Hey all, I'm working on a black and white game (one shade of grey also) and I'm itching for some advice on how to make this particular scenario more appealing: The character is carrying a key and the tiles resembling a keyhole (barely) is a door. I'm trying to avoid a HUD completely, so I can't have a larger / fancier key icon somewhere on screen or something to that degree. I'm looking for advice on how to make the key / door combo more appealing, or even on changing the entire situation. For example: The door becoming a force field and the character being surrounded by a shield. (I've tried this and couldn't make it work, but hats off to someone else if they can do it). Any ideas?

The character looks realistic enough, so why not draw a realistic door? I would draw a vertical line for the door panel with two sideways T's representing the knobs.

What if you used colour for objects? The world could be black and white, but then have a red key and a red door - it could look cool. If you did this, you could make the character hold the key in its hand, because only the colour association would be really important.

I know you're going for the black and white look. Are you also going for a simple non-detailed look as well? If not you could put some pattern or detail in background to try and give it a bit more depth. As far as the key goes, if you don't want it to look HUD'ish, if your character will always be at a profile stance you could give him/her/it a backpack where you can put your key symbol when they have a key. You could also take the Mario approach and change your sprite's appearance and give him pants with keys on it or some cartoony thing like that. Just my opinion.

How much animation is there? Maybe rotating the key over his head would do the trick? I agree with the 1 pixel line and two T shapes for the door too.

Instead of a keyhole icon, would you have better luck with one that's a lock? How about the profile of a door with the lock symbol next to or over it? Or if a lock icon doesn't look good, maybe try a negative image of your key in a square.

At the top of my head:

(I am assuming that the character is not acquiring the key right in front of the door and this is an AS3 project)

-Why not draw a curve from the character to the door after the key is acquired. And maybe move little keys on that line towards the door, like a conveyor belt, suggesting that "you have the key and the key goes there).

-Do you absolutely need the key/lock? Maybe remove(animate open) the door after the user gets the key automagically?

-This door is viewed from the side right? Why not make it either front view like Stabbin' Steve?

-Force field idea is pretty cool, maybe make a BitmapData ripple there and mask it with a door shape and only show the ripple through that mask? Some sort of background texture would enhance the ripple there.

-The character is standing a tad weird, you might want to align the calves to the butt maybe.

Godd Luck :)