Maxine Red
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Crysalis Looks
🕑 Added 2023-08-09 09:03:28 +0000 UTCHey folks,
the last poll hasn't finished too long ago, so have a new one!
Just kidding, but it's something that is important to me and also I like feedback on.
This one is about the looks of the game.
Pretty much, it's just "How should the game look?"
For that, I have some examples and some more technical things attached, to also keep in mind when choosing.
But to the looks, you can choose between look A and look B
Look A
this is pretty much what I am gone for so far. It's a Gameboy Color like scheme, where you have palettes of 4 colors. The lightest and darkest colors are the same, to have transitions easier. But it limits the color space to basically two colors.
The advantages here are rather:
- I do have the work done for it mostly, meaning that it's how the game looks and works right now
- it allows for easy palette switches
- potentially easier to recognize types of enemies and NPCs
- very retro look
It also has disadvantages, like;
- very limited color space (two colors per palette)
- maybe too retro?
- rather plain looking
- it doesn't let me do better special effects (shaders), as it pretty much gobbles all available shader space up
- extra steps to get the palettes working
There will be a summation at the end.
Look B
This look is more modern in feeling, about the age of SNES and Genesis/mega Drive. It's new, but I saw it when working on the page and well, it definitely looks more interesting. It uses a fixed palette for everything, with about 32 colors for now. But I can adjust and change the palette as I want to.
Some advantages of this approach:
- looks more modern and interesting
- I'm able to use more sophisticated effects, that look more modern
- potentially able to simply import sprites, without extra steps
- more details on background, and characters
Of course there are also some disadvantages:
- retro look gets a bit lost, while still being pretty retro
- need to re-work sprites and tiles a little to fit it in
- potentially harder to recognize types of characters (but that can be mitigated)
- no palette switches possible (but can use other shader tricks)
Comparison
Its pretty much "a bit more work" vs "prettier looks". I'd like your input, so vote on it.
Meanwhile I will also think about it myself. Ultimately, I keep the right to make the final call, but I really like your input on the matter to see what players want.
Also here a bit of a summation of the different advantages and also all the images will be downloadable at the bottom
Look A advantages:
- retro look
- work done already
- palette tricks work
Look B advantages:
- prettier look, with more details
- more sophisticated effects possible
- bit more modern look, but keeping it retro
PS: I really just added a bit of detail on characters, but the background really just got nly the colors changed. So they will be adjusted to fit Look B better, if that one gets chosen (which is a bit of extra work)
Comments
D Wrobo
B! More detail seems to be a good thing for this game! Especially with sprites and animations and stuff
Kenshi
I was thinking A, but the floor in the cave of B was messing with my eyes a little bit.
Ulvra Silvershade
I think option B is the better option. Option A looks good, but as you mention, it can also get "too" retro, and while I am sure there are a good deal of people that'd appreciate the pure retro look, I thing the general majority will be either conciously or subconciously expecting a look more akin to option B, even if it's not fully faithful to the classic retro look. I also think that option B has the additional benefit of making things look a lot less monotonous without jumping through extra hoops, and that's a significant benefit to game design.
