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[M0ti]

STORY
As the legend goes, “In the last battle of Great War between demons and humans, demon lord, on the verge of his death, used the rest of his magic to create a tower. Tower so high, it cast shadow over the entire battlefield. He then hid himself at the very top, where he rests to these days, gathering strength to continue the war once again."
Hard to tell if it really happened this way. It has been many years since the last hero of Great War passed away to tell us his story. But it can’t be just a fairytale. After all, the tower still stands and it has been declared the last unconquered territory of the demon race.

For centuries, this tower full of traps, monsters, treasures and mysteries, is luring adventurers from all around the world. And in front of its entrance, small town was build, to support all these brave (and stupid) enough to accept tower's challenge and venture inside.


QUICK DESCRIPTION

• Visual: Top down pixel-art
• Gameplay: Action RPG with focus on exploration and town life.
• Main inspiration: Tower of Druaga (both game and anime), Zelda: A Link to the Past
• Main goal: not to send a player on adventure but let him live adventurous life

UNIQUE FEATURES
Changing tower
While exploring the Tower, you will encounter many mysterious phenomena. Full treasure chest appeared out of nowhere when you were passing by. Walls started to shift, either to open up parts of level unavailable before, or just to change path to the exit.
These are just examples of many surprises, which The Tower has at its disposal to fulfil its purpose.

Exotic town
Some towns depend on tourism, others thrive on industry. This town was built and still exists solely because of The Tower. Market is full of artefacts and devices of unknown purpose. Inns and other services are customized for adventurers as their main clientele. And some professions could exist only here, like catapult delivery service for example.


PROJECT’S VISION
Hi, I’m Emil Gašparec. I’m game developer from Czech Republic and I have been making games since 2011. During these 6 years we were making games in our free time, out of free will and … well … for free. It was a lot of fun, but I feel that it’s time to create something bigger. Something I no longer can make without a budget and a full time commitment. That’s why this game is being planned as a Kickstarter project from its conception and its future development is directly tied to it.
If I don’t raise enough money (this way or another), the project will be immediately stopped, so I’m willing to try anything that will improve my chances for success.
I honestly believe that this forum thread is one of these things, so I thank you all in advance for any comment you leave here.

• If there is something you like about this project, let me know, so that I know what parts of the game to reinforce.
• If you have any suggestion about the article or personal advice about fundraising to share with me, I will very much appreciate it.
• If you want to work on this, please, please leave your e-mail adress or something, because our team right now is just me (game design and world building) and music composer. :D

[M0ti]

[RESERVED!]
I should probably also reserve the second post, just in case. I feel like I could find some use for it. 

[ionside]

That is a very big tower.

[M0ti]

yeah, it is. There should be enough space to build another town on more opened floors. I also have a hypothesis that because the Tower is one big independent mechanism there should be the whole floors or at least parts of them, totaly inaccessible to adventurers full of cogwheels and pulleys.

[The Armorman]

Big fan of towers here.

[M0ti]

  Welcome in the club! If you have reference to good game towers or if you have any suggestion about what should right fantasy tower have, don't be afraid to share.

[M0ti]

Now, when the pitch is done is time to start working on the prototype. Never did top-down or fantasy setting so I needed to start with some research. Looking for a style, that will be minimalistic and manageable so that I can handle it until I find some graphic designer.
Here are some references I have found.

It helped me to create some idea about what kind of visuals I would like for the game. Especially the archer at the left. I would like for characters to have eyes. It’s simple but still enough detailed to make her feel like a unique character with a personality.
But unfortunately that’s not something I can draw so for now I would need to go with this:

Made some color variation because I was really indecisive about it. My favorites right now are II. and III.

[The Armorman]

If you want characters to have eyes, make your sprites larger. I can tell you're probably pretty new to pixelart so it will rightly be easier to work with a larger canvas. The difficulty of the size you're working with is in pixelart, the smaller you go the more abstraction is required. At the size you're working at each individual pixel can (and should) convey details.


the first sprite in your reference works because it sacrifices most of the head to be taken up by the eyes. It's probably a lot "cuter" compared to what you're going for.

[M0ti]

Frist of all, thank you for your feedback and advice. I'm a total amateur with pixer art so any advice or suggestion is welcome.
My main reason for choosing this size was presumption that small canvas will mean less work with animations. I previously tried bigger canvas but characters with eyes still looked dumb so I knew that now I can work without them.
But if you think that even for the animations will bigger sprites be better, I will redraw it befor I get to them.

And I think this level of cuteness will not be a problem. I feel like that character can still fit even into more serious or mysterious scenes without looking unfit. I will also like for the town to feel mainly friendly and welcoming so even that's not clashing with the look of that archer.

But if you have any other suggestion or options, please share.

[The Armorman]

I included your sprite at a 1x1 ratio (or regular ratio or pixelart) and also increased next to the Fighter's overworld map sprite from Square Enix's (originally SquareSoft) Final Fantasy that was released on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987 .

I also included a sprite I made a few days ago that is still "small" (not quite as large as a sprite in Disgaea or something, that weird Anime strategy game) but much larger than yours


I changed some things on your sprite in terms of color values to slightly increase contrast and copied the eyes from Fighter's sprite (always steal everything you can if you're stuck)
compare and contrast with the edits I made to your sprite next to fighter and the other 8-bit sprite I included for some ideas on what you can and cannot get away with with the canvas size you've picked

you may notice the fighter sprite has an outline, but I wouldn't copy this for your sprite because it wasn't originally made with an outline in mind and the colors would need to be sharper for it to be more readable.

Those are just some tips. Sorry if this is fuckin' vague, but you gotta study this shit to get good at it!


I also added another thing where I increased the size only slightly to see just by how adding a few pixels can sometimes help you make something more dynamic.


it's barely any larger and the proportions are similar, but how the details are evoked changes completely and I think it'd be easier to animate this way because you have more prominent details for the person to focus on. You may wanna look at how I changed and got rid of unnecessary colors too.

[M0ti]

Wow, my sprite has eyes! And here he is much better while still so small! Thank you for all the effort and time you have spent to show me this. I hope I will learn from it. At least now I want to spend more time on changes. I will took your second example and try really hard not just use it but learn from it. Improvements are always welcomed.
(Btw Disgaea series is awesome. I can't even count how many hours I've spend in them.)

[M0ti]

It seems that this thread will be more suitable for devlog category and here it feels a little misplaced. So I created it there, with copy of my posts and will continue that one from now on. After a while I will delete this one, if I find out how.

https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=62880.msg1359086#msg1359086