Gotta be honest with you, with graphics like these you’re going to need a bit of tweaking at most, they look absolutely fine to me!

As for animation, if you have trouble getting it right at first, why not design your character to be very simple and easy-to-animate? It doesn’t need to have arms or even legs. You could make it another, smaller one of these stone block idols and bam! Instant storyline too (“Little Olmecaztoatl getting bullied by the bigger gods”). That way, you’d only have to draw it facing four ways, and make it bob up and down a bit to fake walking.

Just a suggestion, because you’re pretty much already there and can make this perfect with just add a few little touches.

Dev on my minions!! Muhahaha!  

Change of plan, all scientist portraits about to be replaced by this!

The scientist faces are just brilliant

I just want to say this: It would be a mistake to think that any one of these faces is my own original creation.
An example:

Here's three that might look a bit more familiar, perhaps (the first one especially to Germans that have ever seen a 10-Mark note):

I'm hoping this is not too disrespectful, I never try to make them look silly or goofy. Still, I figured it would be a nice thing between hommage and easter egg, so 100-ish real-life scientists coming up.

Today: Everything is terrible. :<

Love the animations and the overall color scheme and style. However, I would suggest changing the main character's color a little big away from the general hue (with higher saturation?) so that it stands out a bit more.

Thanks for the advice! I was bumbling back and forth between different color schemes, and I can at least assure you that orange will be reserved for the player only. It'll be the "good" color in this game. (Look at all the enemies and tell me the "evil" color, go ahead. )

I'll definitely do another effects pass over the ship when the backgrounds are implemented, to make sure it really stands out. Also, eddietree here is some sort of shader wizard, so we might even slap a subtle glow on it...

Holy absolute shit I am in love with this artwork.  I was completely unaware of Michael's work (and he does awesome pixel art too?!).  Michael, if I ever get a buttload of cash I'm going to steal you away

Thanks Dan, but YOU of all people? Is the link in your sig someone else's site?

Thanks!

Now: Meet the crew! You know how in every 60's sci-fi show there's always the ship scientist, who's either the cool voice of reason or the backstabbing villanous megalomaniac?
Well this time we have a ship full of them!

These are just the first batch, there's a cosmic truckload of characters still to do!

     

     

     

     

(All work in progress, some color and value tweaking is still in order.)

[collaboration]

Oops! Just posting an update because of 120-day warning.

I'm currently well-set with a few projects, but please don't hesitate to PM me in case you just want to get in contact or exchange cookie recipes!

5-way run animations: (vector, hand-tweened, slowed down)



Enemies for a 64x64 grid:
(vector, hand-tweened, added color effects in Photoshop)




A tileset!
(pixel art)



And a little artwork just because.

Also, there's a collaboration going on between me, eddietree and others:

Stella-111!

Watch this space!

Just a bit of visual feedback: I'd genuinely recommend including a "run start" animation, especially with your character accelerating this slowly from the standing pose.

Currently, it looks like her dress is flowing in the wind the second you tap the forward key, which is a bit distracting and ruins the good run cycle, feeling-wise.

All the best for this!

       

A few of the enemies.
Hopefully it's pretty clear what they do from their design.

Oh, and this is you.
We didn't want a sleek, "cool" ship, but something that speaks utility. Something engineers would use to get to places! That's why it's boxy and sturdy-looking - but hopefully still neat and recognizable!

We're not yet sure if we want 1 row = 1 color. Probably not, to be honest, it's rather limiting.

But yes, every color is one "class" of scientist. Think a degree in biology, engineering, AI, economy...
And as you can see, you can load up to 10 eggheads onto your ship!

Amazing!!

Heartfelt congratulations to your newfound programmer.

Sneak peeks!

[so I will create a clean and detailed design document down to nitty-gritty numbers, validated by professional programmers, and run tests with several engines before posting here.]

I think there are some typos there, you might want to paste this into your post.
You're welcome!

The game is currently still a concept with nothing interesting to show, so I will create a clean and detailed design document down to nitty-gritty numbers, validated by professional programmers, and run tests with several engines before posting here.

I am currently looking for people willing to help, whom I will pay a regular salary over the many months needed to develop my personal AAA shooter.

I am also busy doing work at college so I will quit that particular task to devote myself to the project with as much time and resources as I expect my employees to do.

Shit art, wouldn't play.

In other news, mockups are being done as we speak, and I'll get to tilesettin' tonight!
Also trying my hand at design on this one as well!

And damn, wait until I make a logo, this looks depressing!  

Depending on how well you code, that might actually be a decent deal.

 I was firmly in the camp of "Typical idea guy, pay no heed" (sorry), but your writing sample is very solid - you should definitely be billing yourself as the writer here first and foremost, it makes your role so much clearer.

 Some suggestions from my side:

1.) You should probably make things more specific and explain more about the actual gameplay. As it stands, we have "focus on narrative" (interactive or not?) and "combat". Now will this be a VN interspersed with simple combat screens? Or SRPG levels? Or a full-blown RPG? The swords-lances-axes thing seems... inspired by Fire Emblem - will it be just that?
 These things make a huge difference, and allow people to judge whether your projected mancount of three is actually feasible.

2.) Your artist will definitely appreciate a detailed visual description of each character and location. Your script is fun to read, but it's important to write out the "setting the scene" aspect which is otherwise done naturally by the graphics.
 If you want to put in the extra effort, it's going to be very useful to think of several poses/emotes for your characters and insert them directly into the script - escpecially if they change during dialogue. That way, the artist can already think up a "shopping list" of poses to draw and finish.

 In any case, good luck!


 P.S.: As a sidenote, it makes me smile to see devils and demons use "hell" and "damned" like a human would - I'm actually thinking they'd come up with new expressions, because you'd think hell and damnation would be distinctly mundane concepts to them.

Hi,

 well, this is certainly looking great already! There's not too much one could do without making things inconsistent... Could I ask what exactly you mean by "finish" the game - re-working any existing assets or filling in anything that's still missing?

 But in any case, it's looking really good so far!

You know I actually did, but that just puts me into the group of people who follow this project, and who probably all have given some backing already.

I'd really suggest not keeping things like these so super-secret. Or the voice casting - that would make for some neat insight too, yet it's hidden away in the Youtube channel.

The Game Jam video isn't really a good replacement for a trailer - most people will probably get bored halfway through for lack of actual game.

I'm not ripping on you (kinda obvious considering I created this thread in the first place), but I'm really thinking you need to show more material, well-edited and ASAP...

Good luck!

You know, you should really have some gameplay up by now...

It's a bit sad, because good art and a motivation can only take you so far. Still, I'm a bit baffled, because at least art-wise it's leagues above 95 % of other Kickstarter projects...

Would you help this man plan a murder?