Rogue/Roguelike to practice tiles on?

[Darren Grey]

I think you should work on your palette a little, Jo.  Some background colours are far too strong (those reds and greens) and some actors are too grey/brown.  The actors should stand out more than the background.

Though if this is a restriction of the odd way sprites are rendered in the game then you might consider finding an alternative game to sprite up.  If you can't work with background/foreground colour balancing properly then you won't learn all you should.

[guest509]

  That is the issue. The backgrounds are in the game engine. He's changing that soon, at least I think that's what he said. None of the background colors are in the sprite sheet at all. That 'grass tile' which doubles as road, mud, grass, blood, etc...is colored in the engine.

  I'll link the sprite sheet.

  It's been good practice though. You can see skill progression already, the player tile is lame and made first. Then the dog tile, which is okay, then the graves which are pretty nice looking I think.




Note the only background color I use is the grave, in order to override the engine's coloring and match the surroundings. The engine colors the gravestone backgrounds black.

[guest509]

  I think I'll really just have to make my own game so I can make my own sprites. :-)

EDIT: Actually, Slimy Lich Mummy is much easier to work with, and it displays the sprites large as well. So no need to make my own game. I can go right along not doing that. :-)

[guest509]

  Probably need to take the whiskers off of those badger guys...

[tuturto]

I kind of like the cartoony feel of the whiskers though. But it would probably work better without them, true.

[guest509]

  I'll probably go straight cartoony, with the main character a kid and the baddies being a bit wacky. I mean, it is SLIMY LICH MUMMY, so...I could go a sort of Duke Nuke'em route, over the top badass. With sunglasses and buzz cut. No matter what though at 20x20 resolution you kinda have to go at least a bit cutesy, with big heads and what not. You could easily do a JRPG style too, in the vein of the 8-bit Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy but I don't think the them would match up well.

  I'll keep working.

[Holsety]

  I'll probably go straight cartoony, with the main character a kid and the baddies being a bit wacky. I mean, it is SLIMY LICH MUMMY, so...I could go a sort of Duke Nuke'em route, over the top badass. With sunglasses and buzz cut. No matter what though at 20x20 resolution you kinda have to go at least a bit cutesy, with big heads and what not. You could easily do a JRPG style too, in the vein of the 8-bit Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy but I don't think the them would match up well.

  I'll keep working.

I really dig the tiles you made for Lichmummy.
(Stay away from 8-bit DW/FF sprites, those are used way too often.)

[guest509]

  Hey thanks. With 20x20 pixels to deal with, there are only so many styles that work. It looks like I'm more influenced by old DOS games, like Commander Keen, and old NES games like River City Ransom with the big eyes and what not.

  Here's where Lich Mummy is at right now.



I really like the sludge monster and the naked rat man. The goat man really needs work, I'm not satisfied with the snake either. The scroll might be my fav right now.





  I've not included a lot of shading. Not because I lack the skill, which I sorta do, but because I find with these small sprites a clear image is far more important. I've seen people trying to shade the Oryx 8x8 sprites, for example, it's ridiculous. Clear sprites, with outlines if you can spare the pixels, are much more clear.

  Opinions can differ.

[Paul Jeffries]

Nice.  This thead makes me want to do some spriting again...

I understand not wanting to go too overboard with shading, but I think that some simple and sparingly-applied two-tone shading could look good here (a lot like Commander Keen did it), even if only as some anti-aliasing.  As it is, some of the sprites look a little flat and some areas run into one another (i.e. the main guy's face and hair).  I would also say avoid using full black inside the images themselves except for where absolutely necessary, just save it for the external outline.  That's only really personal preference, though.

[guest509]

  Good call on the contrast issue between face and hair.

  I'll work on the shading and what not, but now I'll probably keep them flat as my skills progress.
Then go back later and try to add depth. As a personal preference, even when looking at pro level sprites
I prefer very minimal shading at these resolutions.

  I do really like the looks of ground shadowing, as long as it's not too distracting. Maybe I'll try a bit of that
once I have more tiles done.

  Commander Keen, bright and cartoony graphics I like.

http://www.eggplante.com/2012/06/17/retro-review-commander-keen-pc-1990/