Din's Champion alpha screenshots

[Shadow]

We've finally posted some screenshots of Din's Champion! These are from alpha so many things are subject to change. Head over to our Din's Champion screenshots page to look at them.

Tell us which ones you like best and we'll use those on places like Steam!

[TheSpiderwolf]

To be painfully honest, I think that any of these screenshots are more likely to dissuade potential purchases than encourage them. I really think the entire look of the game needs to be reconsidered if you want to have any appeal beyond the devout players of your previous games. I know that if I were to suggest this game to any friends of mine they would never consider playing it simply because of how it looks. I think your games have some truly compelling gameplay design/mechanics and it's unfortunate for those to be gated behind such poor visual design.

[Destro*]

You might be right on one part TheSpiderwolf, lol, the game could have pixel graphics and I'd probably still get and play it.

Now I'm inspired to make a few comments on the screenshots. I was going to wait until I play the game. But, now I feel inspired after TheSpiderwolf's post.

First, lighting and shadows:

In the house screenshot, the chests cast light up while there are torches right above them. I'm not sure what exactly the visual intent is meant to be, but I can't imagine a scenario where they would not cast downwards. Though, I'd more realistically expect the left chest to cast shadows to the right and down that are softened by the rightmost torch from top to bottom.

As for the table on the first floor, it projects light up, which again makes no sense given the torch directly above.

The chairs are much darker than the table, which I presume would be of the same material, so they should be nearly the same level of brightness.

Even with torches inside the house, the edges of the walls appear dark. On the first floor, I'd really expect there to not be shadows right around the windows (assuming those are meant to be windows).

Overall, I think improvements to lighting and shadows could be a massive step toward improving the overall look of the game. In general, most screenshots appear quite dark. But, I really think that's only because light isn't doing enough.

As a few additional thoughts on the topic of visuals:
- If the visual intent is indeed to have 3d objects in a 2d world, then you can't realistically have torches 'in front of' the chests, so there would be no realistic illumination to cast on their front. You'd have to rely on soft lighting over everything, which would effectively cause everything to be a similar light level with no shadows behind objects.
- If the visual intent is to go pure 2d, then it might be better to forgo shadows entirely. Though, I've no idea what that would look like or if that could even be good.
- Most objects appear to be slightly metallic, which is not necessarily bad, but I do wonder if things could look better if they weren't. The trees in the house pic are notably not-'too' 'noticeably' metallic-y and I think look great even with that being the case (they do appear a bit dark though).
- Based on the current visual style, I almost wish the game had gone in the direction of an 'over the shoulder/first-person' RPG in a 3D world (more minecraft-y than terraria-y). I know that would be a lot more work. But, I can kind of see the visual style 'wanting to go in that direction' but not quite being able to because of the 2D constraint. Oh well, maybe that'll be Din's Champion II ^_^.

Also, the trees are midgets, lol. After a quick paint session, if we assume that the player character is 6 feet tall, then threes are like 15-20 feet tall.