fox to chase me yet) and wouldn't leave my screen regardless of clicking on it. I had to kill the program.

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About the beginning of chapter 7:

Spoiler

I can't get him to cross the bridge as the rabbit, no matter how hard I try.

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I just managed to crash the game.  The error message is:

"in Room script (line 79)"
Error: SetCharacterSpeechView invalid view number

What I did:

Spoiler

I tried to talk to the goblin wearing boxer shorts in the room south of the Druid's home after entering the hamlet disguised as a goblin.

[close]

The horseshoe-

Spoiler

Look at the open stable on the right side of the room- I think I managed to find it just using the Look icon.  It was visible to click on as I recall.

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I found it! It wasn't visible at all on my screen, but when I walked inside the stall and used the look cursor and there it was!

Now that I have some money I think I can figure the others on my own. Thanks Jenimad!

Item question?

Spoiler

Where did you get a bone and hair?

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Spoiler

The bone is under the skull on the screen 1 south of the goblin encampment. The hair is on the door frame in day 2 when you find the king dead.

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Pslim, chapter 5

Spoiler

have you gone to the pier area and given the grass to the woman. I did that then swam back and chapter 5 happened.

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Yeah, I did that but the day didn't change for me.

How'd you beat the giant?

Spoiler

Use the apples, the bag full of sand, and the healed pigeon to prove that you're as strong as he is.

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Stuck in Chapter 4

Spoiler

I've been to the stable numerous times but have not seen a horseshoe. I gave the brain to the scarecrow and have the pumpkin, the hair, the nail, the lantern, a sharpened sword (no coin anymore!), apples, holy water, the love note, the belt advertisement, the dagger, the bone, the bag, and the shovel.

I gave the conch to the faerie after giving her cider on day 3. I got the coin out of the forest, but spent it sharpening the sword.

I solved her riddle but have no gold to throw in the well.

I found the grass for the sorcerer's apprentice.

I've solved the giant's challenges and had him stomp the barghest.

I know where to buy matches (presumably to light the lantern) but again have no gold.

I know where to get the flute but can't afford it.

I'm not altogether sure what to do now.

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Just wanted to let you know that my friend and I are playing this right now and we're really enjoying it. I plan to give a more useful review when I'm finished. 

I can't seem to figure out how to get into the city again... the guards won't let me pass...

Spoiler

Have you been inside the shed on the way to the hamlet where the druid lives? Have you also been to the cornfield north of the city gate?

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Oops, nm.

Look great. Downloading now.