[FILLED] Looking for artist(s) to develop new style for A Valley Without Wind.

[yllamana]

He's from the future. Insecurity about gender norms is a thing of the past, and the guy likes pink.

Alternatively: he's from the past, and pink is still regarded as a manly colour and blue a womanly colour. He is from the year 700 or something after all, right?

[Coppermantis]

I'm liking the first one. Agreed that it may be slightly too cartoony, but It's a step in the right direction. The second one is...strange. I can't say I like it.

[Jerebaldo1]

Agreed that the first one is well done, but of course would be better if done less cartoony

[tigersfan]

He's from the future. Insecurity about gender norms is a thing of the past, and the guy likes pink.

Alternatively: he's from the past, and pink is still regarded as a manly colour and blue a womanly colour. He is from the year 700 or something after all, right?

Heh, I'm pretty sure that Darrel. He's from the future time period.

[Wanderer]

Okay, so here's a couple of pieces that Studio G is working on.  More cartoony than I'd like for the characters, but there are some interesting new techniques in here that I think we can make work from a technical standpoint.  Having some depth to the ground layer is pretty cool, although it would require introducing some new rules to the actual procedural generation to prevent grounds that are too small, etc.  That's a substantial amount of technical work, but it would just really be a layer over top of what we already have, so that's not the end of the world.

Thanks for the studio explanation and additional sample, Chris.

It's sad to hear that a lot of additional work would be required to the depth piece, but I have to say that style looks really neat to me.  I'm not entirely sure an entire game that looks like that would be cool or not, personally, but that first one's a pretty neat piece of standalone art.  As for the attack of the six foot lego... well... *snort*, that's cute. 

[Tobias]

I think an important thing to keep an eye on is character body portions and stances and animations. That's one of the biggest things that contributes to how cartoony something looks.

Take a look at this.

http://www.sprites-inc.co.uk/vania/DraculaXStyle/DoS/Players/Soma/CVDOS_Soma.gif

This is no way looks anime or catoony, but the samples from studio K and G do.

Please for the love of all that is adequate, discourage the use of over sized heads/hands/feet.

[Coppermantis]

Even the cartoonieness is growing on me now. Maybe the character should be more proportional as Tobias points out, but I really like the background and sniper balloon. The second picture is still cute but not fitting of AVWW's style of gameplay.

[zebramatt]

I like it.

Even the funny little block man doesn't particularly offend me.

[keith.lamothe]

Even the funny little block man doesn't particularly offend me.

My first response when I saw it was "Bomberman!"

[zebramatt]

Even the funny little block man doesn't particularly offend me.

My first response when I saw it was "Bomberman!"

I love bomberman!

[mrhanman]

I'm not crazy about the character art, but the environment is outstanding!  The balloon is pretty awesome, too. 

[freeformschooler]

That style would be pretty much amazing. The only thing is the characters look awfully small compared to the environment. I'm pretty sure that's due to the depth on the grass.

[Aklyon]

I agree with what freeform is saying, the character looks a bit too small for how big the background looks.

[Fiskbit]

Okay, so here's a couple of pieces that Studio G is working on.  More cartoony than I'd like for the characters, but there are some interesting new techniques in here that I think we can make work from a technical standpoint.  Having some depth to the ground layer is pretty cool, although it would require introducing some new rules to the actual procedural generation to prevent grounds that are too small, etc.  That's a substantial amount of technical work, but it would just really be a layer over top of what we already have, so that's not the end of the world.

I've found that this kind of angled ground makes jumps in platformers more difficult because it's hard to tell where a ledge begins and ends when jumping to or from them. In modifications I've played that add this in to games that didn't already have it, I think it has a negative impact on gameplay. That said, with the procedurally generated terrain in A Valley Without Wind, it may not be a problem because the gap distances won't be fine-tuned like they are in a traditional sidescroller.

Also, it looks like it would make it so things can hide behind the left side of a wall because it's angled in front of them; based on the mockup, that's probably big enough to completely hide some things from view.

[Misery]

Okay, so here's a couple of pieces that Studio G is working on.  More cartoony than I'd like for the characters, but there are some interesting new techniques in here that I think we can make work from a technical standpoint.  Having some depth to the ground layer is pretty cool, although it would require introducing some new rules to the actual procedural generation to prevent grounds that are too small, etc.  That's a substantial amount of technical work, but it would just really be a layer over top of what we already have, so that's not the end of the world.

I've found that this kind of angled ground makes jumps in platformers more difficult because it's hard to tell where a ledge begins and ends when jumping to or from them. In modifications I've played that add this in to games that didn't already have it, I think it has a negative impact on gameplay. That said, with the procedurally generated terrain in A Valley Without Wind, it may not be a problem because the gap distances won't be fine-tuned like they are in a traditional sidescroller.

Also, it looks like it would make it so things can hide behind the left side of a wall because it's angled in front of them; based on the mockup, that's probably big enough to completely hide some things from view.

This.

That wierd angled ground thing would get on my nerves fast.


......but not as fast as those backgrounds.   Just.... ugh.  I know that's only one example, but if that's indicative of the overall style..... I'd hope there'd be some option to simply turn them off / remove them / replace them / stop them from appearing at all.    Otherwise I'd end up trying to dive into the game files to rip them out, which is likely to lead to lots of yelling.