Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

Post by djur » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 8:06 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #410

djur wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? ;) )

Post by 0xffff2 » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 8:17 PM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #300

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 you mean you hate BAD pixel art. Thing about the critical modern successes is that they try to recreate that feel for modern hardware. In the process that naturally means they use more resources to pull off the visual look because 1) there's more resolution so more work needed and 2) it's usually being applied to a modern pipeline (computational lighting, for instance. Something NES games lacked)

Post by cableshaft » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 8:18 PM UTC

fragsworth wrote: post #403

jodrellblank wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Post by ac29 » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 8:24 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #276

cosarara wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't have numbers on the table, so we can't really talk about money. I am presenting what I think would be an efficient use of the money. Not paying a full time artist, not hiring an art director, just having someone with some sense of art fix up the whole asset directory a bit instead of simply asking people to do things generic like he says he does in the article. How much time will depend on the budget. This i…

I don't know JV's numbers, but I know mine and a high-quality visual artist who speaks fluent/first-language English and has the sort of willingness to play nice with others' art can be $50/hour. And for a game like these, you're talking quite a few hours, you know? You can go offshore for cheaper, but then you introduce risk, and if nothing else, JV's model is to minimize risk as much as is possible.

Post by jcranberry » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 8:26 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #216

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.

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.