Crysalis Looks (Patreon)

Hey folks,

the last poll hasn't finished too long ago, so have a new one!

Just kidding, but it's something that is important to me and also I like feedback on.

This one is about the looks of the game.

Pretty much, it's just "How should the game look?"
For that, I have some examples and some more technical things attached, to also keep in mind when choosing.

But to the looks, you can choose between look A and look B

Look A

this is pretty much what I am gone for so far. It's a Gameboy Color like scheme, where you have palettes of 4 colors. The lightest and darkest colors are the same, to have transitions easier. But it limits the color space to basically two colors.

The advantages here are rather:

• I do have the work done for it mostly, meaning that it's how the game looks and works right now
• it allows for easy palette switches
• potentially easier to recognize types of enemies and NPCs
• very retro look

It also has disadvantages, like;

• very limited color space (two colors per palette)
• maybe too retro?
• rather plain looking
• it doesn't let me do better special effects (shaders), as it pretty much gobbles all available shader space up
• extra steps to get the palettes working

There will be a summation at the end.

Look B

This look is more modern in feeling, about the age of SNES and Genesis/mega Drive. It's new, but I saw it when working on the page and well, it definitely looks more interesting. It uses a fixed palette for everything, with about 32 colors for now. But I can adjust and change the palette as I want to.

Some advantages of this approach:

• looks more modern and interesting
• I'm able to use more sophisticated effects, that look more modern
• potentially able to simply import sprites, without extra steps
• more details on background, and characters

Of course there are also some disadvantages:

• retro look gets a bit lost, while still being pretty retro
• need to re-work sprites and tiles a little to fit it in
• potentially harder to recognize types of characters (but that can be mitigated)
• no palette switches possible (but can use other shader tricks)

Comparison

Its pretty much "a bit more work" vs "prettier looks". I'd like your input, so vote on it.
Meanwhile I will also think about it myself. Ultimately, I keep the right to make the final call, but I really like your input on the matter to see what players want.

Also here a bit of a summation of the different advantages and also all the images will be downloadable at the bottom

Look A advantages:

• retro look
• work done already
• palette tricks work

Look B advantages:

• prettier look, with more details
• more sophisticated effects possible
• bit more modern look, but keeping it retro

PS: I really just added a bit of detail on characters, but the background really just got nly the colors changed. So they will be adjusted to fit Look B better, if that one gets chosen (which is a bit of extra work)