I think the more realistic art style is interesting, tho I feel like it can get boring very quickly when the designs all look very similar. I would suggest playing a lot with facial features to make them all look very distinct.
yeah definitely, visual distinction will really help keep players longer. for me is the npcs all look to similar i find it harder to remember their story
What about mostly realistic but with like a small % stylization, usually in the eyes. Something maybe like a pixel version of the characters from Mouthwashing? The current raster you showed off kinda looks like the same base girl with different hair and clothing.
I agree - there's still a sort of seriousness in these portraits that's really not visually represented elsewhere in the game. AKA critters are cute and funny looking
Agreed, cartoony portraits fit the art style much better, the realistic ones look too much like he used AI to generate a picture of an attractive woman, then threw it into a photoshop pixel filter.
the portraits look like pixelated photos. I think simplifying them while keeping the facial and body proportions might fit better with the games style and stop them from looking childish
@@drakesword5214 +1, the NPCs just need to have some odd "irregularities" to it, as actual human people do. Like this one NPC is handsome AF but they have an unusual nose, or this other one has their eyes a bit further away from each other than the rest of them. You know, like actual humans heh
@@drakesword5214 I think there's probably a middle-ground between Stardew Valley and something more realistic that he seems to want. He should look towards Japanese games. Anime has always had a good blend between realism and cartoonish designs and while I don't necessarily think he should try to recreate an anime style for his characters (that wouldn't look good or fit his game), there are probably some tips he could take from there that would help. Maybe just aiming for a Stardew Valley art style for portraits and then stylizing it less (or more in his own tastes) would be the solution, but I don't know. I'm not an artist, myself.
Absolutely. There's a middle-ground between childish and realistic. Hands down a realistic aesthetic will always clash with the rest of the aesthetic of the game, I think he has to come to terms with that. Chef RPG or Stardew are places I think he should look to for inspiration on how to make stylized characters in that vein.
First thing's first. I absolute adore the game you are making, and wish nothing more than it becomes a wonderful thing that many can enjoy; chiefly you :) I like the new character portraits. If I was forced to nit pick, I think the reason character portraits kind of stand out so much is the palette complexity. Your in world npcs are very simple in their palettes, often having 3-5 maybe 9 colors at most. While the portraits are vastly more complexed with hundreds of colors at the least. Again I do like the new portraits, but if I had to pick out why they stand out so much I'd say this.
the portraits look honestly stunning but i agree that they're a little jarring. I wonder if having a portrait at all is necessary. someone else brought up the idea of stardew valley-esque portraits but I personally think having no portrait at all would work fine (like Terraria?). I guess this would mean the sprites of the characters would have to be more individualised so that each npc still can be told apart.
This is gonna sound harsh and kinda cruel but the portraits look a bit like they're AI generated. They're of course not actually AI generated, we see the WIPs in the video, but they have a lot of the same problems that AI generated art has. Like an AI generated image, I cannot tell what the intent behind the image is. The characters are sort of generically pretty and quarter stylized, three quarters realistic, but I could not tell you anything about what sort of person the characters depicted in those portraits are supposed to be. And sure they're probably just supposed to be generic NPCs, but you can make someone look generic in a way that feels intentional, but these designs feel accidentally generic.
An interesting thing you could do is have the tile costs change per-character (or per a type of character if that's too costly). So rebellious teens would be jaywalking, jumping fences and swimming, while older folk would be using sidewalks only. Edit: Someone else pointed out that this can be creature-dependent, so frogs would be more likely to cross water. That can add a lot of personality!
3:58 i think itd be fun if some npcs have a chance to favour expensive tiles on occassion, jaywalking, desire paths, tripping over bushes, getting agitated if someone in front of them walks too slowly
@@Fannerable This could potentially also get used to classify movement for your creatures too, though I'm not the visionary so my opinion comes with a free grain of salt.
or depending on who they are. a working man would always follow crosswalks while a child would be more open to jaywalking. the only thing that needs to change is the values of the pathfinding squares
I like the art style of the characters and think you're an amazing artist and creative genius! My personal take is that it's the designs that don't match, not the style. Since the game is so wacky and vibrant and fun I think the characters should match that by being a bunch of crazy aliens/ animals/ wizards/ whatever- just something as colourful as the rest of the game so far! (I can't WAIT for this game to come out!!!)
I agree! I think the portraits from Chef RPG are fairly similar in style but match better because of the funky character design so maybe more in that direction?
for the portraits, really the only idea I have in terms of making them fit more is to make the resolution slightly lower, as currently they basically have the same detail than some older games could fit on an entire screen, half might be too much of a cut, so cuttin it to just 3/4th or 2/3rd resolution might be a sweetspot? experiment around I guess!
The portrait faces have very similar proportions in terms of lips, eyes, noses, ears and makes many of the faces look super similar. Going in and manually resizing the nose, eyes, ears, etc with the lasso tool during the early drafting would probably help with practicing that and/or finding a good variety of references of unfiltered human faces. I really like the use of solid black line art in first new portrait, it really helps the character pop from the background plus it matches the black outline the in-game charters have so it looks similar without sacrificing realism, the other characters blend with the background of their portraits without it. I hope these are tips that will work with your natural drawing style, I find it obnoxious when people give me critique that's essentially "draw completely different from the way you normally draw". Your style looks quite nice and reminds me of the way many older games would style character portraits, which is pretty cool imo. Edit: Perlin Noise
I think the new portraits are an improvement, but I would maybe narrow the colour palettes a little to make them higher contrast like the rest of the game. Someone else mentioned that the not-quite finished version of the portrait at ~5:58 as being pretty close to what would suit the overall style better, and I agree. Fewer colours, and maybe brighter colours. They can look like adults but also be colourful and/or quirky! Like Spike from Cowboy Beebop.
Welp ,he's going back to his coffin to finish his game ... at least we know he's semi alive unlike other game devs ...*COUGH COUGH* *DANI* *COUGH COUGH*
the slightly more cartoonish style lands really well! you should try playing around with different face shapes and facial features, to make the portraits and characters stand out from each other more.
Just yesterday I was remembering about Critter Crosser for some reason, and now a new video! I was skeptical about wishful thinking before, but seems that it works
Looks great! The pixel art of your characters is super cute. Flow fields are super cool technology. Quite overshadowed by A* in gamedev, so it's cool to see it here!
If your development update videos are this fun to watch, I can only imagine how much fun the game will be to play lol. Had the game wishlisted for quite some time, so glad it isn't likely to fade into obscurity!
4:37 you could make different NPCs have different costs for walking over tiles. So one npc could be a chaotic maniac jumping over any obstacles, running through the roads while others are behaving normally.
I always love seeing another video from you, I have super high hopes for your game!! My only critique atm is that I think the pixel art for the human portraits is still too detailed for the style of the game
I love everything about this game except your push against the cartoony portraits. Personally I really think that's the only thing that would properly fit in with the art style of the rest of the game. Again though, everything else is looking fantastic!
I agree. With how exaggerated and cartoony the sprites are, the portraits just look so jarring. There's nothing bad with either of these styles, but expecting them to mesh without it being surprising is gonna be a hard path to take.
His portraits are waaaay too realistic. He also doesn't need to go full anime. Adults can exist, look like grown adults, and still hold tons of stylization. Look at stardew valley's portaits for example, they don't look like kids at all. Like it's not bad, but it's super jarring and the colors are way off for the type of game hes making
@@ultimaxkom8728 A preference that potentially game ruining if I'm being honest. A game like this desperately needs quirky and colorful characters, so not including caricatured characters is just shooting yourself in the foot.
My favorite example of lively cities in an indie game is Wuppo. Even though it's a metroidvania with combat mechanics, it focuses on populated areas where hanging out and doing things just for the sake of experiencing them is a major theme, with NPCs doing those same things along with you, and even the areas that aren't friendly towns will have some neutral or hostile NPCs going about their business
I honestly already love this game, the fact that I can literally just watch how it is made and how it works just makes me like it more, feels like one of those games that's not too fancy or dramatic but one you will remember for a long time.
Absolutely love your style of pixel art for portraits! Commenting to get more engagement on this vid Also those new trees look very similar to Stardew. Personally I prefer the blocky ones over them
I've been following your progress since your first video, I don't even remember how I found it, but I've stayed ever since. Your portraits are intricate, I personally feel they kind of don't match the game still but they *are* appealing to look at. Gives me a nostalgic feeling.
GODDAMN this game looks better and better each video. its so unbelievably charming and it fills me with a sense of "I MUST GET MY HANDS ON THIS NOW" This is beyond unreal. keep up the great work!
I’m always so excited to see updates on this game, I think procedural generation and animation are critically underutilized in games. Also, a few things about this update 1. I greatly appreciate you adding daily routines for NPCs along with things they can do, little detail like this go a long way in video games 2. I know you said you don’t like cartoony styles much, but as it stands, the current portraits don’t fit the NPCs at all. You might just have to resort making the character portraits more cartoonish to fit the style of the game. At the same time however, the sheer whiplash of interacting with a tiny little pixelated NPC and seeing a beautifully rendered, realistic character portrait pop up is incredibly hilarious, and I kinda love that.
Your videos are genuinely so good and interesting. You cover things nice and quickly but with enough information to let us know what it does and some of how it works without getting too technical. Also, the game looks amazing and the new portraits in my opinion match a lot more and look amazing too!
not only are you making an awesome game you invest a ton of time to make these videos pedagogic and fun to watch for dumdums like us Awesome work, keep it up !
The pathing flow was super interesting, and your animation was really helpful in understanding how it worked. I also think it is neat to see you taking the time to make your character calendar files readable. Like you said, that is always helpful for the community and long term survival of the game. I just had a thought, have you talked to Big Mode Games about perhaps working a publishing deal out with them? They released Animal Well which I think personally was one of the most revolutionary pixel art games of the last few years, and I think you might be a good fit with them. It is the game studio started by the RUclipsr videogamedunkey. Something to look into, though you might just be content to go full indie. So excited for the game.
So good to see a new vid. You're organic render vid actually got me into SDF's and made me pay attention in uni for once. Love to see your great world design work too, they were just casually in the bg of you're older vids.
The in-world NPC designs look good, especially with the extra attitude! You should take a look at Starbound- very similar style, artistically, so it might be some good inspiration!
I'm so hyped for this game. Maybe you could aim for a Stardew Valley kind of portrait? Definetly use less colors, just a plain color for the background, and try and make the characters more cartoonish.
I like how they look without eyes, it matches the style of the portraits more. A good middle ground might be a shadow to imply where their brow is. Also the portraits are sick. I would totally play a Visual Novel or Adventure Mystery Horror game with that art style. The blonde woman made me think of a Delta Green agent or Tabitha from Scarlet Hollow.
Heyy I'm gonna send the steam link everywhere I could! would be amazing to see your game released one day, I loved your video where you animate the bred animals 💚💚🐸
I think that for the "portraits don't fit the rest of the visuals" issue is to add more instances of a contrasting realistic style, making the player used to seeing the second visual identity of the game frequently enough for the two clashing art styles to become the unified visual identity of the game. Basically, making the player accustomed to that inconsistency. Just an idea though, might be too much work depending on the approach. game looks sick btw, love the way the critters move.
Your approach on character design/style has not gone unnoticed and is greatly enjoyed. I can’t exactly put words into it (this is terribly helpful I know) but I feel it’s almost there in caching the right look for your game.
I have a question that might help you with your portraits: What is it you don't like about the "cartoon" examples you showed? Is it the proportions, the colors, the shading, all of it, or something else? To me, all of the examples of what you don't like appear childish mainly because of their facial proportions (huge eyes/forehead, small nose/mouth) and their body proportions (real people are 7-8 heads tall, cartoons are anywhere from 2-6). I think the American Comic style is a good approach, to me it still feels a bit over-detailed compared to the rest of the game. I think there's some very nice qualities in your process montage that get lost in the final, particularly the lineart and some of the blockier/more abstract shading.
Dude, you are frick'n brilliant, I love your art, your style, and your solutions to your problems are fantastic! Keep it up, big man. We can't wait to see this masterpiece you release
the excitement i have for the eventual release of this game is obviously immense, but this is the first time i've been so hyped to just sit down and listen to a dev explaining how they're making their game. these videos are so fun, so well-edited, and while obviously it's not feasible for all devs to do this kind of thing this is the best example i know of how to keep people happy and engaged while waiting for a game to be finished
I don't know what to tell you, man, super serious realistic faces are going to clash a bit with a cute little cartoon world with cute little cartoon critters wearing little cartoon hats. There's really no getting around that, I'm afraid.
I think that Stardew Valleys portrait style would work for this game. Honestly the more realistic pixel art portraits dont fit this game or kinda dont look good at all. Im an artist too so I know they were hand made but they could very easily be confused to pixalated photos or even worse AI
You could use a pixel font in dialogues to keep the visual coherence of the game. If you still want to use a sans you could use a humanist sans instead of a geometric sans since the last one tends to be less legible (harder to read)
WAKE UP BABE NEW CRITTER CROSSER DEV UPDATE DROPPED
I have babe ! And tis great !
I honestly forget critter crosser exists until the update drops and now it will be all that's on my mind for a solid 2 weeks again.
Repeat the cycle
Does this never get old? Under every video someone posts this..
@@carlstein9278 It's because every single video deserves it
Why is everyone’s babe is always sleeping? Get that checked.
generational talent
Fr
A prodigy of our time !
This was the last place I was expecting to see you
My god why is mister Minecraft child labor doing here
I think the more realistic art style is interesting, tho I feel like it can get boring very quickly when the designs all look very similar. I would suggest playing a lot with facial features to make them all look very distinct.
Yeah i agree, they look kinda similar
Something closer to Stardew Valley perhaps.
yeah definitely, visual distinction will really help keep players longer. for me is the npcs all look to similar i find it harder to remember their story
The portraits are WAY too sweaty, like its a game about monster hybrids but the portraits are supermodels with huge tits lol
What about mostly realistic but with like a small % stylization, usually in the eyes. Something maybe like a pixel version of the characters from Mouthwashing? The current raster you showed off kinda looks like the same base girl with different hair and clothing.
All good changes. Personally, I think having the portraits be even more cartoonish would be even better, though the current ones are probably fine
I agree - there's still a sort of seriousness in these portraits that's really not visually represented elsewhere in the game. AKA critters are cute and funny looking
@@forrestgrfoster i was about to comment that
Agreed, cartoony portraits fit the art style much better, the realistic ones look too much like he used AI to generate a picture of an attractive woman, then threw it into a photoshop pixel filter.
i want serious portraits for humans and super funky ones for animals or objects
Shut up, no one cares what you think, the realistic portraits are awesome.
I think all frog NPCs should purposefully walk through the water, that's a feature opportunity
Custom tile costs per character could in theory be a pain to implement depending on how the current system is set up though.
@@zj9583
Perhaps each tile could have a 'type' assigned to it, and then certain npcs just have code that says if tile is 'type,' cost is lower?
the portraits look like pixelated photos. I think simplifying them while keeping the facial and body proportions might fit better with the games style and stop them from looking childish
Yeah, like I think something Stardew Valley-esque would fit perfectly.
@@drakesword5214 +1, the NPCs just need to have some odd "irregularities" to it, as actual human people do. Like this one NPC is handsome AF but they have an unusual nose, or this other one has their eyes a bit further away from each other than the rest of them. You know, like actual humans heh
@@drakesword5214 I think there's probably a middle-ground between Stardew Valley and something more realistic that he seems to want.
He should look towards Japanese games. Anime has always had a good blend between realism and cartoonish designs and while I don't necessarily think he should try to recreate an anime style for his characters (that wouldn't look good or fit his game), there are probably some tips he could take from there that would help.
Maybe just aiming for a Stardew Valley art style for portraits and then stylizing it less (or more in his own tastes) would be the solution, but I don't know. I'm not an artist, myself.
Absolutely.
There's a middle-ground between childish and realistic. Hands down a realistic aesthetic will always clash with the rest of the aesthetic of the game, I think he has to come to terms with that. Chef RPG or Stardew are places I think he should look to for inspiration on how to make stylized characters in that vein.
First thing's first. I absolute adore the game you are making, and wish nothing more than it becomes a wonderful thing that many can enjoy; chiefly you :)
I like the new character portraits. If I was forced to nit pick, I think the reason character portraits kind of stand out so much is the palette complexity. Your in world npcs are very simple in their palettes, often having 3-5 maybe 9 colors at most. While the portraits are vastly more complexed with hundreds of colors at the least. Again I do like the new portraits, but if I had to pick out why they stand out so much I'd say this.
Yeah, I like the half-colored-in version of the girl at 5:57 almost more than the fully-colored-in version
Yeah, this is exactly it with the portraits
Yeah totally! Realistic proportions are great but the color difference really makes it feel mismatched
great point, the half-colored version does look better. maybe add a few shading.
Damn you're right the cel shading look makes it pop
The portraits feel like they are for an entirely different game. They’re not bad, just jarring when put with the rest of the game’s art style
agreed
nah you're addicted to hentai pal
Exactly! the critters are not that detailed too, probably it's best to go with a simplified design
the portraits look honestly stunning but i agree that they're a little jarring. I wonder if having a portrait at all is necessary. someone else brought up the idea of stardew valley-esque portraits but I personally think having no portrait at all would work fine (like Terraria?). I guess this would mean the sprites of the characters would have to be more individualised so that each npc still can be told apart.
This is gonna sound harsh and kinda cruel but the portraits look a bit like they're AI generated. They're of course not actually AI generated, we see the WIPs in the video, but they have a lot of the same problems that AI generated art has.
Like an AI generated image, I cannot tell what the intent behind the image is. The characters are sort of generically pretty and quarter stylized, three quarters realistic, but I could not tell you anything about what sort of person the characters depicted in those portraits are supposed to be. And sure they're probably just supposed to be generic NPCs, but you can make someone look generic in a way that feels intentional, but these designs feel accidentally generic.
An interesting thing you could do is have the tile costs change per-character (or per a type of character if that's too costly). So rebellious teens would be jaywalking, jumping fences and swimming, while older folk would be using sidewalks only.
Edit: Someone else pointed out that this can be creature-dependent, so frogs would be more likely to cross water. That can add a lot of personality!
3:58 i think itd be fun if some npcs have a chance to favour expensive tiles on occassion, jaywalking, desire paths, tripping over bushes, getting agitated if someone in front of them walks too slowly
like preferring to walk on the road, grass, etc?
Or critters not caring if they run on grass, while humans prefer sidewalks. Or amphibians not caring about wet tiles unlike other critters.
@@Fannerable This could potentially also get used to classify movement for your creatures too, though I'm not the visionary so my opinion comes with a free grain of salt.
or depending on who they are. a working man would always follow crosswalks while a child would be more open to jaywalking. the only thing that needs to change is the values of the pathfinding squares
The little frog guy playing fetch with their dog is so cool
the portrait style has gotta be cartoony in some way man its the only thing that fits
I like the art style of the characters and think you're an amazing artist and creative genius! My personal take is that it's the designs that don't match, not the style. Since the game is so wacky and vibrant and fun I think the characters should match that by being a bunch of crazy aliens/ animals/ wizards/ whatever- just something as colourful as the rest of the game so far! (I can't WAIT for this game to come out!!!)
I agree! I think the portraits from Chef RPG are fairly similar in style but match better because of the funky character design so maybe more in that direction?
that sounds sweet
for the portraits, really the only idea I have in terms of making them fit more is to make the resolution slightly lower, as currently they basically have the same detail than some older games could fit on an entire screen, half might be too much of a cut, so cuttin it to just 3/4th or 2/3rd resolution might be a sweetspot? experiment around I guess!
wait hold up, what is that program that looks like MSPaint but seems to have modern features, at 0:11?
The portrait faces have very similar proportions in terms of lips, eyes, noses, ears and makes many of the faces look super similar. Going in and manually resizing the nose, eyes, ears, etc with the lasso tool during the early drafting would probably help with practicing that and/or finding a good variety of references of unfiltered human faces. I really like the use of solid black line art in first new portrait, it really helps the character pop from the background plus it matches the black outline the in-game charters have so it looks similar without sacrificing realism, the other characters blend with the background of their portraits without it. I hope these are tips that will work with your natural drawing style, I find it obnoxious when people give me critique that's essentially "draw completely different from the way you normally draw". Your style looks quite nice and reminds me of the way many older games would style character portraits, which is pretty cool imo.
Edit: Perlin Noise
I think the new portraits are an improvement, but I would maybe narrow the colour palettes a little to make them higher contrast like the rest of the game. Someone else mentioned that the not-quite finished version of the portrait at ~5:58 as being pretty close to what would suit the overall style better, and I agree. Fewer colours, and maybe brighter colours. They can look like adults but also be colourful and/or quirky! Like Spike from Cowboy Beebop.
I think the art looks really good, but the style of the game really does give off a more cartoony feel rather than semi-realistic
He's alive !!!!!!
And so is his game world
Welp ,he's going back to his coffin to finish his game ... at least we know he's semi alive unlike other game devs ...*COUGH COUGH* *DANI* *COUGH COUGH*
the slightly more cartoonish style lands really well! you should try playing around with different face shapes and facial features, to make the portraits and characters stand out from each other more.
Just yesterday I was remembering about Critter Crosser for some reason, and now a new video!
I was skeptical about wishful thinking before, but seems that it works
Thank you for your metaphysical service
The open world design of your game is very unique. I can't find words to describe it but it gives pretty nice vibes.
Reminds me of the megaman battle network GBA art style. And I adore it.
Honestly that mechanic, and how he seems to know how to get it to work the way he wants, is what got me to wishlist this. It sounds really cool!
I really love the art style! I hope even nonhuman NPCs get the same treatment. Something of a 'cute from afar, kinda weird looking up close' vibe.
Looks great! The pixel art of your characters is super cute. Flow fields are super cool technology. Quite overshadowed by A* in gamedev, so it's cool to see it here!
If your development update videos are this fun to watch, I can only imagine how much fun the game will be to play lol. Had the game wishlisted for quite some time, so glad it isn't likely to fade into obscurity!
this is one of those rare games, that where you simple cant not see all the ambition and charm poured into it. this man has the og dev mindset
also, i wish i could wishlist this game twice
4:37 you could make different NPCs have different costs for walking over tiles. So one npc could be a chaotic maniac jumping over any obstacles, running through the roads while others are behaving normally.
I always love seeing another video from you, I have super high hopes for your game!! My only critique atm is that I think the pixel art for the human portraits is still too detailed for the style of the game
I love everything about this game except your push against the cartoony portraits. Personally I really think that's the only thing that would properly fit in with the art style of the rest of the game. Again though, everything else is looking fantastic!
I agree. With how exaggerated and cartoony the sprites are, the portraits just look so jarring. There's nothing bad with either of these styles, but expecting them to mesh without it being surprising is gonna be a hard path to take.
His portraits are waaaay too realistic. He also doesn't need to go full anime. Adults can exist, look like grown adults, and still hold tons of stylization. Look at stardew valley's portaits for example, they don't look like kids at all. Like it's not bad, but it's super jarring and the colors are way off for the type of game hes making
Less a push against and more of it simply being his personal pref. Well, my additive advice here is reducing its color palette to match the game more.
@@ultimaxkom8728 A preference that potentially game ruining if I'm being honest. A game like this desperately needs quirky and colorful characters, so not including caricatured characters is just shooting yourself in the foot.
i like that he's doin his own style
Really insightful. I added Critter Crosser to my wishlist, because the concept itself looks interesting as well!
Thank you for considering modding from the get go! Always love it when dev does that.
My favorite example of lively cities in an indie game is Wuppo. Even though it's a metroidvania with combat mechanics, it focuses on populated areas where hanging out and doing things just for the sake of experiencing them is a major theme, with NPCs doing those same things along with you, and even the areas that aren't friendly towns will have some neutral or hostile NPCs going about their business
I honestly already love this game, the fact that I can literally just watch how it is made and how it works just makes me like it more, feels like one of those games that's not too fancy or dramatic but one you will remember for a long time.
6:00 Rujik flexing his godly pixel art skills over us.
Absolutely love your style of pixel art for portraits! Commenting to get more engagement on this vid
Also those new trees look very similar to Stardew. Personally I prefer the blocky ones over them
I've been following your progress since your first video, I don't even remember how I found it, but I've stayed ever since.
Your portraits are intricate, I personally feel they kind of don't match the game still but they *are* appealing to look at. Gives me a nostalgic feeling.
GODDAMN this game looks better and better each video. its so unbelievably charming and it fills me with a sense of "I MUST GET MY HANDS ON THIS NOW"
This is beyond unreal. keep up the great work!
You are doing some fenomenal development progress ! Can't wait to have hands on your game !
nice video, now we wait another year
1:17 Unexpected Gothic 2 music. Fitting for the segment about NPC schedules
I’m always so excited to see updates on this game, I think procedural generation and animation are critically underutilized in games.
Also, a few things about this update
1.
I greatly appreciate you adding daily routines for NPCs along with things they can do, little detail like this go a long way in video games
2.
I know you said you don’t like cartoony styles much, but as it stands, the current portraits don’t fit the NPCs at all. You might just have to resort making the character portraits more cartoonish to fit the style of the game. At the same time however, the sheer whiplash of interacting with a tiny little pixelated NPC and seeing a beautifully rendered, realistic character portrait pop up is incredibly hilarious, and I kinda love that.
Please start adding Critter Crosser into your titles I ALMOST OVERLOOKED THIS DROP!! Love it, need more fast
something that would be cool would be if some npcs gathered around when you battle, and others just ran away
This is such a beginner friendly video to explain pathfinding. It's excellent
Those portraits are gorgeous!
It's been 84 years...
Jokes aside im super happy you're back with more lovely stuff.
Your videos are genuinely so good and interesting. You cover things nice and quickly but with enough information to let us know what it does and some of how it works without getting too technical. Also, the game looks amazing and the new portraits in my opinion match a lot more and look amazing too!
I literally cannot wait for this game
not only are you making an awesome game you invest a ton of time to make these videos pedagogic and fun to watch for dumdums like us
Awesome work, keep it up !
The pathing flow was super interesting, and your animation was really helpful in understanding how it worked. I also think it is neat to see you taking the time to make your character calendar files readable. Like you said, that is always helpful for the community and long term survival of the game.
I just had a thought, have you talked to Big Mode Games about perhaps working a publishing deal out with them? They released Animal Well which I think personally was one of the most revolutionary pixel art games of the last few years, and I think you might be a good fit with them. It is the game studio started by the RUclipsr videogamedunkey. Something to look into, though you might just be content to go full indie.
So excited for the game.
OOOO I would really love to see more of that Blue Crocodile critter towards the end of the video!
very excited for this game. cant wait to play it on my channel!
Commander Keen soundtrack spotted in the wild
Great update! Ever more excited for the game (:
I literally found this channel because of a reddit post about water and im so interested in it now
So good to see a new vid. You're organic render vid actually got me into SDF's and made me pay attention in uni for once. Love to see your great world design work too, they were just casually in the bg of you're older vids.
The in-world NPC designs look good, especially with the extra attitude! You should take a look at Starbound- very similar style, artistically, so it might be some good inspiration!
I'm so hyped for this game. Maybe you could aim for a Stardew Valley kind of portrait? Definetly use less colors, just a plain color for the background, and try and make the characters more cartoonish.
I like how they look without eyes, it matches the style of the portraits more.
A good middle ground might be a shadow to imply where their brow is.
Also the portraits are sick.
I would totally play a Visual Novel or Adventure Mystery Horror game with that art style. The blonde woman made me think of a Delta Green agent or Tabitha from Scarlet Hollow.
I hope we get a vending machine room Easter egg
LETS GOOO NEW RUJIK UPLOAD
I love that both your game and devlog series are great.
Neat to get an update on this, the realistic portraits are jarring. Do one for Mario
This looks really neat! I love how you explain your processes, it's fascinating! *wishlisted*
man i love your devlogs, they're sooo fun :p
Holy shit this day couldn’t get any better!
I LOVE INTERACTING WITH THIS VIDEO
I love the Seyda Neen shout out. I compare all intro areas to it.
Critter crosser has me sooooo hyped!
What a great day to be both a Subscriber and a Wishlister. Trust me and join us.
This is one of the things on my feed that when they pop up, I have to drop everything to watch. I can't wait to buy this game.
Besides the awesome game in the works it's really amazing to hear your reasoning and techniques! Great display of intelligence
RujiK woke up from a coma to drop a total banger, and I dropped everything to watch it! I love this channel.
The pixel art characters look a little too perfect in my opinion
You and Vedal987 are the most interesting devs online. Thanks for documenting the journey.
love u bro when i grow up im gonna be like u
Heyy I'm gonna send the steam link everywhere I could! would be amazing to see your game released one day, I loved your video where you animate the bred animals 💚💚🐸
Always a treat seeing one of these posted!
this is genuinely awe-inspiring to look at
The visuals for these videos are in a league of their own.
Im so happy you're still hard at work in the game
I think that for the "portraits don't fit the rest of the visuals" issue is to add more instances of a contrasting realistic style, making the player used to seeing the second visual identity of the game frequently enough for the two clashing art styles to become the unified visual identity of the game. Basically, making the player accustomed to that inconsistency. Just an idea though, might be too much work depending on the approach.
game looks sick btw, love the way the critters move.
just binge watched all devlogs this morning hoping for a new one, best timing ever
Your approach on character design/style has not gone unnoticed and is greatly enjoyed.
I can’t exactly put words into it (this is terribly helpful I know) but I feel it’s almost there in caching the right look for your game.
you are creating art man, this is gorgeous!
ahhh so cool, I love when these videos come out
I have a question that might help you with your portraits: What is it you don't like about the "cartoon" examples you showed? Is it the proportions, the colors, the shading, all of it, or something else? To me, all of the examples of what you don't like appear childish mainly because of their facial proportions (huge eyes/forehead, small nose/mouth) and their body proportions (real people are 7-8 heads tall, cartoons are anywhere from 2-6). I think the American Comic style is a good approach, to me it still feels a bit over-detailed compared to the rest of the game. I think there's some very nice qualities in your process montage that get lost in the final, particularly the lineart and some of the blockier/more abstract shading.
Dude, you are frick'n brilliant, I love your art, your style, and your solutions to your problems are fantastic! Keep it up, big man. We can't wait to see this masterpiece you release
the excitement i have for the eventual release of this game is obviously immense, but this is the first time i've been so hyped to just sit down and listen to a dev explaining how they're making their game. these videos are so fun, so well-edited, and while obviously it's not feasible for all devs to do this kind of thing this is the best example i know of how to keep people happy and engaged while waiting for a game to be finished
I'm so pumped for this to come out. It's so good to see it develop AND be an awesome game idea/concept!
YOOOOOOO always thrilled to see you upload!
YES, YOU ARE BACK AND IT MADE MY DAY
I don't know what to tell you, man, super serious realistic faces are going to clash a bit with a cute little cartoon world with cute little cartoon critters wearing little cartoon hats. There's really no getting around that, I'm afraid.
God I can't wait to see more!!!
I think your character portraits would fit the style a lot better with fewer colors. Other than that, they look great!
I think that Stardew Valleys portrait style would work for this game. Honestly the more realistic pixel art portraits dont fit this game or kinda dont look good at all. Im an artist too so I know they were hand made but they could very easily be confused to pixalated photos or even worse AI
oh boy if Im wishlisting it. The older I get the fewer games I buy because life. But there are exceptions, and this is a shiny one.
Beautiful. And this video had swiss cheese. 10/10.
You could use a pixel font in dialogues to keep the visual coherence of the game. If you still want to use a sans you could use a humanist sans instead of a geometric sans since the last one tends to be less legible (harder to read)
It's hard to find words to describe the euphory I feel when new devlog of this game drops!
I keep forgetting this is made in GameMaker with how dynamic the animations and visuals are