Sunfire, in theory

Spent the past handful of days refurbishing this tileset i made for a project a while back.
I don't think i'm going to continue on this project right now, i need some time to contemplate what form i want this game to take.

I have had some ideas for puzzle mechanics floating around in my head
but i'm really not in the mood for puzzle design right now
so i'm going to leave this one here and shift over to something else again.

Yet to see whether or not this minor diversion from working on Riptide Manor again has shifted my programming block. I've got a lot on my mind right now, hard to focus.

But i'm running into problems with the colour balance of this palette.
There's just no nice greys!!!!!

This is just a naive 6-bit rgb (64 colours evenly spaced) and as a result:
There's only TWO neutral greys. and like. six nearly identical greens
all the colours are clustered around high saturation, there's not much in the middle of the gamut.
This is not ideal for me and my ideas

I am tempted to make some kind of symmetrical rgb division that's more usefully spaced but still automatic and not hand-picked
There's also the temptation to use real world retro colours like the NES palette or something
I want a balance between customization and restriction and this feels just a touch too restrictive to me.

need to investigate and play around some more

Yes yeah yep

Testing some placement variants. I think i like the right side one, with a fill line of 8x tiles between two 8x lines, and the bricks feel like they fit better for walls than the tall slabs.
I think i'll go for more clean rectangular or round shapes, change the shape of the wall-fill tiles and make a brighter variant of the brick tiles.
....Though i do like the idea of having both options available...

the character pops well against both midtone and dark floors, that's good. maybe i'll add a larger rounded square floor tile too for some subtle variation.

First draft tileset idea.
What worked well:

• I like these colours a lot
• The brightest, highest-contrast region is the transition between walls and floor, good separation
• The floor tiles work well. not too busy, but not flat and boring, and the repetition helps them blend together into a uniform background

For the next one:

• Use black for outlining walls. Push separation between walls and floor even more
• Convex and concave corners
• Wrap the lines around the walls instead of aligned rows
• Not sure about the dithering on the orange stones. maybe tone that down?