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[bram_dingelstad]

Hey guys, so first off: I'm a programmer first and everything else in gamedev second, so keep that in mind as we proceed

Now, my question: I'm working on a small roguelike on PICO8, which inherently brings some limitations on sprites as the canvas is only 128x128 and it has a limited pallete. Making a character sprite that's nice to look at and can express a range of things is preferable.


The one on the left is my old sprite, with a lot of room for facial expression.
The one on the right is my new sprite, which I thought is prettier and is more pleasant to look at.

I'm gonna probably programmatically animate/draw the new sprite's hair to enable some more dynamic hair interaction, so don't take this as it's final shape.

My questions are:

Is this a worthwhile improvement?
Is there something I'm missing, is the first sprite better?
Are there some general improvements I can do on the second sprite?

Let me know, and be nice. thx!

[Thaumaturge]

Without seeing the rest of your aesthetic, it's hard to say which of the two is better, I feel.

I do feel like I like the form of the right-hand sprite a little more, as a matter of personal preference, for what it's worth.

That said, I think that there's space for some basic expression in the right-hand sprite. In particular, I could see some basic emoticon-style eyes being implemented with a few pixels--things like "> <" or "\ /", or "/ \" to express annoyance, anger, and sadness respectively, for example.

[bram_dingelstad]

I see what you mean, and my preference goes to the new one as well. You can click on the "devlog" thing in my signature if you want to see the rest of the aesthetic.

I'll do some experiments with the new sprite, and especially the animation idea that I have for the hair, and then come back to this thread!