I made some graphics decisions today which are subtle but will be the foundation of the mood of the rest of the game. I felt like everything was a bit plain. Looking around at other games and thinking about it. I decided I should definitely use a look with more contrast. The darkness helps the colors pop for a neon effect which I think is the more traditional "game look" from Pac-man onward :D This also establishes a more meaningful mood.

I also added shadows to everything. It's automated so every new creature or object I add to the game will get a little bump into the foreground. And I can set the 'offset' for each object for bigger/smaller shadow effects. All of this really made the game look snap into place for me. I think it has a mood now and it feels 10x more professional. Often when we're busy coding, it's easy to forget how important the overall visual mood is to the game. It's not just texture detail. It's not just lighting and graphic FX. It's the overall feeling you get from the balance of values, hues, and saturation. 

So with this today, I feel like I have a much better foundation to work with. Not 100% perfect. But a foundation I can confidently build upon. I'm actually pretty excited about it. 

Here is a before/after comparison. It's subtle in the screenshots, but makes a HUGE difference when in game. The shadows really stand out on the screen.