Critique my pixel art

[ZeroKnyght]

Because of the acceptable dimensions of a sprite. There’s a cutoff point on the left and right side.

https://imgur.com/a/nk0h563

[Fenriel]

i decided to bring the discussion over here, since it’s mainly related to your own project.
anyway, resuming from before:

@rdrouyn

Yeah the OB UI is pretty simple looking, which I’m probably not going to replicate. I’ve decided to go with a more hybrid FE/OB approach, more of a homage than an explicit remake. Not sure what that is supposed to look like to be honest. I’m not too terrible at splicing things together for portraits, but creating UI elements is not something I’m experienced with. I think a cool looking title screen would be very helpful since it isn’t something I can cobble together easily from the asset repo. The tentative title for my game is “Fire Emblem: Path of Kings” Something that draws inspiration from both series would be nice. I won’t ask for more until I have something to show for myself.

As far as UI goes, I really like your FE9/10 combat UI so I’m probably going to borrow that(with your permission, that is). I got a stats screen from the repo that almost matches it, I might have to modify some colors but it shouldn’t be too difficult.

You have a lot of cool looking maps I could use. The floating isle one in particular screams OB to me. I’ll see if I can use that one in my hack as well.

even a simple UI is better than nothing as a starting point, you can always add new stuff later on if you feel like it. that goes for anything that involves battle screens, stats screens, etc.

as for my assets, i already wrote down what’s available for use and what is not in my galleries.
as long as you stay in the F2U/F2E area, there’s no problems. you can do whatever customization you want with that stuff, so don’t worry.

also, a word of advice on the matter: try to keep UI styles close to each other in terms of graphics.
putting stuff from different visual styles together can eventually backfire and lead to poor quality material if things are not properly mixed.
it’s probably better to stick with one artstyle for the time being, and eventually resume work on customization later on when you’ll already have the basics ironed out.

with all that said, here’s a couple of gifts from me, with the hope that these might help you with the first steps of your project:

consider them prototypes for the title screen, since adjustments can be made anytime by simply replacing the black background with whatever you like.

in the end the choice is yours, but i’d stay more on the OB side of the concept, rather than the FE one.
there’s already an overload of FE spinoffs on this platform, so seeing something sticking out from the usual box is quite the novelty these days~

[rdrouyn]

Awesome, I love it! I got so hyped by these I put together some mocks of how it might look in the final product.

Fog effect is kind of shite but I’ll work on it and see if I can animate it as well.

Edit: After thinking about it, I might go with FE x Ogre Battle: Path of Kings as the title. It’s the most accurate title possible.

[Fenriel]

@rdrouyn

Edit: After thinking about it, I might go with FE x Ogre Battle: Path of Kings as the title. It’s the most accurate title possible.

the 2nd game screen you made looks like a legit GBA remake of the original, so i guess doing two variants of the title was a good idea after all.

however, do keep in mind the overall space required for the title.
it’s alright if you want to merge those concepts, but it always depends on how you want to do it, because putting everything into one full-length title is not going to fit in there for sure, and using just letters for abbreviations is way too generic, nor does it give a good look at the project starter.

better to stick with just one title to be on the safe side, otherwise you could eventually sacrifice the sub title and go for something like this, wich might not be really optimal but at least it incorporates both series:

in any case, the choice is yours to make~

[rdrouyn]

Honestly, I love the Ogre Battle title by itself. But it does feel weird to me to have a OB game on a FE fansite without any connection to FE. I want people to play it, lol. And ultimately it is using the FE8 engine and combat mechanics so I want to communicate that through the title. The FE x OB title accomplishes that the most, I think.

[rdrouyn]

Slightly off topic, but here’s a small preview of my character creator.

[rdrouyn]

This is how the title screen is looking in the app right now.

Now that I got the title screen completed, I can go back to splicing some characters together for the prologue chapter. Maybe I’ll have a one map demo available next week.

[rdrouyn]

I decided to try something different and created a mug for one of the monster classes in my hack. You can’t really have a OB/Tactics style game without the monsters so here’s the Hellhound. One of the more solid monster classes in Ogre Battle. Starts out strong but gets outclassed once your regular units get promoted. I tried giving him a furry coat texture, not sure I was completely successful, but I think it is passable. If anyone has some tips on how to draw pixelated fur, I’m all ears.

larger version of the mug

based on:

[rdrouyn]

Seth who? I got a Hellhound named Fenrir now.

[rdrouyn]

Another portrait. This time it is El soldado generico. The backbone of the armies of Zetegenia. Generics are a necessary element of a OB/Tactics game. These guys generally join at level 1 and are terrible at combat, but they offer growth potential and lots of promotion class options. In a sense, they are very similar to the FE8 trainees.

Edit: This portrait turned out to be too blurry when placed in the game. I upscaled an image from another game and tried to fix it but it didn’t work out too well. I’ll try again with a different image.

[rdrouyn]

Another monster class. This time a made a Gryphon mug. Considered one of the best Monster units in OB despite mediocre stats, due to its ability to mobilize units quickly with its high sky movement. Its attack tends to be lower than other monsters but compensates with high agility. The closest FE comparison to the Griffin would be the pegasus knight.

Edit: I also edited the Gryphon Rider sprite walk and stay animation. I removed the Rider from it and it turned out half decent. I also want to edit the combat animations of the Griffin Rider but it seems more complicated. Can anyone advise me on a quick way of accomplishing this?

[Polinym]

I gotta say… I haven’t played any Ogre Battle Tactics, but this is looking pretty sweet! I think you’re on the road to making a really unique hack.

[rdrouyn]

Thank you for the compliment. I have some cool ideas for the game, just hoping it all comes together as I envision it.

As far as not having played Ogre Battle nor Tactics Ogre, I think you should remedy that. Those are two of my favorite non-FE games. I think FE has better gameplay and combat mechanics, but everything else about the Ogre series is equal or better, IMO. Especially story and worldbuilding, which FE doesn’t really excel at, apart from a couple of examples.

[rdrouyn]

A preview of my Gryphon critical attack animation. I had to create one by editing the Griffin Rider anims in the asset repo since there were no riderless Griffin ones. This is my first attempt of making an original attack animation so it isn’t the best one ever but I like the overall concept. Still need to tweak the timing though.

[rdrouyn]

More portraits. The Female and Male MC and Warren, the Seer.

I’ve decided to rip them straight out of OB and not bother animating mouths or adding blinking frames because it takes way too much editing and at that point I might as well be making characters from scratch. These portraits aren’t straightforward to port to the GBA style of things. And all the editing is slowing down the hack development. I could decide to make them more in the GBA style at a later point.