Today I learned two things which are fairly important while working on Super Mafia Dudes art:
1)Customization of the player is nice, but not if it comes at the expense of art.
2)Colors are important
I started pulling the player models into their individual pieces, and realized that the customization layers I wanted (Hat, Skin, Back, Torso, Feet) wouldn't work.
Y'see with the new shading, the hats cast shadows on the face of the wearer. Which, how would I transfer that to the sprites that are pulled apart? The hats would look weird without the shadows cast, and the new skin tones would look weird if they cast just a flat gray shadow.
So I 'fixed' it.
I made all the shading be a 25% black which I applied to the base color. Something I could mimic when separating the sprites into parts.
I then watched the sprites die.
This is something I've never seen before, the transition from hue shifting to a linear (possibly even exponential) shading. My character's art turned ugly, Renya's turned into a zombie. The old man's face grew deeper and his tank top sweatstained.
For quite a few things, it killed the color and the life of Super Mafia Dudes, made it seem more 'serious'.
And I will tell you right now, SMD is anything but.
I've decided to remove skin tone as an option for the player customization, and it will instead be limited to certain head types. This will mean that there will be quite a few pale white people running around.
But in Super Mafia Dudes, that's all anyone is.
