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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

#321

Post by jdance »

aardshark wrote: post #226
jdance wrote: post #118

Haha I love how 90% of the comments are from just exactly the same people who he wrote this blog post for, and they still make the same points again :D I have an indie game myself (Skyturns on G Play) and if you are not an artist, making good art is simply really hard. Someone says ”this menu is ugly”, and the cognitive load of making it meet their expectations is massive. I even have graphically skilled people criti…

> if you are not an artist, making good art is simply really hard And if you are not a programmer, making a good game is really hard. But you can learn. If you are willing to put in the effort to develop your own sense of the aesthetic, even a small amount of time can result in huge improvements. You don't need an "art director" and neither does this guy. If you think your menus are ugly, find some menus that you don…

Hey, believe me I'm working on it, those menus I have are like 10 iterations in! And I'm looking for art help too. Just saying its a cognitive load, both the learning, iteration, , finding people and paying them. I could instead say "fcuk it" and focus ONLY on the things I'm good at, it's an option that I can understand.

Happy to hear you tried and liked the game! Lots of things in the pipeline

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#322

Post by opportune »

haversine02 wrote: post #41
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…

The art doesn't even need more detail or realism, it just needs consistent detail. Even just a simple palettization/pixelation preprocessing for every sprite could be enough - https://i.imgur.com/oPH7paD.jpg

Wow, it is amazing how much better the bottom picture looks. How hard is palletization to do?

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#323

Post by wilsonnb3 »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #231
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sega and Nintendo both made arcade machines, too.

The author also posts pictures of a Nintendo console game.

Yeah they were almost definitely talking about Nintendo and Sega home consoles, I just can't help being pedantic sometimes.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#324

Post by djur »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #229
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…

> 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. I like Spiderweb games, but most SNES games looked better than this. Some NES games looked better than this. You can have cheap, low-res art that is coherent and pleasing to the eye, but this isn't it.

He includes a picture of Ultima V for DOS, which looks better than his current games. Hell, he includes a picture of the original art for Exile, which IMO looked better than the later Exile III tileset (which was ported back to releases of Exile I). The problem with the aesthetics of his latest game is not resolution and it isn't that it's in a classic 2D tile-based style.

That said, I see where he's coming from. The audience for games like his is very small, even when the graphics are good. I think he should add support for custom tilesets. It's common in the roguelike world, and at this point his audience is closer to the hobbyist/roguelike scene than the average indie studio.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#325

Post by KyleBerezin »

baud147258 wrote: post #270
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.

Vogel's using the level of graphic quality that work for him, but that doesn't excuse the inconsistent art direction and mixed art styles.

The art style is mixed because he reuses most of his graphics. I think his pot sprite is almost 20 years old now. He just doesn't want to commission new art for every game. New objects and skills need new art, and I'd doubt Philip Foglio is still available to draw them.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#326

Post by djur »

eropple wrote: post #273
baud147258 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue is that this particular game look worse than his previous games (of course here YMMV), which were done with lower budgets (not Kickstartered).

I do agree that Queen's Wish looks worse, FWIW. (I think the perspective is maybe not great.) But I don't know if this is actually a significantly higher budget game, though, rather than just one where he has the capital up front. Kickstarter-as-preorder is kinda what it's turned into for games. As such, I totally get the intense focus on not eating the seed corn.

Semi-jokingly: he should just dig up the Exile I tileset he included a screenshot of in the article and go to town. IMO that's the best his games have ever looked, aside from maybe Nethergate (and some of the more artfully done Blades of Exile scenarios, of course, but that wasn't him).

Vogel should peek over the fence at the adjacent roguelike community and do what they've done: custom tileset support. He's clearly not that invested in his games as aesthetic experiences, and that's his prerogative, but in the year 2019 it's actually not that uncommon for game communities to scratch their own itch in that regard when allowed.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#328

Post by r00fus »

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…

Wow, burned so many hours on AdoM. Was a very unique rogeulike. Agreed, when the update came out, I just stopped playing it (mainly because I was running Adom-Sage which improved UX considerably).

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#329

Post by eropple »

djur wrote: post #326
eropple wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree that Queen's Wish looks worse, FWIW. (I think the perspective is maybe not great.) But I don't know if this is actually a significantly higher budget game, though, rather than just one where he has the capital up front. Kickstarter-as-preorder is kinda what it's turned into for games. As such, I totally get the intense focus on not eating the seed corn.

Semi-jokingly: he should just dig up the Exile I tileset he included a screenshot of in the article and go to town. IMO that's the best his games have ever looked, aside from maybe Nethergate (and some of the more artfully done Blades of Exile scenarios, of course, but that wasn't him). Vogel should peek over the fence at the adjacent roguelike community and do what they've done: custom tileset support. He's clearly…

I think Exile I's graphics look pretty good, yeah. For me, it's the Exile III version of the Realmz graphics, followed by the original Exile I graphics. (The backported Exile III graphics to Exile I and II look weird to me.) His newer background/tile graphics look just fine to me too, though.

I built a couple full-tileset mods for Blades of Exile back in the day. You can do it with the new Avernum engine too. Of course, he could definitely make it easier.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#330

Post by usrusr »

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.

Going off on a tangent, I'd really love to see a game that pushed production values within the artificial constraint of zero texture, just flat shaded geometry, while maxing out modern hardware. That would be the computer graphics style I dreamt of while growing up between X-Wing on the PC and Money for Nothing on MTV.
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