General style guidelines

A bunch of rules that can be applied for every type of sprite.

Use a limited set of colors as in pseudo-16 bit format

This rule is one of the main guidelines not only for this tileset, but pixel art in general. Each "colour block" should use 3-6 colors for shades. For example a blue shirt might have one light blue highlight, two medium blue main colours, one dark blue shade, and one very dark blue-green shade. See colors tutorials section on lospec if you're having troubles with the palette.

Try to draw with realistic proportions

Small items/creatures should be small. But if it feels like they are too small, it is ok to make them bigger for the sake of readability. Be careful about sizes.

Use hard edges on foreground objects

Such as items and monsters. This is important because it makes things much more recognizable when zoomed out.

The default light source is assumed to come from above and to the left.