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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

#401

Post by jcranberry »

magashna wrote: post #218
jcranberry wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Consumer hardware probably isn't fast enough to have that level of natural movement and detailed lighting in real time for physics-based clothing. So I agree that the claim is true.

Of course, the animated clothing in those pants wasn't from a physics engine. I'm sure similar results can be accomplished in 3D if they're not phsyics-based.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#402

Post by jayd16 »

NateEag wrote: post #344
jayd16 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

An engine that's roughly equivalent, in absentia the actual games' data, is not remotely equivalent to those games.

The same could be said for gameplay data though. My point is it isn't some insurmountable cliff. You get out what you put in.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#403

Post by fragsworth »

jodrellblank wrote: post #397
nemetroid wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What a weird comment. The guy says he likes the style of his games, and that they make a profitable business for him. Why do you insist there's a "problem"? The author believes there's a problem, or they wouldn't have written an article about it. I agree with the grandparent comment. The tone of the article isn't "yes, the graphics are bad but it's fine", it's "you just don't appreciate the style". The author lists…

> The author believes there's a problem, or they wouldn't have written an article about it. From the bottom of the article: " I am writing these blog posts to get attention to our newest game, Queen's Wish: The Conqueror. You can also follow me on Twitter. "

Hah! He knows what he's doing better than anyone here thinks. Here we are discussing his ugly cheap art, browsing through his games, at almost no cost to him (writing a blog post?)

He must have had at least a few hundred sales today, because I saw this blog post on twitter and reddit as well.

That's really quite brilliant.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#405

Post by user5994461 »

vidarh wrote: post #245
rubbingalcohol wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your aside comment. That quote in the original article really jumped out to me. There are a ton of great indie games that have solid cohesive art direction but wouldn't be considered even close to AAA quality in terms of production effort. Some beloved heavy hitters would include the Steamworld series, Celeste, Undertale, Super Meat Boy. These are games made on a shoestring development team that don't lo…

For each Undertale, how many games do you think there are out there that look good that will never break even? There are two sides to this: Can you make better games for cheap? Sure you can, many people have. But the second question is: How large a proportion of those who try that would be able to keep churning out profitable games for 25 years? Or even produce a single profitable game? There's nothing mediocre about…

The video game market is very different today than it was a decade ago, or two decades ago. I wouldn't compare making and selling a simple game on CD 20 years ago vs today.

Among other things, there are much higher expectations on graphics and it's a lot harder to make 3D world and assets than it was to make 2D sprites. Cheap games are also facing a fierce competition from a truckload of other cheap games and previous AAA titles. There are more games than people can play and why buy Game 2019 when Game 2015 is just as good and 75% off.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#406

Post by NateEag »

jayd16 wrote: post #402
NateEag wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An engine that's roughly equivalent, in absentia the actual games' data, is not remotely equivalent to those games.

The same could be said for gameplay data though. My point is it isn't some insurmountable cliff. You get out what you put in.

And if it takes one person all that time to build the roughly-equivalent engine, that person does not have time to design and build the game's assets, nor design and playtest the levels.

You do get out what you put in, but one person can only put in so much.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#407

Post by sha666sum »

djur wrote: post #352
sha666sum wrote: post #134

As expected, a lot of people in this thread are giving "valuable" advice about his art style. Jeff's self-ironic way of saying the game looks like crap and calling his art style inconsistent seems to have set the tone of the conversation. Having played through the Avernum trilogy last year, I don't think the art style is inconsistent at all, especially considering how old some of the assets are. Please have a closer…

The Avernum remakes look fine. That isn't what the article is talking about, though. It's his new game, which looks substantially worse and consists mostly of new art. He even includes an image of Avernum 3 with this caption: "Our previous game, Avernum 3: Ruined World. Why didn't I just write another game that looks like this? Because I didn't want to. Nyeah!"

The article is about more than just his new game. All the criticism that he addresses is about his previous games, and even the title of the article is "Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap". I'm quite certain that the comment in the Avernum 3 caption was about changing the perspective from isometric.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#408

Post by ahh »

Somewhat off topic, but what's the closest thing to Avernum - a big, sprawly, kitchen sink RPG with a ton of backstory and fiddly combat - that I can play on my phone? (Not a tablet.)

Growing up Spiderweb games were some of my all time favorites and I'd love one on the go.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#409

Post by w0utert »

eropple wrote: post #261
w0utert wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I agree. I almost feel bad for disagreeing with someone who obviously put so much love in his games and rightfully stands behind them, but I cannot shake off the feeling that there is a huge potential for improvement there that does not involve hiring additional people, more expensive artists, etc. Just investing some of his own time reading up on the fundamentals of art, visual language, perception, color theory…

> I try to build games for fun and learning So you're a dilettante? That's fine. So am I. But I don't wonder about my future if my game doesn't sell (or doesn't even ship). He does. Perhaps you should consider being a little more generous in your thinking.

I was just giving my perspective, not trying to draw any comparisons between my for-fun side projects, and game development for a living. That said, I don’t see any context were either investing time getting better at things you know are a weakness, or recognizing and avoiding them, would be considered bad advice. 25 years is a long time.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#410

Post by eropple »

djur wrote: post #385
eropple wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cour…

I kind of understand why the graphics were redone for Exile III, since there was a need to add a lot of aboveground tiles, and also cave tiles were needed for caves that were not Exile proper but just troglodyte dens or whatever. But the gray cave floor never felt as alien to me as what Exile is supposed to be. It bothered me less in Exile III since you spend so little time there, but it was weird backported, as you…

There are fan ports that run BoE on modern computers. Or, if you're on Linux, it runs well on WINE.

(Are you...the Djur? ;) )

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