We're posting some key art on our devlog and would love brutal feedback. We're creating our very first game, an isometric action RPG called Nekrolith and would love to field test the art the general vibe of the game.
The first thing that came to mind is that the art style looks similar to Adventure Quest Worlds, especially in your screenshots with the character in the environment. That style always felt charming to me and its coming through here with your stuff. I actually like your linework better - its got a hand drawn unevenness to it that makes it feel less clean and more animated.
However, your description of the game seems to make the aesthetic out to be more serious. I see someone else commented about the visuals looking like Castle Crashers - which is a charming and goofy style as well. If you want to hold onto this look you will want to shift the tone of your game to be more like the two games mentioned above. Its communicating more of a "jaunty cartoon dungeon crawler" vibe.
If you want to lean into the serious tone - a bit of desaturation and adding heavy blocks of shadows to what you already have might do the trick. Or you could play around with messy textures to add a "grimy" look to things.
Overall you have a great foundation for the style. I'm curious to see how it would look in motion. Great work!
I love this feedback and I appreciate it very much. Thank you so much for taking the time to give me such a well thought out and valuable response.
There's a feedback loop developing in my posts that's quite hilarious: My original vision for the game was definitely darker but it seems my artistic abilities cannot yet quite render the kind of mood that I was originally going for, LOL. I think rather than fight it I could maybe lean into it a bit while still keeping some of the darker elements around. I've seen games like darkest dungeon use a pretty cartoony art style while keeping a somber back story. I will definitely take your advice here and try a couple things but I'm definitely now considering keeping the cartoon dungeon crawler vibe and mixing it a dark but more tongue-in-cheek story.
Thanks again!