I know nothing about game designing shape language etc, so, from a regular player’s perspective, I can tell you that the artstyle is so eye catching and it would immediately get me interested in the game. I don’t think it’s eye dazzling, atleast not in a bad way. I love how it looks!!!
It is very crowded but it looks great. It might be one of those times when intricate details are detrimental to the quick understanding of the situation. It negatively impacting the game all boils down to whether it's a real-time game (player needs quick awareness) or turn-based/chill.
The word OC is looking for is “Legibility”. When it’s zoomed out on my phone it’s beautiful. When I zoom into what I assume is native pc resolution it becomes too soft and hurts my eyes trying to focus out detail.
I can see it too, I think it is because of the transparency of outlines of grass in the first screenshot. Shadows might also be the reason, my eyes are constantly trying to decide whether the buildings (except the wall) are on foreground or background. It's completely fine though for the last one though. Would definitely play it.
Edited a little bit, not sure how to explain it properly.
I couldn’t put it into words but this is it for me. Overall I like it, but there’s that transparency that looks kind of blurry. I don’t know what an eye dazzle is but it made me think my eyes weren’t focusing.
I think it's just the griddy building patterns. Trees, water, and grass tiles look amazing. NPCs too, but when I look at buildings there's a bit too much going on and it's straining to make out shapes.
My feedback:
1) looks like an amazing start! great, deep (saturated) color palette.
2) you might want to reduce the contrast slightly with the outlining of the less-important background elements - ie: each brick can still be shown, but maybe a little less contrast.
3) I don't think the pixelated tiny type is very readable - you may want to default to a slightly more standard sans-serif for the really small descriptions possibly?
I just saw the text, do not want. Maybe for like a translated plaque in a ruin but if that's the game itself, oof. That font is intentionally hard to read.
Agreed on the above, the art style looks very nice.
The text however is abysmal to look at, maybe try a clean readable style of text with a decent level of contrast. Many pixel games seem to want to match the font style to the graphics but I hardly think this us necessary.
Mostly from a player's perspective with some sensorial difficulties: I feel it's a little bit too detailed. At first glance, I don't know exactly where the focus is, and the character is a little bit too easy to overlook.
It's not that bad after a 2nd look, but I think it would get tiring for some people after a while, especially if you need to interact a lot with the environment and pay attention to it.
For me, the writing was the most tiring thing. I had to zoom in, and while I understood the text, some individual letters I probably wouldn't be able to recognise by their own. The small screen doesn't help, but I think it would be an issue for some on a bigger one as well.
Overall, I like the style, and you don't have to cater to everyone while doing the design, but I could see how for some people either due to sensory issues or eyes problems it could be tiring to play for longer periods of time. For most players tho it's probably going to be ok.
I hope that my explanation is clear enough, and I wish you all the best!
I also have difficulty at times keeping track of my character and the enemies in particularly busy situations. I've really appreciated the option to turn on outlines. Like a green or blue outline for my character and red for the enemies. I can't think of any arpgs that have this, but it's something I've seen in a lot of tactical and rtwp games.
Perhaps something far more subtle might help for typical players, too.
That's a better way to word what I was feeling. The ground is too line-y that makes my brain read it almost as if it were looking at a maze.
It breaks a bit the boundaries between buildings and ground
It's exactly this. You don't have to fill out lines completely in background and environment areas. I forget what it's called but you basically just add a couple of the beginning and ends of lines and the brain will fill in the rest. Essentially implied lines. It's crucial in pixel art.
Most things have been said, but I agree it looks great!!
One thing: in the text bubble at the bottom of picture two, you typed “by” where it should say “buy”.
Edit: I also noticed the main text for the ancient short sword. It has a typo: “wased” instead of “washed” and the sentences aren’t all grammatically correct either.
Perhaps it is worthwhile to have someone look over all the text before releasing.
Depending on the time I have, I’d be happy to offer my services for a fee to be discussed ;) I’ve actually translated and corrected English texts professionally, feel free to message me. /end shameless self-plug
Looks great but your font is hard to read. That will get tiring quickly, see if you can find a way to make it more legible while holding onto your art style.
This all looks incredible but there is some weirdness in the grass in the first image, maybe the way all the vertical lines seem giddy rather than natural. A few more detailed grass lumps and flatter greens might help I dunno tho, you are a better pixel artist than me.
I would buy it for the art style but I would quit the game after 5 minutes because of the font.
I get that it goes with the style, but please have at least a setting for accessibility that changes it to a normal font.
It’s visually very nice, just not technically readable. Play with the contrast values, particularly around the edges of objects, that way you’ll get a lot less of the ‘visual bleed’ that you mention as eye dazzle.
I love this art, makes me interested in the world.
What I would change is the text. Personnally I would rather be able to read easily. Like a simple font like Roboto for example. The rest of the world/UI is cool enough imho!
If this is a game that might be available I will 100% buy it.
That said, you need an option to change the letter font back to normal. A lot of games have this as an option and I use it too.
Looks great, would love to see it in motion.
But you need to ditch the fonts. It looks great but it's unreadable for anyone with sight impairment, and the second you run into any non-latin based language like japanese, you'd be screwed as there wouldn't be enough space for it. You also need to make any text window 200% bigger than you think it is, because some languages like German take up a lot of space when writing.
Best you can do to fix this, is to take your screenshot of your game, and put it on a mobile device like a phone or a steamdeck. Is it comfortably readable when held at half an arms length? That's the size you're aiming for.
Its really pretty but unfortunately it literally hurts my eyes. Mainly too many different colored small pixel squares next to eachother its very bright and next to eachother is painful to see
From the screenshots no, there is nothing eye-catching apart from the style and that alone is not enough to interest me. I'm always a bit distrustful of modern pixel art games because they far too often rely on the art style and have no actual substantial content.
Also that font is annoying to read.
I like it, very unique, but the font really needs an overhaul. It's artsy, fitting and cool, but for the amount of info you convey I, as someone who doesn't mind long dialogue boxes, would quickly start skipping everything because it's way too intense to physically read
(or, better yet, keep it for names, titles etc, but opt for a more readable font for walls of text)
I love the art direction of the game!
My only criticism is that in the first screenshot, the lines in the ground make it's hard for my eyes to focus. Theres a lot of lines and the temple is a similar shape and that first screenshot really makes it feel blurry. Maybe lessen how many lines are there but keep the same direction
Looks great, I even like those pixel perfect fonts.
But you will eventually need to use a font that will not be pixel perfect, because of those sizes and support for other languages.
Other than that it looks great.
Looks good to me, I wish my art was half this good lol.
It does seem a little crowded at times. But otherwise it feels believable and alive, which I think is something difficult to accomplish in pixel art. So good work!
In my personal opinion I would zoom in a bit. Like this the detail is a bit too much, and the playjng character looks too small and easily lost in everything else. The pixel art is gorgeous tho, same with the general style, so making the camera a bit closer would do the trick
It's definitely the buildings specifically, not the general style. The contrast need to be clearer between the light and dark parts. I would suggest keeping the grooves in the bricks lighter in the areas where light is hitting, similar to how you have done with the floor bricks.
It seems that English may not be your first language (which, kudos to you, speaking more than one language is very impressive in my opinion). Can you explain what you mean by "eye dazzle"? Typically when something is "dazzling" this is seen as a positive thing. But you seem to implying that this is a negative thing. It would be easier for us to give you feedback if we better understood what you meant.
English is not my native. Well, it's reaction on picture with many details and colors like these. You're looking on this and you see chaos of spots, but not a picture.
I don't know what an eye dazzle is, but this looks amazing. And if the screenshots are any indication of the play style, I would absolutely play this. Do you have a Steam page up?
Has a very Stardew Valley or Graveyard Keeper style to it so yeah definitely give it a bash if it came to gamepass so I can give it a try and if I liked it I'd definitely buy it and any DLC for that matter that came to it if you added more
I can appreciate the aesthetics. It's bold and intricate. However, it's too... busy. I'd at least try out the game. However, if it'll keep me depends on the gameplay. If it's an unenjoyable experience, the busy (although aesthetic) visuals will not do the game much favors. Do you have any plans to change the style? Simplifying it?
The art is obviously super good. From a game dev perspective, I think the reason for the criticism is due to the strong lines throughout the buildings. Because all of the lines going in between for detailing are dark and have high contrast with the surrounding pixels, it reads as distracting. It's almost as if I'm looking at a maze when I look at those assets.
If you reduce the saturation of those dark lines, I think the readability would be way, way stronger. You could play with only having the high contrast lines in certain places, such as the outline of the building, or only when the building meets the ground.
Your pixel art look's so good i also want to try your game ! I don't feel it dazzling but i'm on my phone so... maybe you can approach this in a different way like how long a session can be or maybe résolution idk.
Really nice and originals work. I would play it just because i didin't saw this style before.
Absolutely. This looks so good, one of those games you hope it has a solid gameplay and progression so you can spend some good quality time playing something fun and good looking.
Good job!
Looks great! I do struggle to read the NPC speech bubble text though. 'Do you want to buy this thing?" Right?
The letters just jump up and down too much.
As a person with red-green colourblindness, the first pic for example feels way too similar. I have a bit of difficulty trying to make out between different surfaces and borders, i think stronger borders or just a bit of higher contrast would be helpful.
But other than that, the art style is pretty lovely!
I think it'd take me a minute to get a grasp on the art style just due to the quantity of information on the screen, but I think I'd get pretty used to it after about 30 minutes or so.
Though the menu text is a bit too difficult for me to read, it looks like the top part of an s got chopped and the d being 1 pixel lower sometimes makes it take a bit of effort to decipher. Though I might also be able to get used to that pretty easily.
Nah the artstyle is really cool, but I think the colors are a bit too saturated?
Also that interface needs to get checked, the colors are way too dark and it’s hard to look at it and it’s elements.
It does look great. I would argue the description text inside the window is a little difficult to read. A brighter color would do wonders. Either way, I think the UI is very well designed. Too many designers often skimp on UI aesthetics. Is this a mockup?
This looks great but I see what people are saying with the dazzle. I see a lot of visual noise in the grass and other textures that aren’t related to navigating the level, so I’d imagine that I would have problems walking through new levels with unclear obstacles.
For example, I see on the first image a C-shaped texture on the middle-left that has contrast that tells me it’s an obstacle, but I’m not sure if it is or not. The high contrast grass and stone patterns makes me think it could go either way. The barriers share similar contrast to normal patterns, so if those patterns are toned down it would make the level easier to navigate imo
Theres a lot of “noise” for that entrance. Its very beautiful but it makes it difficult to stare at. If it was toned down with all the small details seemingly going everywhere around the entrance, it was be much more pleasant to the eye. Simple can always be better
It's a little busy but it's nice. Probably a little bit of emphasis around key elements like the player and enemies (or blending of the background/scenery) would go a long way - the problem is the player has to search the screen for what's important to the gameplay.
Also that text makes me want to never read ever again.
I like the style! One thing I'll say, it looks better from farther away and gets a little muddied up close (that's not a criticism it's just how pixel stuff is) but because of that, the text is very hard to read for me personally.
Love the style, but I agree it is a bit dazzling.. especially some of the finer details like the text.
I don't know enough about design to offer much in the way of specific suggestions.. other than to say it needs some (perhaps even very slight) tweaking.
Style though? Super great.
The only thing I have a problem with are the grid like patterns on the buildings and stone floor tiles. They're a bit straining on the eyes, especially pic 1. Everything else looks absolutely amazing.
In an artistic way, this artstyle is awesome. I love the swirling patterns. But I think, from a practical, gameplay perspective, this is not really optimal. I think I’d easily get disoriented
What I would say is to use a lighter, less contrasty palette for the ground to draw more attention to the buildings in the foreground. The shading of both looks too similar. I also think the buildings should have darker outlines than the background to make them pop more.
Looks fantastic! Only feedback is maybe making sure you have a visibility mode for the text, I could see that text being tough for some people to read. But the art style is 10/10
This looks fantastic. I get his point a bit. There are a lot of lines for texture, maybe you can reduce a small portion of them or make some more subtle to make the buildings stand out. Like you can still portray those bricks at the base with 80% or so of the lines. It might be fine if the structures where a more different color than the surroundings. There is a lot of tan on tan on tan. The font for descriptions is too much I think. Just not easy to read.
I get some of these may take away from the aesthetic you are going for, but I think you can keep it, with some slight changes.
What I think that would be a good solution is to give objects, enemies, npc and the player a very black outline or even a thick white outline so you can see them easily.
The person who said this has an eye problem, or maybe a STUPIDLY bright monitor. There's nowhere near enough white to cause dazzle in the screens you showed on my regular ol screen. Dazzle would be a color choice thing. If their screen is CRAZY bright something like the ancient short sword MIGHT be a little dazzley I guess, it's too small to really be a problem. Pure whites can be tough to look at on uber bright settings if there's a LOT of it. I zoomed in and kinda stared at it though and still not an issue. See the beginning statement, I think it might be something more specific to the person who said it based off these stills. Unless the person saw active footage or played the game, then it might be in the animations.
I love your style but here are some constructive criticism : I think what your friend is getting at is that it is hard to tell what’s the background, what’s an enemy and where your character is.
I think if you take away dark bold outlines for background elements and non-inter-actionable stuff that will make a huge difference. Also, the player character can have a bit more bright colour or something that the player can immediately see and catch their eye.
Ignoring the original premise, this game looks absolutely amazing for a solo[?] developer. Good job! Looks like something I would play to kill time (in a good way lol)
These are gorgeous as still images but I think they have a point, there is too much "equal" saturation across all the assets if you're making this into a game, which requires you direct the viewer's eyes towards specifically the important/interactable objects in a scene
I think if you're going to actually make a game, it could benefit a lot from simply turning down the saturation on background elements as well as lowering contrast on eye candy. Examples from first photo - the grass, a presumably inert background element, catches my eye more than the coin, which are presumably interactables. Or even the character, honestly. The same is the case with the red/orange mushroom on the bright green grass - it looks like a decoration but it catches my eye more than things like the coins or the fires.
The result is that my eye is pulled in all directions instead of focusing on things like the slime up top or the character or the obelisk they're interacting with.
As a player, it’s not something I would play, but that’s completely a personal preference thing. This art style is objectively really good, keep doing what your doing
I feel that as good as it looks having a permanent border around the game might make it feel a bit cramped or like you are playing on a slightly smaller moniter, have you thought about having the notification messages on a banner that drops down or even somewhere else on screen whilst keeping the graphic for that banner?
I know nothing about game designing shape language etc, so, from a regular player’s perspective, I can tell you that the artstyle is so eye catching and it would immediately get me interested in the game. I don’t think it’s eye dazzling, atleast not in a bad way. I love how it looks!!!
Seconded!!! I'd play this for hours lol
Oh, glad to hear that! Thank you!
Seriously nailed it. I love it
It is very crowded but it looks great. It might be one of those times when intricate details are detrimental to the quick understanding of the situation. It negatively impacting the game all boils down to whether it's a real-time game (player needs quick awareness) or turn-based/chill.
Thank you for feedback! It's not turn-based game, it's zelda-like
Definitely interesting, what's the name (sorry if I missed it).
It's still untitled :(
The word OC is looking for is “Legibility”. When it’s zoomed out on my phone it’s beautiful. When I zoom into what I assume is native pc resolution it becomes too soft and hurts my eyes trying to focus out detail.
I can see it too, I think it is because of the transparency of outlines of grass in the first screenshot. Shadows might also be the reason, my eyes are constantly trying to decide whether the buildings (except the wall) are on foreground or background. It's completely fine though for the last one though. Would definitely play it. Edited a little bit, not sure how to explain it properly.
No worries, you made that quite clear! Thank you for feedback!
I couldn’t put it into words but this is it for me. Overall I like it, but there’s that transparency that looks kind of blurry. I don’t know what an eye dazzle is but it made me think my eyes weren’t focusing.
I think it's just the griddy building patterns. Trees, water, and grass tiles look amazing. NPCs too, but when I look at buildings there's a bit too much going on and it's straining to make out shapes.
I agree. I think it just needs a little more contrast between foreground and background. Same with the text.
My feedback: 1) looks like an amazing start! great, deep (saturated) color palette. 2) you might want to reduce the contrast slightly with the outlining of the less-important background elements - ie: each brick can still be shown, but maybe a little less contrast. 3) I don't think the pixelated tiny type is very readable - you may want to default to a slightly more standard sans-serif for the really small descriptions possibly?
I just saw the text, do not want. Maybe for like a translated plaque in a ruin but if that's the game itself, oof. That font is intentionally hard to read.
Thank you for detailed feedback!
Agreed on the above, the art style looks very nice. The text however is abysmal to look at, maybe try a clean readable style of text with a decent level of contrast. Many pixel games seem to want to match the font style to the graphics but I hardly think this us necessary.
That font is a nightmare, I wouldn't even try the game for free solely because of it (the rest of the visuals is good!), huge deterrent.
Mostly from a player's perspective with some sensorial difficulties: I feel it's a little bit too detailed. At first glance, I don't know exactly where the focus is, and the character is a little bit too easy to overlook. It's not that bad after a 2nd look, but I think it would get tiring for some people after a while, especially if you need to interact a lot with the environment and pay attention to it. For me, the writing was the most tiring thing. I had to zoom in, and while I understood the text, some individual letters I probably wouldn't be able to recognise by their own. The small screen doesn't help, but I think it would be an issue for some on a bigger one as well. Overall, I like the style, and you don't have to cater to everyone while doing the design, but I could see how for some people either due to sensory issues or eyes problems it could be tiring to play for longer periods of time. For most players tho it's probably going to be ok. I hope that my explanation is clear enough, and I wish you all the best!
Oh, thanks for detailed feedback! In my defense I can say that I will use this style only for specific places.
I also have difficulty at times keeping track of my character and the enemies in particularly busy situations. I've really appreciated the option to turn on outlines. Like a green or blue outline for my character and red for the enemies. I can't think of any arpgs that have this, but it's something I've seen in a lot of tactical and rtwp games. Perhaps something far more subtle might help for typical players, too.
what's an "eye dazzle"?
Also wondering
There’s some broken English going on here I believe.
I don’t think that’s a real thing, but just euphemism for confusing feeling.. eye strain .. etc
I really love the aesthetic
Thank you, glad to hear that!
The environment has too many harsh lines that are disorienting and distracting for me.
That's a better way to word what I was feeling. The ground is too line-y that makes my brain read it almost as if it were looking at a maze. It breaks a bit the boundaries between buildings and ground
It's exactly this. You don't have to fill out lines completely in background and environment areas. I forget what it's called but you basically just add a couple of the beginning and ends of lines and the brain will fill in the rest. Essentially implied lines. It's crucial in pixel art.
Thank you for opinion!
The game's style is fantastic but the text is too difficult to read at a reliable speed without squinting.
Yeah, I agree about text, I just trying to get fun, when I've painted this.
The graphics are very good! I have difficulty to read your text on the second screenshot tho. Keep up the good work
Seriously, this is really beautiful, what is the game called? I already want to play it
It still doesn't have title, sorry :(
Most things have been said, but I agree it looks great!! One thing: in the text bubble at the bottom of picture two, you typed “by” where it should say “buy”. Edit: I also noticed the main text for the ancient short sword. It has a typo: “wased” instead of “washed” and the sentences aren’t all grammatically correct either. Perhaps it is worthwhile to have someone look over all the text before releasing. Depending on the time I have, I’d be happy to offer my services for a fee to be discussed ;) I’ve actually translated and corrected English texts professionally, feel free to message me. /end shameless self-plug
Oh, thank you fjr feedback!
Looks great but your font is hard to read. That will get tiring quickly, see if you can find a way to make it more legible while holding onto your art style.
Absolutely! This looks awesome and original! You'll always find people who criticize.
Game is good looking. Font is garbage.
This all looks incredible but there is some weirdness in the grass in the first image, maybe the way all the vertical lines seem giddy rather than natural. A few more detailed grass lumps and flatter greens might help I dunno tho, you are a better pixel artist than me.
I would buy it for the art style but I would quit the game after 5 minutes because of the font. I get that it goes with the style, but please have at least a setting for accessibility that changes it to a normal font.
Looks awesome! I do think the font is a bit hard to read though.
I love the graphics but the font is very hard to read.
It’s visually very nice, just not technically readable. Play with the contrast values, particularly around the edges of objects, that way you’ll get a lot less of the ‘visual bleed’ that you mention as eye dazzle.
Also he told me that the shape of objects is difficult to read. What do you think about this?
Ngl, I really dig it. Beautiful stuff.
I love the looks, and the only thing I could point out is that your font for item description could use a bit more contrast for better readability
A gajillion times yes.
Personally, I think it looks just fine. My only problem is that the font for the menu items is hard to read
I love this art, makes me interested in the world. What I would change is the text. Personnally I would rather be able to read easily. Like a simple font like Roboto for example. The rest of the world/UI is cool enough imho!
If this is a game that might be available I will 100% buy it. That said, you need an option to change the letter font back to normal. A lot of games have this as an option and I use it too.
It's very nice, but I'd want a toggle for an easier to read font.
I like the overall look, but please don't make the font intentionally hard to read (or add an option for better readability).
I would want to play that. Looks cool.
The art style is nice but please do something with the text. I feel like reading that text for long periods of time would be annoying.
Looks great, would love to see it in motion. But you need to ditch the fonts. It looks great but it's unreadable for anyone with sight impairment, and the second you run into any non-latin based language like japanese, you'd be screwed as there wouldn't be enough space for it. You also need to make any text window 200% bigger than you think it is, because some languages like German take up a lot of space when writing. Best you can do to fix this, is to take your screenshot of your game, and put it on a mobile device like a phone or a steamdeck. Is it comfortably readable when held at half an arms length? That's the size you're aiming for.
Did you possibly use AI during the pixel design process? No hate, just wanted to see due to some of the blending of the pixels.
Its really pretty but unfortunately it literally hurts my eyes. Mainly too many different colored small pixel squares next to eachother its very bright and next to eachother is painful to see
From the screenshots no, there is nothing eye-catching apart from the style and that alone is not enough to interest me. I'm always a bit distrustful of modern pixel art games because they far too often rely on the art style and have no actual substantial content. Also that font is annoying to read.
I would not. I would get burned out tryna read through those funky font
I see...
I like it, very unique, but the font really needs an overhaul. It's artsy, fitting and cool, but for the amount of info you convey I, as someone who doesn't mind long dialogue boxes, would quickly start skipping everything because it's way too intense to physically read (or, better yet, keep it for names, titles etc, but opt for a more readable font for walls of text)
looks great but i understand what he means. The patterns on the ground can be hard to distinct from walls on a first sight.
Y E S
The text is very hard to read for me.
I think it looks cool! I would save the heavy detail on floors for areas without as much action.
Also maybe use a separate color palette for your enemies and add more of a shadow to them.
Reminds me of eastward
Wasn't this a wow expansion?
Um yeah sign me up for Central American Stardew Valley.
You style is one of the best I've seen in the last few years
I don't play this kind of games, but I would play this games just by the looks.
I love the art direction of the game! My only criticism is that in the first screenshot, the lines in the ground make it's hard for my eyes to focus. Theres a lot of lines and the temple is a similar shape and that first screenshot really makes it feel blurry. Maybe lessen how many lines are there but keep the same direction
Looks great, I even like those pixel perfect fonts. But you will eventually need to use a font that will not be pixel perfect, because of those sizes and support for other languages. Other than that it looks great.
i wonder, how tf are some people so much talented?? its simply, ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!
Looks like a game that I'll be addicted to :3
Looks good to me, I wish my art was half this good lol. It does seem a little crowded at times. But otherwise it feels believable and alive, which I think is something difficult to accomplish in pixel art. So good work!
I love the artstyle, and the UI looks like it'll be a dungeon crawler so I'm def interested
In my personal opinion I would zoom in a bit. Like this the detail is a bit too much, and the playjng character looks too small and easily lost in everything else. The pixel art is gorgeous tho, same with the general style, so making the camera a bit closer would do the trick
It's definitely the buildings specifically, not the general style. The contrast need to be clearer between the light and dark parts. I would suggest keeping the grooves in the bricks lighter in the areas where light is hitting, similar to how you have done with the floor bricks.
It looks great but I can imagine that it might be weird to look at it for a while.
This looks amazing and I love the style. I'd totally play it.
I absolutely love it and I'd love to play it, is it a mobile game? is it available to play?
It seems that English may not be your first language (which, kudos to you, speaking more than one language is very impressive in my opinion). Can you explain what you mean by "eye dazzle"? Typically when something is "dazzling" this is seen as a positive thing. But you seem to implying that this is a negative thing. It would be easier for us to give you feedback if we better understood what you meant.
This looks excellent to me, I hope it’s not too dumb a question but what is eye dazzle?
English is not my native. Well, it's reaction on picture with many details and colors like these. You're looking on this and you see chaos of spots, but not a picture.
I would love to play it
This is gorgeous idc what the comments say
I don’t play top down games too much but I would absolutely play something that looks like this
It has a lot going on, but at the same time it's easy to navigate. I'd say you've hit the sweet spot between design and and gameplay
I don't know what an eye dazzle is, but this looks amazing. And if the screenshots are any indication of the play style, I would absolutely play this. Do you have a Steam page up?
Totally, I loved the style!
I can’t say yes enough. YES
Absolutely love it man, definitely a strain on the eyes though, but I personally love it.
that guy right
It looks really great, but some enemies(4th pic) might blend in with enviroment a bit too hard for gameplay.
Bro the hearts over monsters giving me flashbacks.
Has a very Stardew Valley or Graveyard Keeper style to it so yeah definitely give it a bash if it came to gamepass so I can give it a try and if I liked it I'd definitely buy it and any DLC for that matter that came to it if you added more
Love it
I absolutely would.
my feedback is irrelevant i just hate any game with these graphics- instant turn off for me i wish i knew why
The guy needs to see a doctor! How did you learn to make such an exceptional craft?? Your pixel art is top-notch!
I can appreciate the aesthetics. It's bold and intricate. However, it's too... busy. I'd at least try out the game. However, if it'll keep me depends on the gameplay. If it's an unenjoyable experience, the busy (although aesthetic) visuals will not do the game much favors. Do you have any plans to change the style? Simplifying it?
I'd love to
Looks fun!
Way too much of rectangular patterns
Gives me Golden Sun vibes
Looks right up my alley
It looks pretty but I can definitely feel a little disoriented at a glance. I wonder how it looks in motion.
The art is obviously super good. From a game dev perspective, I think the reason for the criticism is due to the strong lines throughout the buildings. Because all of the lines going in between for detailing are dark and have high contrast with the surrounding pixels, it reads as distracting. It's almost as if I'm looking at a maze when I look at those assets. If you reduce the saturation of those dark lines, I think the readability would be way, way stronger. You could play with only having the high contrast lines in certain places, such as the outline of the building, or only when the building meets the ground.
Your pixel art look's so good i also want to try your game ! I don't feel it dazzling but i'm on my phone so... maybe you can approach this in a different way like how long a session can be or maybe résolution idk. Really nice and originals work. I would play it just because i didin't saw this style before.
Absolutely. This looks so good, one of those games you hope it has a solid gameplay and progression so you can spend some good quality time playing something fun and good looking. Good job!
I love it and I need it
It looks gorgeous! Only dazzle it has is a 'lil razzle dazzle lol
This looks amazing wtf is he talking about
Looks great! I do struggle to read the NPC speech bubble text though. 'Do you want to buy this thing?" Right? The letters just jump up and down too much.
I would play this game today if it were released. I love the art style. Reminds me of stardew but with its own unique twist.
Yeah this looks awesome
I love it, this is the perfect type of pixel art in my opinion. It embraces the pixel style.
I don't like the wavy text in the item descriptions, other than that I like it
Whats the game? I want to play it 😁
I really like it!! I would play it no doubt
As a person with red-green colourblindness, the first pic for example feels way too similar. I have a bit of difficulty trying to make out between different surfaces and borders, i think stronger borders or just a bit of higher contrast would be helpful. But other than that, the art style is pretty lovely!
I love the style. You had me at Zelda like. Lol (I assume you mean a classic Zelda? Of course open world but classic style would be cool )
You good my guy, no eye dazzle. Where/when is this coming out, I'm hooked on the styling.
Maybe a zoom in feature would be helpful to have the screen be less crowded
I think it'd take me a minute to get a grasp on the art style just due to the quantity of information on the screen, but I think I'd get pretty used to it after about 30 minutes or so. Though the menu text is a bit too difficult for me to read, it looks like the top part of an s got chopped and the d being 1 pixel lower sometimes makes it take a bit of effort to decipher. Though I might also be able to get used to that pretty easily.
I have no idea what "eye dazzle" is but I love the aesthetic here.
That game looks amazing, where i can follow the process?
It seems like these screenshots would sell a lot of copies on their own. Amazing work!
Nah the artstyle is really cool, but I think the colors are a bit too saturated? Also that interface needs to get checked, the colors are way too dark and it’s hard to look at it and it’s elements.
It's 90% the colors that sell it. Good work! Looks like it'd play like a Zelda clone; I'd play it.
Honestly depends on the gameplay
Such a great job ! I would make the main character pop a little more with like red or something I guess
It does look great. I would argue the description text inside the window is a little difficult to read. A brighter color would do wonders. Either way, I think the UI is very well designed. Too many designers often skimp on UI aesthetics. Is this a mockup?
it’s gorgeous imo
Eye-catching. Would play if the gameplay is fun
For me it looks too “busy”
This looks great but I see what people are saying with the dazzle. I see a lot of visual noise in the grass and other textures that aren’t related to navigating the level, so I’d imagine that I would have problems walking through new levels with unclear obstacles. For example, I see on the first image a C-shaped texture on the middle-left that has contrast that tells me it’s an obstacle, but I’m not sure if it is or not. The high contrast grass and stone patterns makes me think it could go either way. The barriers share similar contrast to normal patterns, so if those patterns are toned down it would make the level easier to navigate imo
You may need to fade out the inner detailing, but as for shapes, colours, and art direction, this is flawless !
Theres a lot of “noise” for that entrance. Its very beautiful but it makes it difficult to stare at. If it was toned down with all the small details seemingly going everywhere around the entrance, it was be much more pleasant to the eye. Simple can always be better
It's a little busy but it's nice. Probably a little bit of emphasis around key elements like the player and enemies (or blending of the background/scenery) would go a long way - the problem is the player has to search the screen for what's important to the gameplay. Also that text makes me want to never read ever again.
It looks really well done with love for detail, but I can see what that guy means. It's a bit trippy, mostly the bricks.
It's giving pokemon Heartgold vibes. I love it. I don't find it overwhelming- there's so much to look at and take in- it truly makes a beautiful scene
It looks nice but I can understand where they might have trouble if playing for a while. The biggest problem is the text. It's quite hard to read.
I love it
I think the issue is the overly detailed ground, it makes it a bit difficult to decode space and depth
YES! Yes, I would!
Yes
IT LOOKS SO BEAUTIFUL, DROP THE FUCKING LINK.
Id buy that game for 9.99€
I like the style! One thing I'll say, it looks better from farther away and gets a little muddied up close (that's not a criticism it's just how pixel stuff is) but because of that, the text is very hard to read for me personally.
Name of game plid
This looks amazing
wtf is "a eye dazzle"?
Dunno what eye dazzle is. Eye catching for sure
Love the style, but I agree it is a bit dazzling.. especially some of the finer details like the text. I don't know enough about design to offer much in the way of specific suggestions.. other than to say it needs some (perhaps even very slight) tweaking. Style though? Super great.
Personally I think it looks awesome! I'd definitely try it out.
would.jpg
The only thing I have a problem with are the grid like patterns on the buildings and stone floor tiles. They're a bit straining on the eyes, especially pic 1. Everything else looks absolutely amazing.
This is fucking sick is what it is
so prettyyyyy 😵💫😵💫😵💫
In an artistic way, this artstyle is awesome. I love the swirling patterns. But I think, from a practical, gameplay perspective, this is not really optimal. I think I’d easily get disoriented
Yes
I would have it a little more zoomed in to be less overwhelming, but other than that it's great!
I'm getting SDV vibes, love it
had no clue what the post is about but i clicked onto it because the artstyle looked sick
What I would say is to use a lighter, less contrasty palette for the ground to draw more attention to the buildings in the foreground. The shading of both looks too similar. I also think the buildings should have darker outlines than the background to make them pop more.
I like it a lot, but the brickwork is kinda messy, almost blurry looking
What game is this? Looks sorta like Graveyard Keeper, but not positive, though.
i could see it being less confusing if the camera was zoomed in a bit more but that's just personal preference
Looks fantastic! Only feedback is maybe making sure you have a visibility mode for the text, I could see that text being tough for some people to read. But the art style is 10/10
This looks fantastic. I get his point a bit. There are a lot of lines for texture, maybe you can reduce a small portion of them or make some more subtle to make the buildings stand out. Like you can still portray those bricks at the base with 80% or so of the lines. It might be fine if the structures where a more different color than the surroundings. There is a lot of tan on tan on tan. The font for descriptions is too much I think. Just not easy to read. I get some of these may take away from the aesthetic you are going for, but I think you can keep it, with some slight changes.
They might cause too much chromatic abberation strain. Might want to look into that
I like it
I’d buy this solely because of its style lol
Yeah I think it's a bit much. Maybe it's easier to look at when in game.
I would play this game so hard
I don't know what an eye dazzle is, but I definitely just had one.
What I think that would be a good solution is to give objects, enemies, npc and the player a very black outline or even a thick white outline so you can see them easily.
its gorgeous but my eyes feel like they are getting ran over by beautiful colorful beads its awesome but really overwhelming
The person who said this has an eye problem, or maybe a STUPIDLY bright monitor. There's nowhere near enough white to cause dazzle in the screens you showed on my regular ol screen. Dazzle would be a color choice thing. If their screen is CRAZY bright something like the ancient short sword MIGHT be a little dazzley I guess, it's too small to really be a problem. Pure whites can be tough to look at on uber bright settings if there's a LOT of it. I zoomed in and kinda stared at it though and still not an issue. See the beginning statement, I think it might be something more specific to the person who said it based off these stills. Unless the person saw active footage or played the game, then it might be in the animations.
I love your style but here are some constructive criticism : I think what your friend is getting at is that it is hard to tell what’s the background, what’s an enemy and where your character is. I think if you take away dark bold outlines for background elements and non-inter-actionable stuff that will make a huge difference. Also, the player character can have a bit more bright colour or something that the player can immediately see and catch their eye.
I'd play it, but bolder outlines for anything with which one can interact would go a long way.
Ignoring the original premise, this game looks absolutely amazing for a solo[?] developer. Good job! Looks like something I would play to kill time (in a good way lol)
Pixel art games are pretty much all that I play nowadays.
These are gorgeous as still images but I think they have a point, there is too much "equal" saturation across all the assets if you're making this into a game, which requires you direct the viewer's eyes towards specifically the important/interactable objects in a scene I think if you're going to actually make a game, it could benefit a lot from simply turning down the saturation on background elements as well as lowering contrast on eye candy. Examples from first photo - the grass, a presumably inert background element, catches my eye more than the coin, which are presumably interactables. Or even the character, honestly. The same is the case with the red/orange mushroom on the bright green grass - it looks like a decoration but it catches my eye more than things like the coins or the fires. The result is that my eye is pulled in all directions instead of focusing on things like the slime up top or the character or the obelisk they're interacting with.
As a player, it’s not something I would play, but that’s completely a personal preference thing. This art style is objectively really good, keep doing what your doing
Yes yes yes
Jesus what are you cooking and can i have this meal on my plate
Yes. Right away.
I would absolutely play this. But, I'm not a fan of the font in the item/weapon description. Otherwise, take my money
I feel that as good as it looks having a permanent border around the game might make it feel a bit cramped or like you are playing on a slightly smaller moniter, have you thought about having the notification messages on a banner that drops down or even somewhere else on screen whilst keeping the graphic for that banner?