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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

#211

Post by failrate »

mysterydip wrote: post #208
systemtest wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, pixel art is a technical limitation. I don't see the point of romanticising a technical limitation. What limitation are we going to do next? Retro low-poly 3D models? A soundtrack consisting of six songs only? Distributing the game on 13 floppy disks? Games that never get updates? Low quality collision objects? Null-model cable multiplayer? game_demo.exe file download from CNET.com? Anti-piracy methods by hav…

low-poly (and often untextured) 3D models is already a style being used in indie gamedev, seeme like it came into vogue a year or two ago. chiptunes are also a stylistic choice some games make over full hi def sounds and music.

Lopoly and pixel art also has the advantage of being cheaper and faster to produce at an acceptable quality. Indies cannot produce AAA quality assets.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#212

Post by CydeWeys »

ebg13 wrote: post #141

Oh man. This thread is really something else. Like...for miles in every direction, all I can see are pitchforks, and here I am standing alone on a small hill thinking to myself "Holy shit. That's the Spiderweb software guy. I've played every single one of his games, EVERY SINGLE ONE, and loved all of them." The graphics in the games are exactly as good as they need to be to make wonderful story-driven RPGs.

I haven't played these games, but I've put hundreds of hours into NetHack with pure ASCII graphics, so I totally get it. I briefly tried using some of the graphical versions but didn't end up liking them so much, so back to the ASCII it was.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#213

Post by roywiggins »

systemtest wrote: post #207
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #84

> People who grew up with Nintendo and Sega really like pixel art. As one of those people, I really don't like pixel art at all. Today's pixel art looks nothing like games did back in the day. The simple reason is that those Nintendo and Sega games weren't played on 27" 4k LCD monitors or 65" OLED TV's but on on the barely 14" CRT in my bedroom. We didn't have huge pixely sprites, they were small and blurry. It had a…

For me, pixel art is a technical limitation. I don't see the point of romanticising a technical limitation. What limitation are we going to do next? Retro low-poly 3D models? A soundtrack consisting of six songs only? Distributing the game on 13 floppy disks? Games that never get updates? Low quality collision objects? Null-model cable multiplayer? game_demo.exe file download from CNET.com? Anti-piracy methods by hav…

Sure.

https://gamasutra.com/view/news/248019/How_5_years_of_burnin...

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#214

Post by Goronmon »

I wonder what the sentiment would be if the situation was reversed.

Here we have a developer effectively looking to pay below market rates for artists, and then unsurprisingly not finding many good artists willing to do that long term. Not a judgment on my part, just saying that he's looking to keep the art budget to an absolute minimum.

Instead if it was an artist defending his choice to make relatively simple games because he just can't find good developers willing to work for cheap for long enough to complete a project.

The line that stood out me in this context:

I can't stress this enough: Finding talented, reliable, reasonably priced freelancers is HARD. Cherish them when you find them.

If the context of the discussion was about developers instead of artists, how would HackerNews feel about someone lamenting the fact that they can't get any "affordable" developers to work on their projects?

Also, as an aside:

The key problem here is that, when most people say, "Your art looks bad," what they mean is, "I want art that is good." They mean, "I want AAA-quality art." And I can't make that. Not even close.

That seems like a pretty big strawman to me. There is a large grey area between "crap" and "AAA-quality".

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#215

Post by mumblemumble »

gbersac wrote: post #159
ebg13 wrote: post #141

Oh man. This thread is really something else. Like...for miles in every direction, all I can see are pitchforks, and here I am standing alone on a small hill thinking to myself "Holy shit. That's the Spiderweb software guy. I've played every single one of his games, EVERY SINGLE ONE, and loved all of them." The graphics in the games are exactly as good as they need to be to make wonderful story-driven RPGs.

I only played one of his game (avalon), but I finished it. As a casual / very hard to please player, finishing a game is a rare event. Congrats to him. And the graphism are good enough imo.

This, for me, is the thing that really distinguishes Spiderweb's games: it seems that nobody else out there is still making CRPGs that I actually finish.

Other games look beautiful, yes, but they also somehow always end up getting kind of boring several hours in.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#216

Post by chongli »

jcranberry wrote: post #200
magashna wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That claim is subjective, and detail != style. A couple floppy rags are not comparable to the big flowing pants on a gi.

The claim that current technology is insufficient to replicate it isn't subjective. Perhaps the point should be that we lost sense for a particular aesthetic during the transition to 3d graphics techniques.

Perhaps the point should be that we lost sense for a particular aesthetic during the transition to 3d graphics techniques.

I think this mirrors the transition from painting to photography over a century ago. As photography grew to dominate everyday images, painters had to go in a different direction to distinguish themselves. It's no coincidence that art became more and more abstract as photography grew.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#217

Post by nslav »

ebg13 wrote: post #141

Oh man. This thread is really something else. Like...for miles in every direction, all I can see are pitchforks, and here I am standing alone on a small hill thinking to myself "Holy shit. That's the Spiderweb software guy. I've played every single one of his games, EVERY SINGLE ONE, and loved all of them." The graphics in the games are exactly as good as they need to be to make wonderful story-driven RPGs.

I have fond memories of playing Exile II as a 10 or 11 year old. My dad worked at Boeing at the time, and there was some sort of store where the company sold surplus supplies where he bought used Macs for me and my brothers. These were not fast computers so it was thanks to Exile II "looking like crap" that we were able to play it at all!

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#218

Post by magashna »

jcranberry wrote: post #200
magashna wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That claim is subjective, and detail != style. A couple floppy rags are not comparable to the big flowing pants on a gi.

The claim that current technology is insufficient to replicate it isn't subjective. Perhaps the point should be that we lost sense for a particular aesthetic during the transition to 3d graphics techniques.

I don't think that's true. While physics for clothing have gotten a lot better, it's a lot of visual flash that seem easier to work like scarves, coat tails, pieces that hang down, etc. I can't recall seeing the kind of bounce that those old school pixel art pants have. Those Aladdin/MC Hammer pants have a weight and shape that I imagine is still really difficult to replicate well. But maybe I just haven't seen such an example yet.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#219

Post by cpeterso »

wincy wrote: post #153
mcv wrote: post #147

Sometimes 'better-but-not-good-enough' is a trap. That's basically what Jeff Vogel is saying about moving up from his poor inconsistent art to slightly better art, but it's also how I feel about moving up from ascii characters to his style of "crappy" art. AdoM is a fantastic roguelike created by Thomas Biskup, which originally had you as an '@' battling other ascii characters. Later he wanted a nicer interface and w…

Dwarf Fortress having mod packs is a pretty good idea. It has the text interface by default then people can make their own sprites. Then again most places don’t have the sort of community support Dwarf Fortress has.

Jeff could make his games moddable and then incorporate the most popular mods into the future versions of his games. Free work from fans who understand that they could get credit in the game but not necessarily paid. Or Jeff could just hire them after having already seen their work in his games.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#220

Post by tempsolution »

There is a big gap between "crap" and AAA for sure. But think about this (in today's time):

* Half Life 2 looks like crap

* Fallout 3 looks like crap

* Actually any game from more than a few years back, looks like crap

But any of those are hopelessly out of reach for any Indie developer even with today's tools.

There is real AAA from earlier days, that still looks good these days, like:

* Battlefield 3

* Crysis 2

* Call Of Duty Modern Warfare

* etc.

But these games have among the highest budget in history of game development and a respectable revenue stream...

What the author is trying to say is that most people think most games looks like crap (I think so too). There is no point in making AA games (let's assume he didn't mean actual AAA games) as an Indie developer, because people will still think your game looks like crap. And those people who don't (I for instance really like SNES games still), will also be satisfied with the art he can create.

Let's look at Anno 1602 vs. Anno 1800. This is more in the domain of the author. I really like both games and I have to say, Anno 1800 has AMAZING graphics. But the game gets boring after playing it one time to the Investor level... Anno 1602 has graphics that you can probably manage as an Indie developer these days (since you don't need to optimize it at all and have much better tooling). This game never gets old ;). I have more fun playing that one than Anno 1800. Which is another reason why AAA graphics is unneeded. You need shiny graphics if your game sucks. And creating games that suck is what todays AAA industry is all about.

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