Hello! I'm making a game with a friend of mine for a class. I'm in charge of the art, while he handles the coding. So far, I've got character designs, some assets, story, and a rough idea of what areas I want to create. Once drawing the ideas, I come up stuck. I've got a bunch of assets drawn and my enemies and NPCs, however I run into the problem of not knowing how I'm supposed to compose the rooms and areas. The player is able to move forward(toward camera), backward(away from camera), and left and right. How would you guys suggest I create my environments? should I just draw the environment, or should I make a bunch of assets to add into a basic ground design? I've got about two weeks to finish my end of this and I'm stuck on environments. Any advice would be appreciated.

First: What perspective is the game rendered in: is it a first-person 3D game, a birdseye-view 3D game, or is it an orthographic 2D game like a side-scroller, top-down, or oblique view like an old Zelda or Final Fantasy game?

Actually, do you have a screenshot of the work-in-progress game right now? That might help to demonstrate exactly what you need.

(And what engine are you using to make this game- Unity, RPG Maker, something else? Could be helpful to know.)

should I just draw the environment, or should I make a bunch of assets to add into a basic ground design?

Drawing the environment will result in one large image, that is hard to use; not recommended.

Game art is made by a layered approach, first you plan, then refine, refine ,refine and stop once you reached the quality you need.

So I would recommend you quick sketch a level, mark out things like statues and other key assets. Then make some assets like the statues, although just fast representations. Next build the level in the engine using your quick assets, then keep improving assets that you feel need to improve.

The idea behind this workflow is that you are working with a level, not a single asset, because if you make one asset at a time you will be so focused on that one thing that you will often make it over detail, causing noisy levels.

I've got about two weeks to finish my end of this

Good luck with that, a single good 2D piece can take longer than a day.

I would recommend talking with the programmer on your team about what's needed. The capabilities of whatever code or engine that you'll be using will impact what you'll need to provide.

In the absence of any details, it may be beneficial to have a bunch of assets to add onto some ground layout as 2D RPGs often use a tilemap of some sort to render the graphics (again check with your programmer what the plan is).

Thanks everyone for the suggestions :] I ended up taking the layered approach with the art and made some decent floors, walls, and interactive assets for the level.