Well if you can stomach a visual critique, here goes. I judge it based on what I see, appreciating that it's all alpha asset work for the most part. And it's a little obtuse to critique visuals in a mostly text-driven game I know, but I think when you aren't relying so heavily on graphics, what you are relying on has to look pretty nice.
The drabness you speak of in wanting heroes and such to pop definitely shows. The area between POIs and land features is barren. There's a little bit of texture variation going on there, and maybe it has a little more life to it while playing. But from a SS perspective, it almost looks like a grey void. There needs to be a bit more noise there, even if it's just tone shifts.
Over the course of screenshots I've looked at, I've seen the forest features go from looking very sharp at the edges to having a more blended look. I'd say go even further, perhaps diffusing some of that green color around the forests (and other features) so the line between them and the rest of the map isn't so stark.
Really the starkness of the map is what makes everything pop to an uncomfortable degree to my eye.
This clip of a screenshot from moddb is illustrative of what I mean:
The blend between the town and forests are decent, but between the mountains and forest, not so much. I see something that kinda looks like a drop shadow there around the edge of the forest, and stuff like that helps soften the boundaries. I just think you need to go farther with it, and give land features a little more visual creep so it transitions better in the open ground.
Re: Menus
They don't look as cramped as they did at first blush. I think it's the bolded text and the size of screenshots you offered that contributes to them feeling that way. But the heavy black border is definitely too much. Needs an inner, brighter border (like black, gold, black) or the edges of the black border need to be softer. Or you might go with a decorative border (something evil looking, perhaps?) and just use black to edge it out. It almost looks like "true black" to my eyes, which means you could probably back it out a little more into gray so it doesn't create quite as harsh a contrast. Consider adding a drop shadow to the outer edge of the menu too, which would give it a 3d overlay effect, as opposed to just looking like a 2d square over the map. Some of the text also isn't kerned quite right, or at least inconsistently, in some menus.
And, like I said. A little bit of texture to the "Card stock" would go along way toward making those menus feel like they have depth. There's already a bit of shading on the white text portions, which looks like. That same level of thought just needs to be applied to the rest of the menu assets.
You might try to organize a little better too what's flavor text vs. not. Ex:
You've got the title of what it is at the top: solid. You've got the secondary text under the title answering the "Who?": Reasonable. You've got the menu options at the bottom with their costs and descriptions: solid. But that space in the middle with the flavor text seems oddly placed. In a playing card game or a table top game, that'd be where the picture goes. So the text there has a lot of emphasis placed on it. And I assume the "Time for some new blood" text is sort of the lead in to your choice options. But it's kinda crammed in there between the box for the flavor text, and the choices section.
I'm not entirely sure how you could rearrange it, as I get the expected flow based on the layout you have. Can't stick flavor text between the "coup" button and your dialog options. But I feel like some elements of that arrangement there is out of place. What if you took out the white box surrounding the flavor text entirely, and put it in italic font? That way the eye would more easily drift past it to their choices. It's just that section seems to be shouting while saying very little.
The agent/hero menus I think are fine, they just have the issues of the menus in general. But I like the layout of abilities on one pane and gear and sundries on the other "page." Reminds me very much of Arkham Horror characters sheets. It's a little harder to judge those menus not really knowing much about gameplay.
The POI menus seem pretty decent for what they're trying to achieve. Again, having not played it, it's a little harder to say what works vs. doesn't since my brain doesn't know what's important about those menus other than educated guesses. So for example, those little tool widgets on the lower right look oddly placed, but I have no idea what they do.
Here's my TLDR: that salmon coloration on the menus has got to go 
Maybe you were going for something akin to parchment, maybe it's just my monitor's color settings, but it looks pink to me.
At a first glance, based on the color choices and stylization, I'd not have guessed this was a game about playing an evil guy. And the salmon color of the menus kinda contributes to that. Something like a yellow parchment color I think would be more appropriate. Faded yellow/brown/white, like
so. You might lose a bit of the "game card stock" look, but I think you'd gain a lot of the "kickass tome" look. In menu-driven games, the content of the menus matters a lot to me because they're the primary thing you're interacting with in game.
All in all I like what I see, it just needs the hard/jagged edges sanded off in a lot of places. Menus are a bit rough and I'd spend a lot of time thinking about how to give them depth without making them hard to read.
Here's an example of what I mean, and sorry for harping on Magic cards but that's what leapt to mind when I saw your menus.
1. The heavy black border has a rounded edge to contrast against the sharp edge of the actual card graphic. It both softens the boarder a touch and drives attention inward, away from the border. (They also happen to be playing cards so you round them so they don't get beat up as easy.)
2. The title. Nothing special in and of itself, except its relation to the subtitle, which is beneath the "main stage."
3. A nice fake beveled edge. This is part of what I mean about giving things some depth. In this it creates the illusion of 3d, like you're looking into the image through a window. The image part of it isn't relevant to your design, but you can use the tricks to create levels within a menu in visually interesting ways, to give them some tangibility and crunchiness. You've got some of that going with drop shadows on certain portions of the menus, but more could be done.
4. Dat texture. Imagine if this section was one solid color. It'd suck half the life out of the presentation.
5. The subtext. Again, it's part of the visual read. From title to image to subtext to rules to rules to flavor quote.
6. More texture. I'm not actually a fan of this one, but again, leaving stuff that takes up a lot of real-estate one solid undifferentiated color ends up looking bland to me. Some might call it understated, but like I said, if I have to look at a menu primarily as the thing I'm doing in a game, I want it to be a menu I find interesting to look at.
7. The italics clearly indicate what's flavor and what's not. It also occupies a much lower priority in the hierarchy of the visual read.
Your menus play by different rules than playing cards, so not all of this applies in the same way it works here, like where you choose to put flavor text or what it's meant to achieve. But I think the principles are still pretty applicable.
Anyways, thanks for reading and good luck, I look forward to giving you money.
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Topic: That which sleeps- Kickstarted! (Read 372317 times)