Devlog #2 - Art Build

For the art build, I essentially started rebuilding the prototype this time in the actual game engine and with some more polished art. I wasn't able to get a lot done in terms of progression/story because I was focused on setting things up in the engine and figuring out the art style. In the feedback for the prototype, a lot of people said they really liked the character drawings, so I made sure to prioritize getting two of those done to see how it would look in the game. 

The render style I went with purposefully isn't very complicated, since I think something too dramatic wouldn't fit the vibes of the game. I used a pencil-like soft brush because I believe it gives off a gentler, more "comfortable" feeling than if I had used a harsher brush. I considered adding more dramatic shading because that's what I like to do in my art usually, but I didn't because I think it would have taken away from the vibe. Instead, I added basic shading and an orange light on the portraits to again give it a cozy feel. 

Note: I'm using default sprites for the characters as placeholders. I plan to make my own sprites in the future.

RPG Maker gives you the option to add a character face to the dialogue box, which is significantly easier than manually adding in the fullbody images of the characters like I did. However, I thought that the fullbodies were really important to the immersion of the game. At least in my opinion, it's easier to be immersed/interested in characters right away if you can see more of their body. Also, having two characters on-screen at the same time helps give the impression of them actually having a conversation. Even though it's a pain to add in these images, I think it's worth it. Since the core experience of my game is exploring the town and getting to know the people in it, having immersive elements like this is important.

Even though I haven't changed my idea for the story at all, I ran into a significant issue when making this build. As you can tell, I used only default RPG Maker assets for the map/background. I wouldn't have had time to make everything in time for this build anyway, but building out the map with these assets made me realize I severely underestimated the time I have for this game. Realistically, there is no way I could make assets for every single thing in the map/background like I thought I could. If I was a more experience pixel artist, then maybe, but unfortunately I was faced with the reality that it's just not going to happen. This is really disappointing, because then I can't say I made all the art in the game entirely by myself, but I have to face reality.

As seen above, I've decided to just use the default assets for the map/background, since they have most of what I was planning to make myself anyway. There are some things missing, like specific items and details I want in the environment, but I can make those myself. I've seen some tutorials on Youtube about parallax mapping  in RPG Maker, so I might look into that and see if I can add some custom lighting to the maps to at least make them more interesting.

I'm going to pivot my priorities and focus more on the character portraits in terms of art. I'll hopefully be able to draw more NPCs than originally planned and have more expressions for each character. The character portraits show off more of my strengths anyway, since I'm not a pixel artist.