I know the colors are terrible, and I intend to create a proper palette. Looking for any C&C or thoughts on the size/style in general for a side-scrolling ARPG/roguelike maybe.

They're inspired by the (underrated) movie The 13th Warrior which is based on a Crichton novel. The second sprite is supposed to be a man wearing a bear skin cloak. Perhaps the paws/arms are not a great idea.

Though the movie did not have any supernatural elements, Norse mythology just has too much fun stuff to not include elements like the Draugr and whatnot.




Edited by tzen - 25 July 2012 at 10:16pm

Yes, the idea is something like Spelunky meets Zelda II (also underrated).

I am glad you like the viking's colors because I was inspired by your awesome viking piece in your gallery.  I didn't copy them directly, just used the general idea (green tunic, white hair/beard). He originally had a blue tunic and red/orange hair. I also made his tunic sleeveless as per you viking; he had half-sleeves before which wasn't badass enough looking.

His pose and shapes were already done before I saw your viking, though. I used the pictures here as a ref: http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/manufacturing/text/viking_sword_technique.htm (cool viking site, btw)

I am pretty happy with how he's shaping up. but I do think he's still a little generic looking to be a good main hero.

What do you think about the readability on the bear man (called wendol in the film, I think)? Could you even tell what he was before I mentioned it in my post?

Edit: This is how he looked before:

  


Edited by tzen - 20 July 2012 at 12:49am

Oh, those are older versions of the hero that I'm not going to use. But yeah, the sword was static and it made the running animation look bad. The new hero will ideally have more upper-body animation.

As for the nudity, I thought the character I based her on (the "Mother") was topless when Buliwyf killed her, but it seems she had a shirt on or something. I'll probably remove the nudity since she's already going to be a witch-like enemy that the player kills, and it's probably in pretty bad taste to have her be partially nude when she is slain.

Trying to get the readability up on this. Looks a little pillow-shady, though. Might just have to stop procrastinating and make a good palette so I can get some skin tones under the bear cloak.

So I have to accept the fact that with my (lack of) artistic ability and spriting skills I will not actually be able to get any game concept to even a rough working prototype without scaling back the detail considerably. Here is the compromise so far (original up top, new style below):





The character will have 2 modes that the player will toggle: platforming - where his sword and shield are slung and he can run, jump and climb; and combat - where he will draw his sword and shield and can attack and block and walk .


Edited by tzen - 24 July 2012 at 5:17am

Nah, they're barely rough approximations of what I remember them looking like in the movie, where you never really get a good, full clear look at them anyway.

Once I finish animating the main character, I'll work on making the 16 pixel version of the bearman more readable before I start to animate it.

Hey, if you are doing a game, want some base tiles to work with? and if you like those tiles, i can make you a full fledged tile-set maybe?

The bearskin man is much better! Readability is there.

Regarding the tiles, I say play with the hues.

What language are you using to produce this game, for what platform, and in what resolution it will run?