CHALLENGE: Platform

To celebrate the SNES's recent 20th anniversary in the US, we want you to create a single-screen mock-up for a new and original platform game. It can use true SNES restrictions, but this is only optional.

Canvas size - Exactly 256 x 224.
Colours - Unrestricted.
Transparency - No.
Animation - No.

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CHALLENGE RULES

• Participants have until this upcoming Sunday at midnight (12AM Pacific) to submit their entry (strict). Don't forget to check the 'Submit to weekly challenge' checkbox.
• Only new pixels allowed.
• Open to all members.
• Posting WIPs in this thread or in new threads in the WIP section is highly encouraged, but ONLY SUBMIT YOUR FINAL ART.

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CHALLENGE JUDGING

• Every Sunday at midnight (12AM Pacific) the previous week's entries are judged.
• Every week a new voting poll will be posted for previous week's entries.
• Winner announced the following week.

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CHALLENGE PRIZES/GOODIES

• Top three finishers will receive an award displayed in your PJ gallery profile for all to see and envy.
• Top finisher gets to call the following week's challenge...sweet.
• 'Participation' ribbons will be given for all who enter.
• No matter what happens you get challenged :)

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CHALLENGE VOTING

Vote now for your favorite pixelart in this week's challenge!

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CHALLENGE AWARDS

The Platform pixel art challenge is complete and we have three new champions. This week's challenge awards go to the following pieces:



Thanks so much to all who took the time to vote and participate in the challenge!

@Mrmo Tarius - a pixelling machine in action again as I see <_< What kind of fuel do you use? chocolate? O:

Hopefully I'll have some time to make an entry

Liar.  It's orphan blood, isn't it?

alright, ima enter this one but for some reason my entry didnt even go through on the last one. i entered it at like 10 oclock on saturday so maybe it didnt get approved in time. oh well, expect something SOONISH

Best Challenge yet >:3
I will start working on it right now

As long as it's a new and original game and not some demake of a certain game involving portals and references to cake...

shampoop posted this in the news thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_game_console_palettes#SNES explains the restrictions.  This is the pallete: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monochrome_and_RGB_palettes#15-bit_RGB.  Looks like you can have up to 256 on screen with 32,768 to choose from.

Mode 0: 4 layers, all using 4-color palettes. Each BG uses its own section of the SNES palette.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/191/frgh.png/

Niwa my picture where you had to send it here I have given

What about the 16 color palettes and 4 color palettes? Can they contain any 16 and any 4 colors from the 15-bit RGB palette?

WIP

Hiya : D

Uhm..I'm new here, can someone how or where the final pic has to be uploaded at D: ?
In this thread, or where?

@topic:
I like the theme : D Hopefully I can think of something good ._."

Just started:

The pixelling techniques and the colours are awesome, but that Spartan pose looks very weird to me. I can't tell which way he's headed or what he's doing. The other dude looks great though.


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Here's my WIP. It's about a girl in a red dress chased by the US government in some kind of apocalyptic setting. I've no idea why.

Color change and some more work:

It had crossed my mind, but then again I suck at drawing sprites.
Here's an update- I followed DB's advice, but brightened the 'black' just a bit :)



I don't like the tree on the right. Will change it :P

*edit* why did I make the background color black? It's not black anymore :)

*edit2* doodads! :)

Edited by Mrmo Tarius - 31 August 2011 at 5:06am

Holy cheesecake ._____."
You guys are too good  O___Q

Mrmo Tarius: Looks amazing as ever. One thing bugs me though. The pool of water in the centre is being magically held in place by an invisible wall?

Oh, I don't think an edit by me is particularly helpful, as I'm no good with anatomy. Here's a very quick and simple edit, just to illustrate my point (I've basically just chopped up and rearranged your spartan, which is why the sword arm looks strange and the pose is still quite unnatural as he's out of balance)



[Not as aesthetically pleasing, perhaps. But it does make more sense to me, and it's easier to understand what's going on]

My point was just that if he's jumping forward to attack his opponent, it would be very difficult (and very silly) to turn his hips away from his opponent. It's not a normal way to attack, so for me the original looked more like he was jumping away from the spear attack.

PS: As I zoomed in to work on this, I suddenly noticed he was nude.


Edited by CELS - 31 August 2011 at 8:53am

"But what's the point of heaving a shield then?"
 Well, I don't have a good answer for that, except the Spartans probably didn't do this kind of jumping attacks. And they almost certainly didn't do it naked. So logic isn't really of any help here. 

"Maybe changing the arm would make it easier to understand?"
Well, you do whatever you want. But if you have some space in your living room, try doing a running jump whilst turning your hips backwards in mid-air. I think you'll find it difficult to do this, even without holding a shield and swinging a sword. But hey, art doesn't always have to be realistic, so do what you want.

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Tiny bit of progress. I have virtually no experience drawing sprites this size, so any feedback is welcome. Particularly, I'm wondering how the little girl looks.




Edited by CELS - 31 August 2011 at 8:06pm

Thanks, Mr Special. Now that you mention it, I should definitely make it more dystopian. In regards to the girl, I'll try to improve the shading on her dress. I don't really know what to do with her face. The only 1990s platform games with somewhat realistic graphics (Prince of Persia, Flashback, Another World) tend to have a relatively blank face. In my first version, seen above, I tried to create some facial features, but she ended up looking like Super Mario's princess, which isn't quite what you want in this dystopian universe. :)

Well, I think the lack of details and shade on those characters was just for the sake of animation. I'm not trying to imitate the style, I'm just trying to figure out the best way of drawing a 6 x 6 pixel head in a realistic manner. A blank face seems the best solution.

Another update:


Edited by Jinn - 31 August 2011 at 8:19pm

I honestly have no idea where I'm headed with this; any suggestions/help?

It'll be hard to say until you mess with the background. I could suggest all kinds of crazy colors, but if your foreground is not in, and you background's colors are too busy, my suggestion could mess up everything.

Fix up your background, settle on a few colors, and then it'll be easier to see what colors you have left.

Thanks! It's probably a result of me drawing cartoony proportions, and then trying to modify them to be more realistic. I guess I'll draw it from scratch.
The red is meant to stand out, it's artistic license. :)


I don't think the hue matters, as long as you get some good contrast going. Well, unless the foreground is all black and/or white, of course. But really, I don't see the problem with having so many colors. It reminds me of Commander Keen 6 and Space Quest. If you can get the saturation and brightness right, you can still end up with a readable game. I think your piece looks great so far, and the colours play a large part in that.


Ah, this is vintage Chibiwing pixel art :) I'm not sure what to say about the technique, I mean it's a bit low contrast, but your stuff is usually like that. Your colours here are quite similar, but they usually are.

What you have so far reminds me of Indian art. Everything looks so ornate and luxurious, with all the gold and decorations, and then you have the skulls as an opposite to that. In Indian [Hindu] art, you'd often see grotesque demons and malicious gods decorated with gold and ornate jewelry. Perhaps that's a useful direction to explore. It's just what came to mind, for me.


Edited by CELS - 01 September 2011 at 8:46am