The first picture looks awful, like it was scrawled on MS Paint in 3 minutes (So yes, it's too 'scriblly'). Additionally, the character on the right looks very out of place with the rest of the picture.
The second image isn't much of an improvement. The space above the character's head feels too empty (you could just move the 'Start' and 'Instructions' to the middle of the screen) and the font doesn't work too well. The background I think actually looks worse, the first one at least had a sort of 'charm' to it. The buildings(?) now look like slightly reddened grey sticks and the fire looks rushed and uninteresting(additionally, the lines are too thick). Try not using gradients, it doesn't look like it's working too well. Finally, assuming the cliff the character is on is parallel to the 'buildings', I think the shadows are a bit off.