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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

#181

Post by ravenstine »

Maybe I'm just an old man at this point, but I find "imperfection" rather charming. Realism can be cool, but games and cartoons that are "crappy" have character and allow me to use my imagination to believe in different worlds. One of the reasons that I still love Nintendo 64 games is that they look clunky compared to today's games, and they look that way because the artists had to work within the constraints of the hardware and come up with game assets that look close enough but don't destroy the FPS. If a game looks consistently crappy, I can buy into its universe with my imagination.

I forget who said it, but I think there's a saying that great art is borne through limitation. When an a good artist only has a limited set of tools, or maybe not even the best ones, it brings out the best in their abilities.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#182

Post by coldtea »

alttab wrote: post #63
jplayer01 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jeff needs a good art director. Did you miss the part where adding an employee would double his required budget for the game? Which means he needs at least double the sales? Which means more risk? And there's no guarantee he'll hit that even if the graphics look better? He spells out that he's working with freelancers, who often flake out for (understandable) various reasons.

You would think after 25 years of making games he'd have enough sense to direct art himself in some way. Seems like he's rationalizing his choices instead of taking it upon himself to learn from his customer's criticisms and his own experience. If I had made that many games over 3 decades I would have at least learned how to talk to freelance artists in a way that would get better over time. It seems Jeff has put no…

>If I had made that many games over 3 decades I would have at least learned how to talk to freelance artists in a way that would get better over time.

The definition of armchair criticism, if I ever show one.

From someone with no experience on that front whatsoever, and who doesn't even get the financial constraints clearly spelt in the article...

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#183

Post by lame88 »

jorvi wrote: post #176
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…

If you run your games on an emulator you can throw on an NTSC filter (even with CRT curved distortion if so inclined!) and you get a little bit closer to to that old experience.

That's exactly what I do on ZSNES, and the graphics look so much more authentic. Though I'm not sure if I had found any setting for distortion.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#184

Post by eropple »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #169
xtracto wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I havent played any of his games but now would love to do it. I like dwarf fortress and generally am bummed with the gameplay in current games.

Try Cogmind.

Cogmind is really cool and really pushes (to a screaming breaking point) what you can do with "ASCII art". It also helps that the developer is a very chill person, for sure.

But to the GP, you should go play his games! Try "Avernum: Escape from the Pit", his remake of his remake of his original game (he's got a system down pat). It's the best game he's made, IMO, and the iPad version is really good if you've got one lying around. PC/Mac version is good too, of course, but I found the touch interface really nice and a refreshing way to play a game I'd already exhaustively completed twice, so I'd hope it'd meet more modern sensibilities pretty well.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#185

Post by scott_s »

meheleventyone wrote: post #56
jplayer01 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I say Jeff needs an art director I mean that Jeff needs to care about art direction and that making a good looking game with his existing constraints is perfectly feasible. Then say that instead of "Jeff needs an art director", which literally means that Jeff needs an art director. Which means another employee. It doesn't mean "Jeff needs to be an art director". Which he is, but results in the current situatio…

Jeff needs an art director doesn't imply anything more than that. It could be him, it could be another full time employee or it could be something he has a freelancer develop at the start of the project.

Jeff has an art director. And he likes what that art director produces. You don't, but he does.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#186

Post by AJ007 »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #164
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 also grew up with pixel art. What I do like about pixel art was that it forced you to use your imagination more to complete the scene. That has driven me towards modern games made entirely in ASCII or text, however, not towards more pixel art. I highly recommend Brogue or Cogmind for people that want an example of a beautiful looking contemporary game made with ASCII/ANSI. The developer of Cogmind open-sourced his…

It wasn’t until I started working on my own game that I realized just how important readability was for pixel & ascii games. Producing readable high resolution art, 3D or 2D, is actually extremely hard. I like ascii art a lot, but I’m not sure how much of that is a nostalgia issue for me and how much reflects what a new player would see.

It can be easier to set up a photorealistic level using PBR materials in Unreal now than to design a readable level from the ground up. I suspect more developers are going to use photo realism to mask larger problems in their games, and to some extent they already have.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#187

Post by svrtknst »

Crinus wrote: post #93
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…

Eh, i played NES games on my grandparents' ~24" TV, those pixels were clearly visible (though not so visible on my own monochrome TV). Also while "pixel art" is often associated with NES/SEGA by the people who grew up with those systems, it is was also very common in home computers where image clarity was much better than on TV - especially with most games being 320x200 that appeared double scanned on pretty much eve…

I played Pokemon on the GBA, lots of sharp pixels all around

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#188

Post by svrtknst »

pasabagi wrote: post #130
jplayer01 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. Doesn't change the position he's in though. Let's say he is incapable of comprehending style. What do you suggest he's supposed to do now? I see all this criticism here and I don't see any real solutions that would, on a realistic, concrete level, help him in any way improve his business.

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.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#189

Post by pimeys »

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…

When I first played Super Mario Maker 2 with my 65" OLED TV, it was mind-blowing. Mario never looked this good. So much color, the graphics really pop off and help you with the platforming.

Maybe it's not nostalgia, but actually just looks very nice.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#190

Post by dagw »

falcolas wrote: post #142
alttab wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would think after 25 years of making games he'd have enough sense to direct art himself in some way. Seems like he's rationalizing his choices instead of taking it upon himself to learn from his customer's criticisms and his own experience. If I had made that many games over 3 decades I would have at least learned how to talk to freelance artists in a way that would get better over time. It seems Jeff has put no…

After 25 years of making games, he is directing the art. The art style hasn’t changed - that doesn’t happen over a span of decades without direction. His art direction just doesn’t match the tastes of a large number of folks. Neither did H.R. Geiger’s. Nothing wrong with that.

The art style hasn’t changed

But it has, that's what many people are commenting on. His last two games looked much better than his current game. It could just be the luck of the draw with regards to which artists showed up rather than a conscious choice, but his new game clearly has a different look than his previous game.

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