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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

#311

Post by Phrodo_00 »

cosarara wrote: post #228
tempsolution wrote: post #220

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 * C…

Half Life doesn't look like crap. It looks dated. There is a huge gap between the way the OP's games look and how half life looks, because even though the 3D tech was worse and the textures lower res in half life, it had a proper art team behind it. A proper art team is expensive, and he doesn't want to pay for it. Fair enough. But just getting someone to look over the art all together and making it a bit more cohesi…

Yeah, I think the biggest problem with his games (and I only know them from the screenshots) is in art direction.

He compares it to Baba is You, and while that game's art is technically simple, its consistent aesthetic and style sells it.

Meanwhile, in his screenshots, the visuals seem dated and inconsistent. I don't think it's a problem with the quality of the assets, but in art direction, and like he said, that's on the developer.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#312

Post by jayd16 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #299
jayd16 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But any of those are hopelessly out of reach for any Indie developer even with today's tools. This just isn't true. It only a question of money and/or time.

Yes, I think that's exactly what that comment meant. I'm sure a 2 man experienced team consisting of a programer and an artist can recreate the vault intro sequence of F3 in a few months. They wouldn't be able to expand thst into the full 2007 game without years of man-hours. Because F3 itself took thousands of man hours. It'd take a lot less time with modern tools, but not enough to offset the work of hundreds of de…

You're not going to get hundreds of man hours of content for free but setting up Source or Unreal or Unity to get a modern engine with every feature those games had does not take months.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#313

Post by pasabagi »

svrtknst wrote: post #188
pasabagi wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see the problem. If you're not a visual person, and you don't want to be, you shouldn't make visual decisions. He's already hiring freelancers, so he obviously gets this point. The problem is, he should just give a freelancer a broader brief. Like, 'pick all the colours the game will use'. Or even, 'do the art'. I don't see what the difference is between hiring a freelancer to do direction, and hiring…

Direction is usually a continuous process. Freelancers, as he states, are rarely continuous as they move on to other project etc.

It's common in the advertising world for a company to be paid to produce a design document, that specifies stuff like writing style, colours, photograph guidelines, and so on. The idea is to create a guide for making media that fits the brand. Doesn't need to be complicated - from what I saw of his games, it would be a night-and-day improvement if he just had a decent palette.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#314

Post by cestith »

nimblegorilla wrote: post #262
eropple wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A proper art team is expensive, and he doesn't want to pay for it. Can't . The word you're looking for here is can't . The unit economics of making the sorts of games that JV makes completely preclude it. It would be way easier to spend the money he doesn't make to get better art talent. This is true. It is also not very meaningful. And it's not that there is minimal sense of direction just for funsies--it's that y…

> Can't. The word you're looking for here is can't. I think the real term is "Not Invented Here Syndrome". This site has thousands of open sourced game assets: https://opengameart.org Here is an asset pack of 65 fantasy icons for $5: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/gui/icons/fantasy-r... I suspect someone spending $200 and a day of searching could probably find most of the art needed for Queen's Wish. There'…

I think the key words here are "New Coke".

When you change your focus from a loyal customer base and change key aspects of your product they prefer in order to chase a competitor's customers you risk losing your own base and still not picking up a substantial portion of the rest of the market.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#317

Post by djur »

Phrodo_00 wrote: post #311
cosarara wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half Life doesn't look like crap. It looks dated. There is a huge gap between the way the OP's games look and how half life looks, because even though the 3D tech was worse and the textures lower res in half life, it had a proper art team behind it. A proper art team is expensive, and he doesn't want to pay for it. Fair enough. But just getting someone to look over the art all together and making it a bit more cohesi…

Yeah, I think the biggest problem with his games (and I only know them from the screenshots) is in art direction. He compares it to Baba is You, and while that game's art is technically simple, its consistent aesthetic and style sells it. Meanwhile, in his screenshots, the visuals seem dated and inconsistent. I don't think it's a problem with the quality of the assets, but in art direction, and like he said, that's o…

When playing Avadon I recognized assets that were reused from the Exile series. Literally decades-old art. This is all minor stuff like leather gloves and other items, but it contributes to the lack of consistency.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#318

Post by eropple »

atoav wrote: post #307
eropple wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> good art doesn't necessarily need a lot of money or resources Having spent at least as much money, out of pocket, on a game that never shipped as JV spends to ship something consistent that feeds his family, I can assure you that this is not the case. Art is far-and-away the most expensive part of any game that wants mass market appeal. It just is . It doesn't matter if you're using a bunch of freelancers from coun…

I think you overread the "necessarily" part of my quote. Good art can cost a ton and it does so for a reason. I (among other things) worked as a freelance designer, so I know. What I meant however is that depending on the genre you might find solutions that you can do yourself far easier with equally good (or better) results. You could work with one-color abstract shapes and give them a good feel by using the right d…

I didn't miss that "necessarily", I disregarded it as stakes-free theorycrafting. I know how much art costs and I know from personal experience how quickly art people flake if you aren't paying enough money to keep them in line. (Which is something people here take for granted amongst developers, but for some reason nobody else.)

"Depending on the genre"--JV makes Ultima-alikes. So by this theorycrafting he should stop making the games that make him money because people like me will buy all of them so he can go make different games that might be more amenable to cheaper art and not have a built-in customer base that is highly consistent and predictable?

JV makes his games the way he does because people like me already follow him and will buy them. His entire business model is built on not taking risks. What is the obsession around here with disregarding that?

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#319

Post by LoSboccacc »

jayd16 wrote: post #293
Majromax wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? I'm not sure the reaction would be all that negative, to be honest. The problem to me isn't when someone says "we want cheap work and we understand it will not be particularly high-quality," but when they say "…

His problem, and you can see from his wording, is that he thinks about "graphics" not "art." Sure he made a 3d game. So what. He doesn't seem to have the same passion for art direction as he does for game design so its not surprising at all that you can throw money at the wrong problem and not get much out.

it's more of a taste problem than a budget problem, plenty games go low fi and are amusing both to play and look at, i.e. Celeste

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#320

Post by anaphor »

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…

I think the pixel art in Thimbleweed Park looks fantastic

https://thimbleweedpark.com/

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