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[Dinomaniak]

Hello Artists,

I could use your expertise on something : I have an render in black & white, and I'm using this for a 2d sideview platformer game. The problem is that I don't know how to modify it in such a manner that it is obvious for the player which parts from the platform are walkable on and which not.

Would you happen to have any advice on what I can do to improve this ?

[Capntastic]

I'm no wizard of art but desaturating and darkening "background elements" makes interactable stuff pop out more.

Quick and dirty:

[nnyei]

As Capntastic already said, you need a clear distinction between interactable elements and non-interactable background/foreground elements. You can do that in a variety of ways; I'll mention a couple that come to mind:

• Difference between brightness/darkness
  Example: Rayman Origins/Legends, Child of Light, Limbo, Machinarium, Ori and the blind forest, Super Meat Boy — background is bright, middleground is normal, foreground is dark; Botanicula — middleground is bright, background is dark
  

• Difference between saturation
  Example: Child of Light, Braid, Machinarium, Super Meat Boy — background has more desaturated colors, middleground has more saturated colors; Botanicula — middleground is white or near white while the bg has more saturation
  

• Difference between blurry and non-blurry elements
  Example: Rayman Origins/Legends, Child of Light — foreground is blurry; Botanicula — both foreground and background are sometimes blurred; Limbo — bg is blurred
  

• Difference in lineart
  Example: Super Mario World — every element you can interact with has a black outline, everything in the background is lineless; Scribblenauts — middleground has black lineart, bg elements have a colored, brighter outline
  

Try one or two of these and then see what works best for your game.

[Capntastic]

It is also inportant to develop a coherent  scheme and stick to it with iron discipline so the player knows what is useable without having to think

[sonder]

Texture, shadows, and color can also be used to differentiate what's solid and what's not.

[diegzumillo]

They have to be visually distinct. In whatever way you choose, as long as you teach the player. For example it could be more/less saturation, cold/hot colors, dark/light value. These are the simplest ways to create distinction but you could create the sprites in particular - contextual - ways. If the setting is a forest, you could have grass on walkable ground, for example.

[Cobralad]

You should use gdood texture and saturation to show the highlights

[Dinomaniak]

Thanks to everyone for lending a hand .