Game & Map Screenshots 11

Those sprites are nicely done. It doesn't look weird to me at all. Looks good

Something's wrong with this weapon animation, I think...



She's not even holding the sword in her hand. Is this normal?

@Elissiaro, looks good sweetie! :D Love the green dress and the cap! Maybe the sprite colours look a bit more washed-out than the more intense tiles? The difference is pretty small, tho, so maybe not an issue!

First off, the custom character sprites are very well done! My only feedback would be they don't match the same style as the tileset, so in my opinion it does look a little out-of-place, but not in an overly distracting way. I think the real issue is the character sprites a less saturated than the tiles, when generally it would be the other way around because you want your characters to 'pop' off the screen.

One other small detail, but your doorways are shorter than your characters. Seems like a minor gripe, but it was the first thing I noticed. Even the girl on her knees would have trouble clearing that entrance, lol. But overall nice work, I think you're on the right track.

@mephet I know your post office post is it a bit back, but I really love the look of it! I think the only thing I'd change is the benches. At least where I'm from, post offices don't usually have benches for waiting and to me it looks a bit like a train station with that in there. Maybe put a table or desk of some sort there for people to write out their mail needs? (Address envelopes and such?)

@orange~ I love the look of the art! Did you make it yourself?


What I would do is to use the A5 cliffs for the base and then draw out the transition pieces, and use shift clicking to place those. The only problem I can see is there are no A5 transition pieces, but if you like I can edit those for you?

Meant to insert a screenshot to show what I meant:


I agree with another poster about the stairs. I don't think they'd even look so odd going right up to the door, but the fact that they span the whole width of the front of the building is strange - you have stairs leading to walls. The width of the stairs would look less odd if you put a landing space across the top of them.

Looks great! The only thing on that whole map I would change is moving the guy resting on the wall up about 1/3 of a tile. But it's not a big deal and your art style is great :)

It's definitely better then any of my first cut-scenes.
I would advice to add a small fadeout while switching BGM unless you need it to change abruptly, the story is kinda interesting and I'll like to find out more about it.
I'd also make the Main Character's move speed a little faster while climbing.
Lastly I'd say that you need to add more things to the map so it won't look so empty add a few details and make it look like something you'd find in real life but don't overdo it.
Overall It was good for a first try and a lot better then mine, keep up the good work!

Does this look better?

@Tuomo L Yes! Much better.

Tons! :D But can you try something else for me, sweetie? Make it so the two houses on the left don't have their sides right next to the cliff? I mean, as it stands, it almost looks like they gonna tumble off. The inn and the item shop look nice, by comparison, so just have a tile's width of space goin' right around each house?

Do you mean something like this?

My game was missing a massive pollution producing tea machine... But I feel as though all games are secretly missing that. ;)

@Tuomo L, yea, I feel that's better! Altho, I do like yo idea of house walls rising straight up the cliff, so to speak... but mebbe you'd have to make tweaks to the tileset to make it look natural? Sorry if I sound like I'm finicky, it's really fine as it is now! :D :D

Or even better...Have a bunch of tea related humor! (Also this is a small RTP comedy side project for helping me learn MZ)

Haven't over the last 2 weeks that is beautiful enough to post, however, I've been creating new tilesets and mapping my butt off... end result is a schoolyard for my characters.








The next time you see this, it will be filled with children, teachers, and some in-game sport (court below) that everyone's obsessed with in the world... but likely is just a variation of paper, scissors, rock LMFAO.

Check my Twitter or follow me on Discord for more updates if you're interested

The "night mode" of my game is finished and in the store you can now play a reaction game to earn a lot more hearts. With these you can unlock various upgrades in the course of the game.

Thank you, this was a good point! I was thinking of benches for older people to sit and wait, but having so many of them is perhaps unnecessary. I tried adding some tables along the walls instead:



Not 100% sure about the positioning of the tables yet, but I prefer this idea over just having benches!


I've been playing around with some special maps outside of the editor recently:


First is a "tourist-y" map the player can purchase in the main city of the game. Purchasing the map will give a map item. Using the item will show this map and show choices for each numbered place, which offer short descriptions of the sights of the city. I thought it would be a fun way to convey a bit of worldbuilding (the city is inspired by places like Rome and Spoleto in Italy, so of course there must be travel brochures and tourist shops :p) as well as give the player an overview of the city.
(Credits go to Kenney.nl for the cartography assets: https://www.kenney.nl/assets/cartography-pack)


Second, a world map that the player can navigate with an airship. When the player gets close to places that can be entered (such as the town on the upper continent) the place is highlighted and the name of the place appears above it. I was quite nervous about making this, so even though it's still a bit rough I'm happy I managed to make a first version!

An another screenshot of wip game, a village, we can some PNJs. Bye

Moo, that looks awesome! I like the vibe you have going on.


So, I have a commission going on right now for a battle UI (some edits of MOG). I want to give him some constructive feedback as he worked really hard, but I'm not really sure where to start. Figured I'd ask the artists here.




Right now what I'm noticing is FP (TP renamed) and MP are very hard to see. Overall I feel it's okay but I have no art sense. My gut's saying the colors feel off. Since I'm paying for this, I want it to look good. TIA.

Take everything with a grain of salt.

Major Problems with the UI:
Right now the UI feels haphazardly put together. Major problems I can see from the get-go:

1. The text is unreadable
2. The colors are too harsh.
3. The portrait art bleeds out of the edges.
4. Lack of unifying theme that tells anything about your game.

First tip, give yourself "guaranteed margins." Here is an example:

Now, the distance from the edge of the screen should generally be off limits. If possible, windows would be touching the edges of it, but any window or contents should generally NOT be inside this area.

However, I feel it is important to stress that while this is a rule of thumb, it is not an unbreakable law that is set in stone or anything. If there is a legitimate need to allow a window and/or it’s contents to exceed these invisible borders (especially if it was during a transition or something similar) then that takes precedence.

I guess, in general, windows should not exceed these boundaries while at rest.
Like the windows, this space would be coherent in between all the menu screens.

Reasoning: this will give the menus a feel of spaciousness instead of being claustrophobic! It allows itself a fair amount of tolerance for composition as while windows/contents would not normally exceed such boundaries, the same is not true for other visual elements. (arrow cursors pointing offscreen, inactive windows hiding away, etc)

Second Tip: Standardization of common elements.
A UI has to work as a whole and has a unifying theme and it's the job of your UI artist to mention this in the first place. Ideally you want to do the following:

1. Determine the core visual styles of your UI. Basically you have common elements that blocks out information that gives a pattern for your players to extract information from.
2. Have a standard font type, size and colors that helps convey important information to your player. Normally you have the header type font, standard font (mostly for dialogue and bulk of the readable information and so on.
3. Remember, Menu and Battle UI has to be consistent to unify and give a professional look to your game. One cannot stand out without the other. Without knowing how your general main menu UIs look like, it's hard to suggest the exact issues of your battle UI.

My general suggestion is to put individual windows on the character facesets. Examples of what I mean: