Hiro-sofT wrote:
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I find this game really hard on the eyes. Everything is kind of the same colours and really dark for a game that feels like it should be channeling that Kirby vibe.
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I find the recent prototype gameplay to be very visually busy and difficult to read especially with the detailed backgrounds with heavy darks, making the enemies and the main character difficult to read at some times.
Mmm... the darker colours should help the player to keep track on the player more than bright colours. I darken it for a reason, since if I'm gonna use brighter colours, you will lose Cappani and other objects completely. Since the objects and terrain you interact with are all brighter than background objects and the background, you should be able to tell, what is interactable and what not.
Then you are doing it wrong.
What you have done is, an warzone of strong and bold colours and details constantly fighting over who's the most important for the viewer. And it stems from the fact that all colours are extremely similar and limited, it's only oranges and reds and blacks. Black is an extremely strong colour and it seems that you have overused it too much, making the visual look very harsh and aggressive with the use of bold and strong colours.
What you should be doing is that, keep the characters the same, except for the main character as it needs to be a different colour as it needs to be have contrast against its surroundings helping the viewer to see it better. The tileset should not have any blacks, only dark colours as it'll help to give the attention to the characters and items, while keeping some attention for itself. The scenery should not be similar, but needs to be an contrast to everything in the gameplay, including the tileset. It can be simple as having the background less detailed than others, and having colours that are desaturated and not bold and never use any blacks.
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which shows the older background version with brighter colours... I wish, I could make the colours brighter, but then the gameplay gets more unreadable.
Then keep experimenting with it! It doesn't hurt to experiment and ask for feedback! It doesn't matter if there's negative feedback nor postie.
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I playtested it a lot of times and doesn't feel so bad, since the camera keeps you mostly in the middle of the screen. So losing Cappani should not happen that easy. If I'm done with the first level, I will hand out a demo to play, just to see, if others will have issues with that.
That's more than fine, it's more of the issue of colour between the character and the surroundings.
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I'd suggest that you should change the background and redo from scratch as it's too detailed to change entirely, or make it lighter as most faraway things are usually lighter due to light.
Redoing the background would be a disaster, as this one already cost me two entire days to do. Also, I always though, that stuff, which is further away, since it is further in the background and more out of your view.[/quote]
It doesn't hurt to redo it, besides that you aren't on a rush. Besides that, you have been thinking it in the wrong way. It really depends on the light and weather conditions, it doesn't need to be very
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_perspectivehttp://thehelpfulartteacher.blogspot.com.au/2010/11/landscapes-continuedatmospheric.htmlThese links explains this well enough, but usually in distance the colour of landscape usually changes. And this is very helpful as it can help with visual clarification of your characters and the objects.
But yours appears to be a clear sunset and is really dark, only having colours going to black. Especially with the black hills attracting the attention off the main gameplay, enhanced by the animated clouds. Which is you don't really want to have. My suggestion, is that you should have the setting to have the far-away landscape to be an desaturated and low contrast dark orange or dark blue colour fading into the sunset. Not only it'll make itself look much more nicer, but it'll stop the attention from the background allowing you to actually focus on the gameplay.
The clouds need to be animated slower and more subtle, so that they don't attract attention with it's constant moving.
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Problem is, how I'm gonna make that... I tried many times to do a good palette for this thing and It always ended up looking really ugly, compared to now.
Well, why not show it to us then? We can help with the palettes. It kinda sounds like that you haven't shown the stuff to rest of us.
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Another thing is, I could change the general colours to something completely different, but what colour should I use then?
Purple? What kind of field would be purple?
Pink? Oh gosh... no my eyes would hurt from that.
Blue? Works with nighttime grassland but not with daytime and I kinda want the first level be a daytime level.
Yellow? Naw... eyes.
Brown? I don't know about that...
Green? Green! Since green is a nice colour for this type of level and we didn't had that so much before...
All these colours are perfectly valid colours that can be used in a grassy field, especially if a combination of yellows and browns could be used to mimic dry grass or a farm. Pink and blue can be used to create an flower field, if it's pastel colours. And green is perfectly fine colour, and there is no shame in doing that after all as long you need to be creative with it. Heck, the prototype version looks much better than the current one as it's easier to tell the difference apart.
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Nevermind, scratch that
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You can still do much more with green if you use green with other colours, and Kirby does that quite a lot especially when it's set in a geometric and abstract setting. But you just really need to get creative with the colours, you seem to be quite limited on what you can use. It doesn't need to be just primary and bold colours, it can be desaturated colours or other. And also the images that you showed, these characters in these games have contrasting colours against their surroundings, and it really helps to create strong difference that helps the viewer to tell the difference between the elements. That is the reason why I told you to change the palette of your main character, because the surroundings and the main character are too similar.
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I know they are kinda inspired by anime, but it kinda makes them look too uncanny especially when used on a body that's cartoonish and Anthropomorphized.
I don't get what you mean with that... how are cute eyes uncanny? Sorry, but I have no idea, what the problem with that is... that kind of eyes you see in many japanese games with anthropomorphized characters, so I don't think this will be much of an issue.
It's more the fact of proportion against the entire face. The eyes are very large compared to the mouth, which is quite small. The squid character shows a large degree of uncanniness, due to it's dark areas emphasizing it's eyes too much and details fighting for attention on her face. The mushroom characters, are fine as they don't have any dark areas that make their eyes stand out (Really, they're only on cheeks), and it's face proportions are sorta balanced, as the eyes and mouth are an equal size. It's more of hit and miss with the character design in regards of your style.
[quote="Hiro-sofT"][quote]I find this game really hard on the eyes. Everything is kind of the same colours and really dark for a game that feels like it should be channeling that Kirby vibe.[/quote][quote]I find the recent prototype gameplay to be very visually busy and difficult to read especially with the detailed backgrounds with heavy darks, making the enemies and the main character difficult to read at some times.[/quote]
Mmm... the darker colours should help the player to keep track on the player more than bright colours. I darken it for a reason, since if I'm gonna use brighter colours, you will lose Cappani and other objects completely. Since the objects and terrain you interact with are all brighter than background objects and the background, you should be able to tell, what is interactable and what not.[/quote]
Then you are doing it wrong.
What you have done is, an warzone of strong and bold colours and details constantly fighting over who's the most important for the viewer. And it stems from the fact that all colours are extremely similar and limited, it's only oranges and reds and blacks. Black is an extremely strong colour and it seems that you have overused it too much, making the visual look very harsh and aggressive with the use of bold and strong colours.
What you should be doing is that, keep the characters the same, except for the main character as it needs to be a different colour as it needs to be have contrast against its surroundings helping the viewer to see it better. The tileset should not have any blacks, only dark colours as it'll help to give the attention to the characters and items, while keeping some attention for itself. The scenery should not be similar, but needs to be an contrast to everything in the gameplay, including the tileset. It can be simple as having the background less detailed than others, and having colours that are desaturated and not bold and never use any blacks.
[quote]which shows the older background version with brighter colours... I wish, I could make the colours brighter, but then the gameplay gets more unreadable.[/quote]
Then keep experimenting with it! It doesn't hurt to experiment and ask for feedback! It doesn't matter if there's negative feedback nor postie.
[quote]I playtested it a lot of times and doesn't feel so bad, since the camera keeps you mostly in the middle of the screen. So losing Cappani should not happen that easy. If I'm done with the first level, I will hand out a demo to play, just to see, if others will have issues with that.[/quote]
That's more than fine, it's more of the issue of colour between the character and the surroundings.
[quote]I'd suggest that you should change the background and redo from scratch as it's too detailed to change entirely, or make it lighter as most faraway things are usually lighter due to light.[/quote]
Redoing the background would be a disaster, as this one already cost me two entire days to do. Also, I always though, that stuff, which is further away, since it is further in the background and more out of your view.[/quote]
It doesn't hurt to redo it, besides that you aren't on a rush. Besides that, you have been thinking it in the wrong way. It really depends on the light and weather conditions, it doesn't need to be very
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_perspective[/url]
[url]http://thehelpfulartteacher.blogspot.com.au/2010/11/landscapes-continuedatmospheric.html[/url]
These links explains this well enough, but usually in distance the colour of landscape usually changes. And this is very helpful as it can help with visual clarification of your characters and the objects.
But yours appears to be a clear sunset and is really dark, only having colours going to black. Especially with the black hills attracting the attention off the main gameplay, enhanced by the animated clouds. Which is you don't really want to have. My suggestion, is that you should have the setting to have the far-away landscape to be an desaturated and low contrast dark orange or dark blue colour fading into the sunset. Not only it'll make itself look much more nicer, but it'll stop the attention from the background allowing you to actually focus on the gameplay.
The clouds need to be animated slower and more subtle, so that they don't attract attention with it's constant moving.
[quote]Problem is, how I'm gonna make that... I tried many times to do a good palette for this thing and It always ended up looking really ugly, compared to now.[/quote]
Well, why not show it to us then? We can help with the palettes. It kinda sounds like that you haven't shown the stuff to rest of us.
[quote]Another thing is, I could change the general colours to something completely different, but what colour should I use then?
Purple? What kind of field would be purple?
Pink? Oh gosh... no my eyes would hurt from that.
Blue? Works with nighttime grassland but not with daytime and I kinda want the first level be a daytime level.
Yellow? Naw... eyes.
Brown? I don't know about that...
Green? Green! Since green is a nice colour for this type of level and we didn't had that so much before...[/quote]
All these colours are perfectly valid colours that can be used in a grassy field, especially if a combination of yellows and browns could be used to mimic dry grass or a farm. Pink and blue can be used to create an flower field, if it's pastel colours. And green is perfectly fine colour, and there is no shame in doing that after all as long you need to be creative with it. Heck, the prototype version looks much better than the current one as it's easier to tell the difference apart.
[quote]Nevermind, scratch that :nope: .[/quote]
You can still do much more with green if you use green with other colours, and Kirby does that quite a lot especially when it's set in a geometric and abstract setting. But you just really need to get creative with the colours, you seem to be quite limited on what you can use. It doesn't need to be just primary and bold colours, it can be desaturated colours or other. And also the images that you showed, these characters in these games have contrasting colours against their surroundings, and it really helps to create strong difference that helps the viewer to tell the difference between the elements. That is the reason why I told you to change the palette of your main character, because the surroundings and the main character are too similar.
[quote][quote]I know they are kinda inspired by anime, but it kinda makes them look too uncanny especially when used on a body that's cartoonish and Anthropomorphized.[/quote]
I don't get what you mean with that... how are cute eyes uncanny? Sorry, but I have no idea, what the problem with that is... that kind of eyes you see in many japanese games with anthropomorphized characters, so I don't think this will be much of an issue.[/quote]
It's more the fact of proportion against the entire face. The eyes are very large compared to the mouth, which is quite small. The squid character shows a large degree of uncanniness, due to it's dark areas emphasizing it's eyes too much and details fighting for attention on her face. The mushroom characters, are fine as they don't have any dark areas that make their eyes stand out (Really, they're only on cheeks), and it's face proportions are sorta balanced, as the eyes and mouth are an equal size. It's more of hit and miss with the character design in regards of your style.