One of the staples in Gambit are the 3×3 inch tiles that are used to build each level—like legos. One thing we noticed right away in play testing was how gray everything looked. The Gray Stone tile set is kind of one and a half sets as we’ve also included dirt floors to break up the monochromatic feel. Even so, levels still felt dim and overly gray.
The first thing I did to address this was to change color the tone of the floor. In the old style, both the floor and the walls were within the same color tone spectrum (a very very very subtle blue-tinted gray). In the new style, the floor is a tan color, making every tile, whether dirt or stone floored, have two primary color tones.
In addition to darkening the walls, adding some variety to the colored floor squares, and saturating the dirt, I also added some grass/weeds to add a bit more variation and color. The results are felt as levels don’t feel so washed out, especially when there’s a lot of stone floors.
This undertaking actually kept me off the blog for a few weeks because there were so many files to update. In addition to wall and floor shapes, there are also all the objects, that for now, having matching floors. One irony is that right as I was wrapping up, we implemented two simplifications that will reduce the number of tiles needed by nearly 75%.
Two more level tile art sets coming up
We have two more art sets that we are excited to share in the coming weeks: Moss Stone and Temple Palace. These are just working names for now, but our hope is to provide a nice variety of tile styles that can also function well when mixed and matched.