Which Assets Should We Revisit?
Wat's putting in a little extra effort to make the upcoming Baird's post special, so while he finishes that up, we wanted to ask for your feedback!
Changeling Tale has been the longest project that anyone on our team has undertaken, and over the course of its development our skills have improved and our styles have evolved. This means that some of the earlier work we did on the game likely doesn't match the standard of content we're putting out now, and before we publish Changeling Tale, if time permits, we'd like to go back and improve some of the most outdated assets.
Which assets do you think are in most need of updating to our current standards? Be specific if possible! Which scenes, frames, sprites, or backgrounds don't stand up today? Let us know which stand out to you (the art galleries may be a useful way of reviewing them) in the comments or in the Discord #Project_Feedback channel, and we'll take notes for when it's time to polish the game for release!
Comments (17)
Honestly the "Jessie Embarrassed/Looking Down" sprite never looked right to me. Something about her muzzle is off putting, like its pressed too far into her neck or something. For comparison, Grace's usual sprite has her muzzle angled downwards as well, but Grace's seems far more natural.
We'll take a look at it! Thanks!
I personally think that changing the art wouldn’t make sense, there doesn’t seem to be bad scenes or “clunky” parts, for the Jessie mirror scene I’m in the opinion that the scene needs to be like it is, it correctly portrays the scene and sets the mood for what occurs within it, so I don’t see why people want to change it just because of “style” inconsistencies, in-fact I look at the scene and wonder if more scenes could be in its style in the future, it’s a great visual and I would absolutely dread losing it just because people think it’s different because, well, it’s meant to be different. For the transformation scenes I agree there could definitely be more, or at least more detail or more “oomph”, some of them either feel really “meh” or really, oh that happened ok cool. The old sprites coming back is really a development decision. Quality of sprites have definitely changed throughout development so that would need to be looked at. Finally I fully agree with Nocturne on the title screen thing. That’s my rant.
Good feedback, thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Honestly, it all looks pretty consistent to me.
Maybe...those early sprites of Jessie facing to the side have already been tweaked, but I think her muzzle is also more slender in those than in the newer ones where she is facing more to the front. The snarling Jessie in the pub picture is one of the oldest...but don't you DARE touch that one.
(This image is actually a scene and not a sprite so I don't know if this counts) When jessie and Malcolm meet when she's packing to leave, she looks into the mirror after transforming. In that scene she looks quite different than how she does everywhere else, and even when Malcolm looks at himself in the mirror. Though I actually quite like how she looks in that scene, she looks more fluffy in my opinion, for consistency sake I'd like to see a rework to make the style look a little more similar to how Malcolm looked in the mirror.
That was the very first art of Jessie we ever drew! I agree, our style has evolved a lot, although I do still like how it turned out ^^; We'll take a look at it, time permitting!
I know it's no longer an option, but I still miss old Grace. She felt like so much more of a monstrous transformation, like it actually felt like a serious choice to make if you wanted to be with her, rather than now where she's super cute and beautiful and looks way more human.
If you are referring to the first design, in which she was so big that the MC was resting his head on her chest, and was to short to even reach to her feet, on the floating water scene MK1, then yes. I full heartily agree with you. Another thing to note is the difference between the three sisters TF. Jessie is the only one so far that can TF into her feral form and back to human form, while the other sisters still remained anthropomorphic or humanoid form. It should be rectified why it stopped before "fertalization", or why they can't switch from one to another.
Id say for me, the title having the fully tf'ed sisters upon completion of their paths is one. Probably a final pass on each of the sprites to make sure you don't have some resolution missmatches here and there. I know there was some fuzziness with Human Grace's face at some points compared to her other sprites.
Good point about the sprites, we'll definitely do a final pass on those. With the title assets, is your suggestion to have their midpoint form a temporary state until their storyline is complete, and then replace them with fully tfed assets?
I can't think of any really off the top of my head. But I will definitely send you a message via discord if I come across any. I don't think your going to be too suprised if most of what I send you involves Grace, since I've played her branch and reviewed her image files so many times. :) I'll do it that way and check everything in Faststone to get you some answers quicker.
Personally, I would like to see the transformations expanded.
Indeed. If were just looking for ways to polish things, just adding more to the TF sequences I think would go a long way.
I would have to say that some of the sprites with the main cast could use some updating. Not that they don't look amazing, but since the release of Marion Ch.4 you can see differences. For example, in some scenes with two characters it's like one appears in HD and while the other is in 4KHD. I know that is alot to rework but you guys did mention that your we starting to opt for a base sprites with interchangeable expressions. I hope this feedback helps. I'm looking forward to the upcoming Jessie chapter and even more so for the one after it.
We'll take a look through the sprites and see which ones look less sharp, but are there any specifically that you recall? If you run into them on a future playthrough, let us know!