THE SCREENSHOT TOPIC RETURNS

Been playing around with my menus. This is right I came up with.

I removed the landmark text, but if want to see it, here...

author=UPRC
Looks pretty decent, but the background is REALLY distracting!

You can still see the map in game/zoomed in.
I was thinking about crafting a little logo or something in that empty space next to Ziro's face, but I don't know.

author=LockeZ
I still think the randomly half-erased faces are unattractive

I think they'd look much better if the 'erasing' didn't seem so haphazard, i.e. horizontal slicing.

There is a little perspective issue with your monsters. Even the human ones, which should be "normal" sized, seem larger than the party. They might BE the same size, but being further from the "camera", it makes them look larger than the party in comparison.

I like the middle one the best, but I think the girl's pose is really unnatural/uncomfortable/anatomically troubling...etc.

EDIT - Also, if you ran your party graphics through Photoshop and use the Despeckle filter a couple of times, followed up with some Sharpen you would match the smoother look of your monsters a little more (which may or may not appeal to you!).

@ NOACCEPTANCE772
So far, so interesting haha :3

author=LockeZ
Ah, the background looks much better now.

I still think the randomly half-erased faces are unattractive, and the background behind the selection box is pretty weird.

The small font, half-erased portraits and lack of information about the characters add up to a ton of black space scattered all over the screen. While blank space is often unavoidable, it's almost always best to have it be around the edges. You want the white space to fall off the side of the screen when you can, so it feels like a border instead of a gap. To solve this, you will probably need to rearrange a couple things, condense a couple other things, and you'll definitely need bigger text.

author=Yellow Magic

author=LockeZ
I still think the randomly half-erased faces are unattractive

I think they'd look much better if the 'erasing' didn't seem so haphazard, i.e. horizontal slicing.

Thanks guys.
I'll be more competent with the fade out. I'm trying to make it fit the battle screen (with all its buffs going through the char's eyes,) and the save screen (where no fade-out looks crappy.)
So far so good. And that fonts been plaguing me in ways more than one >.>

author=Sana
If you need a new font, I know a few good sites that have some pretty interesting/good ones. :)

lol thanks, Sana.
Gonna play around with the bars a bit. Maybe find a script to fit that empty spot. So far so good :3

Avee, I get that you're going for GB res, but man, the border is so obnoxiously intrusive, like you're playing a game through a window even though it's fullscreen! Def distracting, I would say make the actual game itself be at least 2x, which means you'd have more res/less space for the border, which I think would improve readability a great deal, even if it is just a gameboy esque device with flat netural shades.

Also the power light and the two lights on top are very distracting because they are in the immediate vicinity of the the game's 'screen'/playspace, and are the only objects which use bright colors, to the point where it battles with that off white for attention, whereas ideally, it should be muted by contrast so the eye doesn't focus on it.

As for the screen itself, I think you are hitting a resemblance to GB, but don't rely on that, or sub it for quality. I like the micro FE styled portrait, but you might have trouble at this res to convey multiple emotions with those faces. The char itself has readability issues again. GB is tricky to pull off, because you only get 4 colors, so you have to be careful about what you place where and how that affects/interacts with your main character sprite. You're using the light green shade for the skin of the chara, and the lightest value, white, for the sky, which is BG information, so not visually important enough to deserve the attention that that shade of white demands.

Furthermore, I think that you should play around with the pallet a bit more. There is a lot you can do with 4 colors, but idk if this non-canon puke green imitation of GB will get you there, there's a ton of GB pallets out there though so def experiment. Good start, regardless.

For the record that puke green in Avee's screen is definitely the color of the original game boy. Game boy color and super game boy added different palettes, but this was the original.

Personally I think the game boy border is hilarious. There's some gray in the middle of the power light, where I assume it should be red or white. The large character portrait is relatively amazing considering the technical limitations.

author=Avee
My new game's page is pending :)

I'll have at least 5 other portraits like this one to make, as well as emotions poses. The different skin color can't be helped though.

I like it.

How about an option to allow the player to change that border image? That would be fun, and anyone complaining about it being distracting can turn it off. Also, it wouldn't get stale looking at the same border the whole game. I'm sure there are interesting things you can do with that space, like showing your current stats, equips or other useful information.

Those screens all look fantastic!
I've always wanted to do a custom shop because I want a fluctuating economy. I haven't yet because I'm worried that I would want to change values later and it would be a pain to do it in events versus through database, but maybe after my game is done I'll attempt it.
I wish your game was public, even from just a tech standpoint it's still very interesting and inspirational and I would love to subscribe.
That second screenshot should probably say "Would you like to stay and rest?" or "Do you care to rest here?" or something along those lines though. As it is now it more reads "Did you enjoy staying and resting here previously?" Maybe I'm just being nitpicky... In any case, fantastic stuff!