511–520 of 552 posts
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Don’t know what article you read. He said the art being shit makes business sense to him
I've been reading this article, which one have you been reading? https://i.imgur.com/rZozQHD.png
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Looking at the screenshots in the article, I actually liked the graphics in Avernum 3 and even Escape from the Pit, they seemed consistent and actually pretty well done if a bit simple. I understand the complaints about Queen's Wish. They're not necessarily bad, I don't mind a lot of the tiles, but something does seem off with it. That being said, I've seen far worse and if the gameplay's good then it doesn't seem li…
I never managed to play any games in the Avadon series, because they don't have as good keyboard shortcuts as the Avernum series. One of the Avadon games even has a Linux port, which wasn't done by Jeff himself
I don't think it'll run on a modern Linux system without a lot of hacking, though.
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Dwarf Fortress having mod packs is a pretty good idea. It has the text interface by default then people can make their own sprites. Then again most places don’t have the sort of community support Dwarf Fortress has.
Jeff could make his games moddable and then incorporate the most popular mods into the future versions of his games. Free work from fans who understand that they could get credit in the game but not necessarily paid. Or Jeff could just hire them after having already seen their work in his games.
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> unprompted The guy's been getting criticisms for 25 years. I think he's justified in writing a single blog post in defense of his art style. If you don't like it, you don't have to read it.
What does the 25 years have to do with it? There are developers who've been in the industry for far less time who are much more reactive and responsive to criticism. If anything, that mention of 25 years is an indictment, not anything worse praising. Also, 'art style' is a stretch. Finally, yes, if I don't like it, I don't have to read it. Yet, I did, and I'm free to express my dissatisfaction and disagreement with t…
It means it's not unprompted. It's a reply.
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.
It's not my understanding that having a fond nostalgia for somebody's works excuses the article's salty tone that basically tells people they're wrong for thinking the games are ugly, coming up with all manner of excuses but never once embracing that the problem is entirely the developer's own and nobody else's; yes, that point is laid out there but it's given as an excuse, not as a justification. There's a fine line…
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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 previou…
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> 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…
It is a circular problem: When you care about art, you usually got some sense of aesthetics and feel more likely unable to bring yourself to ship anything that looks simply bad to yourself. When you don't got the eyes to see bad art as what it is, you also won't see it as a problem that really needs fixing so you care less about it than is good for you. You have to strike a balance there. Games are visual independend…
... then you will also be very bad at hiring a good art director. You could easily end up hiring somebody who is really bad and you wouldn't know.
Even with all the money that Microsoft had in the 90'ies, they couldn't make Windows look good.
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> 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…
Maybe art just isn’t where his talent lies.
I actually wonder if he couldn’t make 2x or more by investing in the art. His previous efforts went from terrible to merely bad. It would be interesting to see what could happen if he crossed the threshold into acceptable.
Then again, I don’t know the total market size for this genre. Maybe even fantastic looking games don’t make enough to support two full timers?
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.
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.