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[Mothil]

Any feedback is welcome! Under the image you can read what I think.



Arctic: The original. It works, but I'm going to experiment a lot to get it right.
What I feel it does right: It has cute, innocent colors. It makes it feel more like a baby squid, lost in the deep ocean (which is indeed the case.)
What I think it does wrong: I believe it might need a tad more contrast, and I fear for how he will stand out when I start making the background. Maybe blue isn't the way to go?

Cobalt: This is the Yang to the Arctic Yin; Darker blues, tons of contrast.
What I feel it does right: It pops the character out of the screen, sort of.
What I think it does wrong: It blends too much into the background, making it harder to see on smaller screens. This is critical, as the player should know _AT ALL TIMES_ where he/she is and where they are heading. The darker contrasts also make Akiro seem less innocent.

Lemon: Everybody likes yellow, right? A little lemon party in the sea?
What I feel it does right: Contrary to Cobalt, this one stands out and makes the player know it. I believe this might be one of the stronger ones, considering yellow is a 'happy' color, usually representing warmth and the sun.
What I think it does wrong: With a strong color like this, I think it should have a lot less contrast. Probably more towards the gold-ish feel instead of bright yellow.

Emerald: Probably nauseous from all the swimming.
What I feel it does right: It pops out in a good way. Green usually represents good things. This one has a good feel, and the green doesn't conflict with any of the current enemy designs.
What I think it does wrong: Squids aren't colored this way... Or are they? :O

Orange: Lovely color.
What I feel it does right: This one has a really nice coloring, and pops perfectly out of the ocean, it's just a shame that...
What I think it does wrong: it's the same color as one of the enemies, but that can be fixed.

Beige: It looks... familiar.
What I feel it does right: It's a bit more neutral, which is always a good thing in a 'chaotic' game.
What I think it does wrong: It doesn't have that much character I think. I would probably have to see this one animated before I talk more about it.

Coal: The badass of the ocean.
What I feel it does right: I don't have much on this... The eyes pop out better?
What I think it does wrong: Seeing as my background will contain bits of darker blue, I fear Akiro won't be as visible as he is on this background here.

Chocolate: Yum.
What I feel it does right: It's a nice color, can't see anything apart from that.
What I think it does wrong: It doesn't look like a squid at all. (That can be said about several of the above).

Rose: If I choose this color I might have to release it as 18+.
What I feel it does right: Well... It does stand out.
What I think it does wrong: 7/10 too much red. I'm being hard on this color, though. I'm pretty sure that a lighter color could make this work.

Cotton: The Mario fan.
What I feel it does right: It looks like a normal squid. It doesn't conflict with any of the other designs. Quite nice!
What I think it does wrong: The white in the eyes are almost not visible at all, and he looks like a little ghost.

[TheWing]

This seems like being able to modify those in game isn't far! (custom character-colours o/) 

Otherwise, the progress is looking good, interested to see what'll come out of this

[Mothil]

I'm working on implementing them as we speak! In-game gif of orange and coal will come right up, within the next fifteen minutes. I also increased the swim radius, making it easier YET harder at the same time. It's a funky feeling.

I've been playing around with the thought of just throwing all the colors in (of course fixed, some of them have too high contrast) and just randomly choose a color each time the player spawns.

[Mothil]

Done! This is seriously too much fun.
I found the perfect setup for the art, so drawing the animation and implementing it takes me about 3 minutes per new color.

... Should I draw a lot of different designs, and everytime the player dies it's a randomed color? Tempting.

[JobLeonard]

Isn't it "easier" to create a grey version and colour it in the engine?

[TheWing]

Isn't it "easier" to create a grey version and colour it in the engine?

or then, since there's three colours per palette, just let the player choose the colours..? Depends on the gameplay, though.

Looking nice anyhow, so keep that up

[Mothil]

I have wondered about the same thing, but the thing is I think I will have other designs as well. Someone mentioned different patterns and multiple colors, and I would very much like to experiment with that.

If I do decide to keep it to three colors, I will create grey ones and color them in the engine.

[Mothil]

Just played around with a grey version, and forgot to set the eye color on a layer above, and the result is almost frightening... It was fun though, and having a grey version is definitely easier! It might just look just as good as well with some tweaking, but I want to draw tons of different designs, so might as well look forward to that.

[Mothil]

Working on the parallaxing. Probably going to tile them in all direction, not sure how that would turn out.

[Mothil]

In-game color changer:

This is very cool! I loved drawing them separate, and if I do it this way (random value) I have to stick to one color. Still fun though. 

[Mothil]

Fixes: Increased swimming radius, reduced swimming speed.

Comparison (orange new, blue old):

[GrumpyGiant]

Dude you can't just rotate pixel art, you gotta draw different versions for each angle

[Mothil]

That sounds reasonable, but I have no idea how I would do that.

[GrumpyGiant]

If you don't wanna bother manually drawing them, you can use a tool like RotSprite (http://info.sonicretro.org/RotSprite) which does a reasonable job.

[Mothil]

It would be a lot more work, but if I had to I would. But why should I not rotate pixel art? I know a lot of people don't like it, but it's not like there's a rule against it... right?

[Greipur]

I don't understand the overall interactive experience you're going for (but I like what I see), but looking at an octopus changing colour I just have to recommend checking out Cuttlefish. They communicate with each other by changing textures and colour, that would've been pretty interesting for the player I reckon.

[Mothil]

I've been debating on having the player change texture and/or color depending on situations, but I think that would be too complex for my current idea. Basically avoiding feature creep as much as I can.

If the whole idea is hard to see through my posts, I think it will be a lot clearer when I upload a playable prototype. (I did some days ago, and sent private link some places.) When the next one is ready, I will post here. Would love to see if you guys have any ideas about how i can improve it.

EDIT: On another note, I'm experimenting with some wallpaper ideas. Here's a rough layout.

[Greipur]

Basically avoiding feature creep as much as I can.

Yeah, that's a wise decision.

If the whole idea is hard to see through my posts, I think it will be a lot clearer when I upload a playable prototype. (I did some days ago, and sent private link some places.) When the next one is ready, I will post here. Would love to see if you guys have any ideas about how i can improve it.

I would recommend that you write an elevator pitch, a few sentences about the core experience. We can help you better if we get a quick understanding of the game. And really, in this day and age clearly communicating your game idea is key to be seen, which I assume that you want. We live in a world of information overflow. I think most people won't bother trying out a prototype if they can't easily understand what it's about (I wouldn't at least).

[Mothil]

Thank you for the input, and I completely agree. I've been half heartedly running this devlog, and I should shape up the whole thing soon. Especially the first post, whereas I should follow what you just said and add link to the latest prototype.

[Greipur]

You're welcome. I look forward to trying it out. I know that I just contradicted my own advice by writing that, but I will always go in blind if there are cute octopi.