15 replies to this topic

[Mitchfork]

Lithium

Watche Out Link Its John wilkes booth!

Pabru

Here lies the late Roberts. Dread Pirate Roberts.

Cukeman

The rainstorm comes to a halt as Link approaches the first dungeon.

Jared

"It feels like...someone wants to sell me something!"

William

Link follows a dark-cloaked figure deep into the heart of the forest. (This is where it all comes together with my Classic set. Forest overhang meets transparent water, custom sprites and hand-drawn graphics. I hope you enjoy.)

Sheik91

They said it was wet in Deluge Valley but I wasn't planning on drowning!

[Pabru]

And so ends my winning streak.

Lithium: JFK/10

Cukeman 3/10
I really don't enjoy this shot. It looks like something I would have drawn in MSPaint 10 years ago. But more than that the design itself just isn't there. Very symmetrical/boxy/boring. Its basically a big skull entrance with some litter cluttered about it. I personally am a fan of your work Mr. Cukeman (particularly that fantastic Escher shot) but this isn't up to par.

Jared 5/10
The design is just fine, nothing special. These tiles are pretty neat, and if I hadn't seen it before then this would have scored higher in my opinion. Like 2 weeks ago, I can't really name something wrong with it, it just doesn't stand out. So I rated it the exact middle.

William 8/10
I do like this shot a lot, it reminds me of classic shots that Furion makes. The hand-updated classic with the canopy and the transparent water clearly show the work you've put into this Classic set. The design is very well done, as is the palette and the detail. Excellent work. However, as has been said before, the canopy in classic is.... meh. To a certain degree. It doesn't necessarily look bad, its just not my favorite.

Sheik 9/10
Fantastic gameboy screen. Its amazing that you can make something this good with that tileset. The design is excellent, and for once I actually like the way the rain effect looks. Usually I dislike particle effects. This shot really feels like its been pulled fresh out of a real zelda game. Excellent work! This would have gotten my vote easily if I wasn't competing.

[Cukeman]

Lithium WTF

me I just wanted people's reactions. I don't expect to win or anything.

Jared Is that inside Jabu-Jabu's Belly? I love the wall/floor/ceiling tiles.
Very nice! Those things in front of Link look out of place, and I'm not sure what
they are, maybe it's just their color.

Sheik91 You just barely won my vote over Jared with this wonderful palette
and nice mood. Beautiful! I would advise you to edit the tiles so that the water goes
all the way to the land. I also think the tree in the lower left should be higher - it
looks like the mountain is squashing it.

...It looks like something I would have drawn in MSPaint 10 years ago...

That's how I feel about Classic tiles, but that's the look I'm going for XD
Any suggestions without changing the style of the graphics?
A dungeon would look weird if it was off-center.

Edited by Cukeman, 22 August 2011 - 12:26 PM.

[Nathaniel]

Pabru - B+
Pretty good, but I don't like it as much as a lot of your other screens. It's a wonderful screen for one among many in the desert. It doesn't stand out, but it would certainly well support a nearby screen that does.

Cukeman - C+
No doubt a concept screen, as it certainly is a point of significance. However, the design is still simple, even for classic's standards.

Jared - B-
It looks pretty good. I'm not familiar with those graphics, but I do like them.

William - A-
More of what I have seen, and still quite good. Vote goes here.

Sheik91 - B+
The rain is a nice touch, and the colors help support this environment well.

[Mitchfork]

Lithium - Subtle use of Gameboy stylings over an avant-garde, minimalist background; the deliberate juxtaposition of monochrome elements with Link's green garb seems to be a statement about solipsism and raises interesting questions about our acceptance of epistemological systems of truth. I appreciate the use of anachronisms (medieval armaments with mid-19th century formal wear) to create a unique setting for Link's adventure. If I had one criticism, I would say that the shot really needs more trees. Otherwise, a fine effort. More claret? A-

Pabru - My vote went here this week. It's not visually exciting, but it's a screen that gets the job done. The bottom right corner is very square, though; make sure that when you place trees and other similarly-sized objects that you don't place them vertically in line with each other; when you do, it overemphasizes the grid and is very unnatural. It also helps to have at least a few objects go across the screen border.

Cukeman - The colors really remind my of Zombies Ate My Neighbors and your custom tiles/edits fit the style of classic very well. However, design-wise it's very basic. Your shot does do exactly what it's meant to do though, so if you're satisfied with it don't change anything. Just pick a better designed screen to show off in future entries.

Jared - This is the only screen this week where I took issue with the colors and tiles. The green tiles are way too saturated and simple to fit in with the floors and walls; in addition, these elements conflict with the MC-inspired enemies, Link, and "barriers" (I'm not exactly sure what those are). In addition the design is very basic and nothing on its own which would attract a vote.

William - The design sense is there but I really don't feel like some of the elements blend well. The tiles themselves are very grainy, which is fine if you're going for that "attempting high detail but not quite nailing it" era of the NES, but don't necessarily blend with the transparent elements of the screen. The shadows really mess with the colors of the trees and the detail in some tiles, most notably those of the road.

Sheik91 - I like that you used only Gameboy graphics here; I really like the clean simplicity of those tiles and that shows in the shot. However, I think that more varied detail could have been used in the grassy lower portion of this shot, and that the mountain at the bottom could have been more natural. This shot was close to Pabru's, but I felt his was a little better holistically. Yours is definitely the shot that I thought had the greatest aesthetic appeal, however.

[Tree]

Ooo la la.

Pabru stole my vote with his wonderful screen.
9/10

Rest good, but not enough blang blang you know what I mean?

See you all next week!

[Sheik]

I nulled my vote. Though Lithium would've won my vote if I wasn't in the poll.

Sheik 9/10
Fantastic gameboy screen. Its amazing that you can make something this good with that tileset. The design is excellent, and for once I actually like the way the rain effect looks. Usually I dislike particle effects. This shot really feels like its been pulled fresh out of a real zelda game. Excellent work! This would have gotten my vote easily if I wasn't competing.

Thank you very much for the kind feedback! This is what I was aiming at, basically.

Sheik91 You just barely won my vote over Jared with this wonderful palette
and nice mood. Beautiful! I would advise you to edit the tiles so that the water goes
all the way to the land. I also think the tree in the lower left should be higher - it
looks like the mountain is squashing it.

Thank you, too, for the nice comment. If my screen carries over some atmosphere, than I've done something right, I guess. About the tree: it ain't happening. I agree with you on the issue, but the tree has to be placed like this, as does the mountain. It's a little unhappy design-wise, but I believe it is within reason.

Sheik91 - B+
The rain is a nice touch, and the colors help support this environment well.

Transparent weather effects layered over GBC graphics are rather hard to pull of, so I'm happy that you noted this element on the positive side. I was a little unsure about it myself. But I guess it's fine.

Sheik91 - I like that you used only Gameboy graphics here; I really like the clean simplicity of those tiles and that shows in the shot. However, I think that more varied detail could have been used in the grassy lower portion of this shot, and that the mountain at the bottom could have been more natural. This shot was close to Pabru's, but I felt his was a little better holistically. Yours is definitely the shot that I thought had the greatest aesthetic appeal, however.

This is another goal I was aiming at. I did not want to have fancy mountain layouts and complicated detail on the ground like my early GBC work used to feature. Rather, I feel that simple shapes and clean design does the tileset much better justice. About the detail variety, I'll agree that it's a bit on the underwhelming side, but it's just a "walk-through" screen pretty much. However, I already decided upon another graphical element to add to the area, so in the final version, this will look more appealing due to more uniqueness.

Rest good, but not enough blang blang you know what I mean?

I for one decided against "blang blang". Rather, I wanted to submit a simple screenshot, that's not 2 hours or more of work (which my SotW entries tend to be quite often). It's sort of an experiment. I want to see how many votes I can win without top-notch fancyness but rather by showing something fresh and new, maybe with character and atmosphere. The swamp isn't exactly a new idea, but it's not been pulled off like this in GBC to my knowledge yet.

[Shane]

Rest good, but not enough blang blang you know what I mean?

I beg differ, Pabru's shot hasn't got the best design (nor the worst) and has a bunch of mountain errors. Sheik's however caught my attention because everything was used right and it has the best design, imo.

Edited by Midnight_King, 23 August 2011 - 03:28 AM.

[Adem]

Sheik won my vote. As usual.

[Moosh]

Lithium: JFK/10

I know I'm picky, but shouldn't it be AbrahamLincoln/10?

[Pabru]

lol, yeah for some reason I got JWB mixed up in my head. Mah fault.

Edited by Pabru, 23 August 2011 - 05:25 PM.

[Moosh]

I guess I should give actual reviews of the shots now, eh?
Lithium: Too cool for internet.
Pabru: Feels a little bit too empty if you ask me, but the palette is nice and the design is...ok. Watch out for those mountain tile errors though. That transition in the upper right corner looks...bad. 7/10
Cukeman: I love the altered classic style you have going here, especially the gradual light effect around the torches, but the main focus of the shot, the skull looks really flat and rectangular. As has been said before, it looks like it was drawn in MSPaint using the shapes tool. 8.5/10
Jared: I'm afraid you have some nasty style clash here. In a quest, I wouldn't mind it, but it's not exactly the kind of quality I'd want on the front page out of this lineup. 6/10
William: I think all the layers here are causing some coloring issues. I assume you didn't mean for the ghini or Link's shield to be pitch black...It seems like it would be a great screen if the game's own method of drawing transparent layers hadn't screwed up the sprites... 8/10
Sheik91: Amazing! It looks like it was taken right out of a GBC game! 10/10

The rebel in me wants Lithium to win, break tradition, ect (it's Wild Bill's birthday, ANYTHING could happen) I'm pretty sure Sheik is going to win.

[Haylee]

lithiums is just to funny. voted for lithium

[Cukeman]

Now Link needs a Lincoln mask.

And now for some Lincoln-esque humor:
Star Trek "I am Abraham Lincoln"
The Simpsons "Dead Putting Society" episode.

[Master Maniac]

Lithium: I... Don't know what to say about this. I mean its interesting to see. But I feel sort of like this was a joke entry, no offense

Pabru: 6/10 I always love your shots. This week features a wonderful ALTTP-esque shot, with a few GB and BS tiles thrown in without any major style clashes. The only negative I see in your shot this week is the mountain tile errors. They deeply bother me.

Cukeman: 3/10 Its a generic dungeon entrance. IMO, even though the tiles are custom and in the Classic tileset, the skull could have used a lot more detail. For reference, look at those cracks in the mountains. A similar style could be done to detail the skull. I'd also suggest looking at pictures online of a human skull for detail reference. The front looks far too flat, even for the Classic tileset. If it had some details like ridges to accent the eyebrows, cheekbones, and more detail around the jaw area, it may have been worth a vote. You might also consider some chipped/missing teeth.

Jared: 9/10 Great design in general. I also love how detailed the GB style tiles were edited to fit with the DoR Link, and the MC Octos. The one thing that bothers me about your screen is the greenish slime. It fits, but it could use more detail. Try adding some more color to it, as well as highlights and shading, and serious details rather than the random pixels that you used. Right now, the slime looks like it would fit better in the Classic tileset, being only 2 colors.

William: 9/10 Wonderful shot. Absolutely perfect alteration of the Classic tileset. The only thing I disliked was the fence tiles. Everything aside from the tops of the fences looks fine. But the tops look as though they're transparent.

Sheik91: 9/10 Love it. Absotively love it. As said before, the screen looks like something pulled straight out of a GB Zelda game. However, its not something special enough for me to give a 10/10. It looks great, but it also looks like just another GB screen.


My vote this week is a close tie between Sheik91, Jared, and William. I gotta go with Jared though, just because I personally enjoy that shot more than the others.