Make the character animations slower, and maybe add an extra frame in some of the animations. Also, add some shading to the character skins.
Also, unrelated to character sprites, change the speed of the bullets. Right now they’re slower than the actual player character, which is not a good thing for a shooter game.
Thanks! I’ve been meaning to change the speed of the bullets which that will also come in Season 2 with all of the other major updates.
Your game should follow a certain style.
You can’t just mix realistic AI art with very simple pixel drawings, as they clash badly.
I was really surprised when I saw the simple pixelated characters as the loading screen was giving me a different vibe.
Check the below website, it showcases cool designs from other pixel games that you can try to imitate. By design I mean everything, from the fonts, background art, characters etc.
Games | Interface In Game ← Click here
As of now, your characters aren’t that appealing. You can improve this only by practicing your drawing skills. You can still keep them really simple, but if you do you should give them something to stand up. Maybe make their animations smoother, add an outline, give them some shadows or just add a lot of particle effects to their attacks and movement.
Also see this example, there is a trailer in this website.
Save Game Sunday Kickday: Adventures of Pip - Save Game
The character starts as a cube, but even as a cube because the gameplay is smooth you don’t really mind. You can always fight bad design choices with cool and fun gameplay. This is the reason we play games anyway, to have fun.
If you can’t get Aseprite, you can create your game art in Pixilart.
The website is free, you can download your work as pngs, gifs etc and you can also get inspiration from other members. Sometimes I prefer it over Aseprite
Thanks for the suggestions!
How about in one of these art styles or something like this?
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/189854940532951330/, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/80713018316363361/, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/797559415298143609/
Of the examples you found, I think the first two could work well. The third one isn’t bad, but I personally think it’s a little too cartoony.
If you want, you can take inspiration from other games. Try looking at old NES, SNES or Genesis games for inspiration.
One thing you can do to practice pixel art is editing pre-existing sprites.
Thanks for reviewing them! I also really like the first two. Concerning looking at old games, I was already planning in looking in on that.
Very nice examples! Personally, I find all of them charming.
Hope you manage to create something similar!
Thanks! I really liked all of them as well, but I decided to go with something more like the first two.
Thanks to everyone on this forum, with helping me find out things I need to fix and giving me suggestions on things I need to do to make my game the best it can possibly be! With the next update that’s coming out, which will be Update V.2.4, that will be the last update of Season 1. It won’t change anything based on the feedback here because I started working on the Update before I made this post. All the fixes and all of the major changes, like player sprites, gameplay changes, UI fixes and other things, all of that will be added in Season 2 - Update V.3.1. Thanks for everyone’s help!
