sweet heavens my bandwidth is melting
You may want to change the screenshot options to export as PNG instead of BMP.. it's a hell of a lot more compact and you can have MANY more PNG screenshots of your hack in your filebin than BMP.
Screen 1: There's inconsistency on the light source comparing the tree bark with all the other things that are pillow-shaded. I'd recommend that you (universally) angle your light source at top left or top right, even though you're going to use more space in your ExGFX files this way.
Example: the tree bark is somewhat close to what I think would be the better way to shade things. Imagine if you took the tree bark, moved the light source just a LITTLE bit to the left, and had it go to a medium shade of brown for ~2 pixels then dark for one pixel of width right before the outline to make it seem cylindrical. You may also want a tile below the leaves that's shaded, and try shading other things according to their shapes and textures rather than against the outline.
Also, the tree bark would look nicer without the outline along the bottom since the ground outline already does that job; having a double-thick outline doesn't fit.
The clouds are a bit squarish, but it doesn't look bad, per se... would you be willing to draw them fluffier and give them a more distinguished shade? The bright cyan is kind of hard to make out. Try going for a light sky blue. =o
Here's a minor correction for your story box too
god help me, I hate sounding like a grammar Nazi:
Mario, I've lost
my golden key in
the tree forest.
Can you help me
find it?
-Peach
The foreground looks okay, don't worry xD
Screen 2: Good textures, and the palette isn't too bad. I'd like to see a stronger contrast between the foreground and the background, though, as far as the background rocks go - it's a little close in colors and color depth to the foreground.
I can't really tell if this is meant to be a cave wall or if this is a desert background... if it's a desert background, the perspective is really strange and you should make it seem to recede, have the ground "end" and show the sky above it. If it's a cave, darker colors than the foreground would make it look better.
Screen 3:
>status bar palette
If you could change whatever is using the status bar colors (that is, if anything even is using them) to another palette row, and restore the black outline + red coloring of
MARIO, then this screenshot is stellar. That FG/BG palette combo is glorious.
Screen 4: The issue I had with the pillow shading becomes more apparent here, like, you have a shadow coming below where the light source appears to be, which throws everything off. 0_e The same thing with the trees applies to the roof here; it would look better if you didn't have the outline along the base roof tile since the tile below has the outline to compensate and make it look good.
I'd also recommend shading the top of that tile right below the grey part that sticks out under the roof, and anti-aliasing inside the roof outlines to smooth the edges, but what you have going looks pretty decent so far.
Screen 5: Nice use of this tileset! I have no complaints.
This is obviously still a VERY new work in progress and you have no real level design to show right now.. but hopefully my comments on the ExGFX are useful to you! Hope to see your levels soon.
Just look above you...
If it's something that can be stopped, then just try to stop it!