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Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

jeff-vogel.blogspot.com

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Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#31

Post by zelos »

meheleventyone wrote: post #9

Arrrgh, there are a lot of interesting and good points in the article but for the most part they miss the wood for the trees. The actual answer is that care isn't being taken to develop a style that looks good and meets his constraints. Jeff needs a good art director. The Ultima V and Baba is You examples are excellent counter-points because they show how great games with simple styles can look.

Exactly: if you have constraints on your work, then recognise the constraints and work within them. Don't try to mix 3D realistic faces in with low-fidelity 2D art, because it just ends up sticking out like a sore thumb.

And at least choose a decent font (looking at the first screenshot on the blog post)

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#32

Post by DecoPerson »

In the AAA game industry a Look Dev Artist would help here. Focusing on the in-universe elements of the game (as opposed to the UI), they set goals and restrictions that lead to consistent, appealing, and cheap-to-produce art styles.

Queen's Wish looks ugly in a quaint way. I might buy it for that reason, as it makes me think: "Indie creators usually feel there's something about their game that'll make it sell -- it's clearly not the art style or the music in this case, so it must be the gameplay and/or the story, right?"

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#34

Post by ludston »

glenvdb wrote: post #12

I think the problem is that the game is in Uncanny Valley. It's trying to achieve a certain level of detail/realism, but it's falling short of expectations. This might be completely intentional, to evoke a feel for games from an era that did the same thing, but comparing to Baba is You highlights the developer doesn't understand that. Baba is You has gone completely in the opposite direction in terms of graphical det…

Eh. I played some of his games and they were pretty fun.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#35

Post by cousin_it »

Jeff, the art problems of your games have nothing to do with low-res. Baba is You (or Downwell) are just as low-res, but manage to look good because they use fewer colors and choose them well. I recommend learning that skill, it will make your games look way better and it honestly doesn't take that much time.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#36

Post by adnzzzzZ »

Beltiras wrote: post #21
meheleventyone wrote: post #9

Arrrgh, there are a lot of interesting and good points in the article but for the most part they miss the wood for the trees. The actual answer is that care isn't being taken to develop a style that looks good and meets his constraints. Jeff needs a good art director. The Ultima V and Baba is You examples are excellent counter-points because they show how great games with simple styles can look.

He actually addresses why he won't solve any of the "problems" with more manpower. He's found local maxima and is willing to stay there because there are risks associated with moving.

You don't need increased manpower to over time develop a better sense for how well your game's screens are composed and if things fit together or not. This is a skill you can improve yourself by mostly paying attention. This kind of blindness to your own game's visual quality is a common problem that everyone making a game experiences and people generally work around it by relying on feedback from other developers or from the general public, which you don't need to pay for as you can do it online by just posting images or gifs from your games and seeing how well people react.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#37

Post by Fr0styMatt88 »

ehnto wrote: post #30

I have been really enjoying the way games are being stylized nowadays. We reached a level of fidelity that is really expensive to maintain I think, and so game studios are leaning in on really solid art direction instead. It makes for much more interesting worlds and longer lasting art. For example, LA Noire looks dated (though still excellent in many ways), while Borderlands looks as good as when it was released. LA…

Did that facial capture technology end up anywhere? I still remember how amazing the facial animations looked in that game and can't think of any other game since where it's been that noticeable. Although maybe that was just because of how much better they were than anything else out there at the time?

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#38

Post by mysterydip »

cousin_it wrote: post #35

Jeff, the art problems of your games have nothing to do with low-res. Baba is You (or Downwell) are just as low-res, but manage to look good because they use fewer colors and choose them well. I recommend learning that skill, it will make your games look way better and it honestly doesn't take that much time.

There are pixel artists that create and share restrictive palettes, which I think could help. For example: http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=16247

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#39

Post by fouc »

Honestly I think it's a shame when people are so picky about graphics. Some of the best games I've ever played were purely ASCII-based. I'm talking about various BBS games, or MUD-based games. There were also some really novel interfaces like like mTrek [0], and BattleTech 3030 MUX [1]. So much fun to play.

[0] http://randsinrepose.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/mtrek.pn... [1] http://bt-thud.sourceforge.net/thud/big/bigpicture.jpg

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