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DerNachbar
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Quote DerNachbar Replybullet Topic: Classic Roguelike Tilesets
    Posted: 11 April 2019 at 5:51am
Hello everybody,

I'd like to share my progress on a bunch of classic roguelike tilesets I am working on. The goal with this project is mostly to learn, but I am thinking about creating an asset store bundle out of it as well (don't care much about how well it sells, but I want to put my best effort in it).

The structure of the tilesets is mostly derived from the famous oryx set ( https://www.oryxdesignlab.com/ ) , but I went with a higher resolution (32x32) and more details / realism than oryx.

I have 3 and a half sets so far and was curious, what you guys have to say and how I can improve them.
The current state is that all floor & wall tiles exist for the first three, while the last one only has floor tiles + basic walls. I plan to include a "details" layer that allows variable objects to be drawn on top of these (torches, debris, etc.).
The creatures on top are not made for these specifically, they are some older sprites of mine that give more context to the scenes.

Issues I ran into so far or that I got feedback on:

  • Lack of a coherent style: I tried to establish some kind of coherent design, but failed in some regards. I tried to aim for clean, muted floor tiles and a contrasting wall to allow good readability.

  • Perspective: I only divert a little from the straight birdseye view and the wall surfaces have little room to show texture and depth. This seems fine for constructed walls, but it works against more complex surfaces.

  • Contrast of relevant floor tiles / staircases.

  • Natural surfaces: I don't like my "rock texture" for the cavern set, it looks more like runny loam. I am satisfied with the floor texture for that set, though. This ties into the perspective issues I have.



Here's my work so far in chronological order. Intended viewing size is x3:

Temple Tileset
Bit of aztec influences, supposed to be the home of lizard / snakemen.


Cavern Tileset
Supposed to be a natural, wet cave housing cave / swamp beasts.


Obsidian Halls Tileset
An outlandish set that is supposed to be clean, dead and alien.


Classic Dungeon Tileset
This is supposed to be your classic dungeon with cells and giant rats. Probably the starting area.


I'm looking for feedback on all aspects, hit me! ;)
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NancyGold
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Quote NancyGold Replybullet Posted: 16 April 2019 at 5:02am
Obsidian Halls and Classic Dungeon are a bit too detailed compared to other tilesets. They also use more contrast and darker palette. Feels like a completely different style art, made by a different artist. Instant Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde feel
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DerNachbar
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Quote DerNachbar Replybullet Posted: 18 April 2019 at 2:31am
Originally posted by snv




Obsidian Halls and Classic Dungeon are a bit too detailed compared to other tilesets. They also use more contrast and darker palette. Feels like a completely different style art, made by a different artist. Instant Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde feel




Yeah, I agree. Maybe this is not really asset production but more of a style finding process.
Stupid me just went ahead and produced all the 20something variants needed for a full tileset for all four Styles...

Guess im going to have to rework 1-2 of them or straight up throw them out and book them under failed experiments.

I made some changes to the Classic Dungeon Tileset and lined them all up nicely in a new image:


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DerNachbar
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Quote DerNachbar Replybullet Posted: 01 May 2019 at 7:00am


I updated the Classic Dungeon Tileset into a new style (changed perspective and several aspects of the look) and also added some details to break the monotony more (the doors have a wrong perspective atm).
I am happy with the new direction and my first experiments applying this style to my Cavern tileset are promising as well.

Now I just need to watch and maintain the style for the different settings and work, work, work ;)
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NancyGold
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Quote NancyGold Replybullet Posted: 01 May 2019 at 7:41am
The new dungeon walls angle looks more solid, but at the same time they lost that gamey character, the fake/reversed perspective from Zelda and Warcraft 2 had. Guess you can't have everything at once :D
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DerNachbar
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Quote DerNachbar Replybullet Posted: 01 May 2019 at 8:30am
Thanks for your feedback!

Yeah, I feel I'm drifting towards a more realistic style, even though I'm deviating from my original plans.
The new perspective also gives me more room for wall textures, which outweighs other aspects for me.

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DerNachbar
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Quote DerNachbar Replybullet Posted: 04 May 2019 at 8:03am


I nearly finished the Cavern tileset in the new style. It still has 1-2 tiling errors and no detail / variation walls yet, but I still wanted to post my progress.
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DerNachbar
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Quote DerNachbar Replybullet Posted: 24 May 2019 at 8:11am
Updates on my reworks:


Cavern Tileset


I added some more Variations that add cave features and variety to the tileset.



Snake Temple


I updated my tealish temple tileset to one that is dedicated to sneks!
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DerNachbar
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Quote DerNachbar Replybullet Posted: 11 June 2019 at 9:03am
Another Update!

Dungeon Tileset
- Added floor detail tiles
- Reworked Doors


Cavern Tileset
- Added floor detail tiles
- Added Mushroom "light sources"
- Added boulder doors



Snake Temple Tileset
- Added floor detail tiles

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Greycloak
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Quote Greycloak Replybullet Posted: 06 July 2019 at 12:12pm
I really like the direction that this work is going in.

There's only a few things I would suggest:

One would be to make the cavern tiles less grid-like and try to blend those tiles a little more. The clear borders between tiles would bother me.

The second would be to work on the perspective of the tiles, particularly the ground tiles of the Snake Temple. The ground tiles appear as if they were being viewed from straight above, which creates a conflict of perspective with the walls.
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DerNachbar
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Quote DerNachbar Replybullet Posted: 09 July 2019 at 7:05am
Thank you for your feedback.
I have broken up the square shapes of the cavern floor tiles and I agree on the issue with the two clashing perspectives of floor and walls, which is especially pronounced in the snake temple set because of the perfect circles.


I tried to add horizontal shades only to the southern borders of my floor tiles to adjust their perspective subtly, but it created too much of a 3d effect for my liking. I will revisit this approach and also try to squash the circles a bit.
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