🎨 Special Post - Sprite Animations & Diego's Art Dilemma
Added 2025-11-14 14:52:40 +0000 UTCQuick note:
The things I am about to show are early drafts and still need polishing. There will be inconsistencies and errors in these.
Part 1: I Went Crazy With Animations
OK first of all, this post is special because we're going to talk about two topics. First, I let myself go crazy and made this:
Basically, I've been learning about sprite animations, so I've been spending all my free time on them... And I love making these animations to an unhealthy point where I spend the whole day working on them xDDD
That little bit must be around 20+ hours of work, but I'm getting faster and now I can reuse some parts of the animations. For me, it's a tremendous leap in terms of presentation and I'm super super proud of it!
What did you think?
Part 2: The Elephant in the Room - Diego and Art Differences
To create the visuals you saw above, I had to resort to a new technique for making images. Our visuals are there, but they get a *bit* of an upgrade.
So now I have 2 options and I would like your opinion on them, specially Diego's fans.
Option 1:
I accept this and acknowledge that in CGs and these more complex scenes where I make animations, it won't be possible to represent Diego exactly how he is.
Option 2:
I redo Diego's current sprites.
Advantages of Option 1:
I save time and work.
We have 10 outfits/poses for Diego, 37 expressions (yes, I tend to overdo stuff xD), and we still have CGs that would need to change.
Advantages of Option 2:
We give Diego an update, who out of everyone, had the lowest quality sprite. Not only the sprites would look sharper, but have greater consistency between sprite, combat sprite, and CG.
It has a disadvantage though. The chars I've been making more recently: Lucas, Zane (not revealed yet), Joel, and even Harry's update already have more detail. So I beleive these won't look off to a new more detailed sprite.
But characters like Matt have a bit less details and polishment because they were among the first I made, and at the time I didn't know better.
I love our art and wouldn't want to change the style. But there's the possibility that I make the updated Diego and find that it clashes with the others, and I'd have to think about whether to proceed or not even if you guys want the update.
Half body Preview of Diego's Possible New Sprite:
Super Important Note: This is all possibility, not certainty. If you guys think it's best, I can try to go ahead with his update.
Comments
You can change Diego's sprites and CGs for the sake of consistency, which is important. But please don't change anything about Matt's appearance. He already looks perfect, literally the most attractive character I know! I'm very passionate about Matt's looks and your game!
BeauDonathon
2025-11-17 15:09:49 +0000 UTCI remember it like it was yesterday... It was back in those days when the top image on the itch.io page featured all the characters in little square cells. I immediately decided to go for Diego, because he wasn't, erm, exactly ugly, but he looked like the kind of person who could get you into trouble if you got involved with him. Yep, he looked like an unpleasant guy, or even a villain. Later it turned out that I was basically sharing Matt’s point of view back then... But during that first playthrough I didn’t talk to Matt — I went straight to Diego. I soon realized that Diego was a character worthy of respect, with principles that I really liked. It was ok, but then... There was that f&f joke, and he smiled... It was a ba-dum moment >////> Maybe he smiled before that? I don’t remember. The correct answer to Matt's question about Diego would be "the way his smile lights up when I make a joke". I didn't even find Diego nice or attractive before our conversation. So what struck me at the start was that contrast between how he looks and what he’s actually like (and Matt is much more complex than his sprite suggests and not so cloyingly good at all). It's hard to say if the new sprite would have elicited the same reaction, as I couldn't see his facial expressions. Diego's proportions and posture in the old version have much more personality, and I like the contrast between his usual face and his smile, and his funny “what the actual fuck?” expression with his eyes rolled back. I also think that Diego's appearance now doesn't fit into any of the usual archetypes for such visual novels. He’s hard to describe based on looks alone — you can only really describe him in dynamics and in connection with his personality. There is that common “bad on the outside, good on the inside” character type in games, but you wouldn’t guess that about Diego just from his appearance. I’m not sure about the muscles — to me it doesn’t matter much, because if women and men can fight on equal footing, the build itself becomes less important. HOWEVER, I believe that the design should, first and foremost, appeal to the author, and the new Diego doesn't really bother me too much, because the overall impression of his face — especially his eyes — now reminds me of my husband ha-ha-ha. The new Diego looks more stern, strict, and cool rather than dangerous or unpleasant — but I’ll get used to it. And now he’s become more noble and hot, too. And this combat animation looks very high-quality 👍👍 (I read English well, but I hardly speak it, so I apologize for any mistakes)
fywfhhy
2025-11-15 06:27:40 +0000 UTC
