I changed the color balance. Which do you think is more appealing in terms of color picks. The natural or the one that has more fantasy feel to it? I prefer the top one myself. And I might be using it for my open source game and continue drawing the tutorial room with those colors.
Top one definitely has the most interesting colors. Morning and evening lighting always feel extra dramatic. Speaking of that, you can dynamically change color balance as well: switch to additive or subtractive blend mode, then draw a single-colored partially transparent rectangle on top of everything you want to alter. (Subtractive makes things darker: drawing a c_red rectangle (0xFF red, 0x00 blue, 0x00 green) will remove all red from the image, c_black will have no effect, and c_white will remove all color from the image - it's a great blend mode for darkening an image, e.g. due to nightfall or being underground. Additive blend mode adds colors together instead, and is mostly useful for fire and light effects) Play around with blend modes a bit, there's a lot of fun stuff you can do with this! E.g. day-night cycles, or reusing the same assets for normal and underground levels.
I like the bottom one more. You may want to redo or remove the branches? in the tress, it looks like the trees are growing poo. Maybe it's just me and my childish brain though.
Like Yal said, the top is definitely more interesting. Before saying which I think is better, though, I'd want to know more of the context. Is this to be a fantasy game? Is it already in fantasy mode? I just now remembered the classic MGM version of The Wizard of Oz, which of course famously divided Kansas from Oz visually using B&W vs. Technicolor processing -- i.e., if you're doing fantasy, but not starting in fantasy mode, and first needing to "get there," then perhaps you can start with the simpler, more natural look, then give way to the more fantastical, extreme, saturated, morning/evening splashes? I hope my thinking out loud helps one way or another, $:^ J
