[Game] Kanto Explorers: Gen 2 Style Protagonist Sprite Competition!

[Snyd]

Hey everyone! First I'd like to introduce myself as Snyd (formally ~Red for many years, ashandmisty many years before that) an aspiring games programmer who is currently working on a ROM hack of the Generation 2 game Pokemon: Crystal. To create a tl;dr version of what my game is about, the game is set in Kanto and features Time Travel elements ala Zelda: Oracle of Ages. For the long version, click here: https://daily.pokecommunity.com/2019/07/05/fangamefriday-kanto-explorers-through-time/

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I was recently playing through and testing the introductory text when I realized I still hadn't implemented my sprites for the female character yet, but then I thought further and wondered, what if I offered the community a chance to be a part of this game? Why don't I set up a competition where spriters can submit their own characters for usage in the game and then me and my team decide the best and use them? Now, I already have sprites for both male and female so this isn't me looking for free work if you're skeptical, the idea came to be as just a bit of fun and also a challenge as with gen 2 style you are limited to four colours only: Black, White and 2 other different colours of your choice.

If you have any questions, please ask in this thread. For a submission, you need a front sprite, back sprite and overworld sprite of any or both genders, but not more than one submission of one gender. Both male and female will be picked separately. The competition ends 1st December! Winners and runner-ups will be chosen by December 15th.

To enter the competition, simply leave a message in this thread to say you're entering, and to submit, send me a PM with a link to all the files in a compressed archive such as .zip or .rar.

 

[gadd]

Gee whiz, an opportunity for the privilege; nay the honor, of having my work used in a whole rom hack with an unproven concept and no demo.
I suppose we'll be losing the ownership of our work by merit of submitting it, right?

It's being chosen via a closed poll? How will we know nepotism won't have a role in this? Are members of your own team barred from entering?

I mean, you're not even showing us the sprite to base the art off of.

You need to describe the prizes for the runners up, and how you plan on divvying up the prizes when the categories are so loose.

This feels half baked, even after you had the chance to rethink your approach.
You even contradict yourself in the posting. Do you have male and female world sprites, or not?

 

[PiaCRT]

If you don't want to participate you don't have to. This thread was ran by moderators as well as several discord server owners before posting and was approved by all of them. Your negativity is unnecessary, especially towards a fellow creator who has been very kind to others as well as generous with sharing his work.

 

[Sunfished]

I am a bit curious about this, and would like to ask a few questions and provide a few initial thoughts including the ones brought up by @gadd's post

1. You mentioned that the choice is made by the team, and that they will "decide the best". Will it be possible to provide more detail as to what you're expecting, and the requirements that you would like to see? Also, I would love to expect some sort of explanation as to why you picked the winner out of the others. These closed voting type of contests as mentioned by @gadd are a bit iffy, so having more information about these things would help your audience know what they will be in for.

2. Like @gadd said, it is a bit contradicting in information that you said that you do not have the female sprites implemented, but then said that you have one already. I would like more clarification as to what you meant, because it can imply a lot of things, such as us having to design a character based on your sprite, (which was not provided).

3. It would be nice to provide some information about the submission requirements. As someone that sprites but has never touched romhacking before, it would be somewhat problematic for users like me to not know what the sprite sizes are, for example.

I think these questions are what's holding me back and probably some others on entering. I'd love for these to get addressed!

 

[Snyd]

1. You mentioned that the choice is made by the team, and that they will "decide the best". Will it be possible to provide more detail as to what you're expecting, and the requirements that you would like to see? Also, I would love to expect some sort of explanation as to why you picked the winner out of the others. These closed voting type of contests as mentioned by @gadd are a bit iffy, so having more information about these things would help your audience know what they will be in for.

I have for the most part done all of the programming for my ROM hack while the "team" I mentioned in the hack's thread have been working very hard updating and revising certain beta mon sprites and scratch sprites for me. Essentially if there were many applicants, I would also ask for their opinions also on the submissions such as what would fit in with the art style they have already implemented. Ultimately the winners and runner-ups would be decided by me. In terms of runner-up prizes, to get the demo out asap I will use my favorite designs as the default male/female designs. Eventually I wish to introduce a create-a-character system for the intro in future updates where the other sprites submitted can be selected as "outfits" (and you can choose your sprite pallette and name here too).

2. Like @gadd said, it is a bit contradicting in information that you said that you do not have the female sprites implemented, but then said that you have one already. I would like more clarification as to what you meant, because it can imply a lot of things, such as us having to design a character based on your sprite, (which was not provided).

Having a sprite made and having a sprite implemented are two different things. I have a sprite, but it's not in the ROM yet.

3. It would be nice to provide some information about the submission requirements. As someone that sprites but has never touched romhacking before, it would be somewhat problematic for users like me to not know what the sprite sizes are, for example.

Overworld sprites are in greyscale and contain only four shades of black (including white). Their dimensions are 16 x 96. An example:

Battle/trainer card sprites are in colour but use only 2 colours and black and white. These are 56 x 56 pixels. An example:

In terms of what sort of design to base it off, the idea was you could be as creative as you want. You don't need concepts, you can make it as unique as you'd like. I hope this clears up any confusion.

And finally: in terms of ownership you can withdraw your sprite at any time, Pokemon is a protected IP anyway so you cannot make money doing this. But you will be credited in the threads of the hack and in game in the end credits for your work. This is a totally optional fun thing, that's how I saw it. I'm not extorting anyone, just don't enter if you are not interested. Much love.

 

[Nintendogamemaster]

Considering that the protagonist is the grandson of Sabrina, would it be preferable for him or her to resemble Sabrina in some way?