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General discussion (archive)Being indie an excuse for crappy graphics?(167 posts)(167 posts)
(167 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted October 28, 2012
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Red_Avatar: And now 20 years later, we have lazy ass indie devs who can't be bothered to find someone to make good pixel art so just stick with horrible looking shit that would even embarrass an Atari ST dev.
You either have a friend who's interested in development and has good graphics skills or you're out of luck. Hiring artist is expensive, it really is, and so devs just do what they can. I'm glad to see they're lazy ass tho, I mean developing solid game and solid gameplay is just so simple.
Posted October 28, 2012
I think the visual appeal of a game has nothing to do with the technical side. A great design on an Dos game still looks good today. And therefore there can also be great "retro looking" games.

But as the OP said "retro" is not an excuse for bad design. (Same goes with gameplay). Every "art style" can look beautiful.


My personal example for hipster shit with ugly "retro graphics" and "retro gameplay". Is Bittrip.runner. Stupid game for hipsters who never played a game on a NES.
Posted October 28, 2012
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Red_Avatar: And now 20 years later, we have lazy ass indie devs who can't be bothered to find someone to make good pixel art so just stick with horrible looking shit that would even embarrass an Atari ST dev.
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Fenixp: You either have a friend who's interested in development and has good graphics skills or you're out of luck. Hiring artist is expensive, it really is, and so devs just do what they can. I'm glad to see they're lazy ass tho, I mean developing solid game and solid gameplay is just so simple.
So how come 20 years ago, they COULD find these people to help out before there was the Internet, before there were a gazillion forums where you could find such people?

There's a ton of people online who would DIE to help out on an indie project to add to their resume and work for free in exchange for a small amount of royalties. And I'd know because I was one of them before I got a job - there's actual sites now specifically geared towards finding artists, musicians, coders, etc. for any indie project you want and for very low cost.

Honestly, there's NO excuse.
Posted October 28, 2012
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Red_Avatar: Honestly, there's NO excuse.
Uncertainty that the project ever gets finished, lack of experience, maybe they just want all aspects of the project in their hands, maybe they genuninely don't want to develop with someone they don't know. There's a ton of good reasons, I wonder who are you to call them 'lazy ass' for making decision you don't like?
Posted October 28, 2012
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SimonG: I think the visual appeal of a game has nothing to do with the technical side. A great design on an Dos game still looks good today. And therefore there can also be great "retro looking" games.

But as the OP said "retro" is not an excuse for bad design. (Same goes with gameplay). Every "art style" can look beautiful.


My personal example for hipster shit with ugly "retro graphics" and "retro gameplay". Is Bittrip.runner. Stupid game for hipsters who never played a game on a NES.
Exactly. 2D 8-bit like game can look beautiful for me. Indie devs don't have to buy or create expensive 3D engine to make a game look good.

Even RPG Maker games may look beautiful.
Posted October 28, 2012
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Red_Avatar: Honestly, there's NO excuse.
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Fenixp: Uncertainty that the project ever gets finished, lack of experience, maybe they just want all aspects of the project in their hands, maybe they genuninely don't want to develop with someone they don't know. There's a ton of good reasons, I wonder who are you to call them 'lazy ass' for making decision you don't like?
You honestly believe those are proper excuses? And yes, I call it lazy because it would mean some effort from their part to let someone else be involved. And it's not like programming and art are so intertwined that it would be a nightmare to have someone else be involved - that's still a very lame excuse. "Oh yeah, I designed a car but I'm just a car mechanic and couldn't be bothered to have designers become involved so ... instead of a nice comfortable car seat, you got a wooden block to sit on". *rolls eyes*.

Honestly, when a game's look is determined out of "not being bothered" instead of an actual art statement (and honestly, most of it is NOT an art statement) then it's laziness to me. A game's look contributes to the gameplay even in atmosphere, sounds and music. Leaving those out for whatever reason is you failing as a dev. Full stop.
Posted October 28, 2012
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gameon: Which is why i am basically saying, are these one man dev projects better suited to staying on smaller platforms, rather than trying to compete against much larger projects on pc?
I hope not, it will kill all creativity on the PC and you will end up with only having copy-paste AAA title #456
Posted October 28, 2012
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Red_Avatar: You honestly believe those are proper excuses? And yes, I call it lazy because it would mean some effort from their part to let someone else be involved
It's not effort. It's money. Pixel artists can cost $1,000 a week. Niche indie devs don't have money for that.

Small indie teams don't take salaries at all. They make games in their own time. They can't afford to HIRE (not "invite" or "involve" as you say) a proffesionalist.
Post edited October 28, 2012 by keeveek
Posted October 28, 2012
Here is an indie game with minimalistic graphics and gameplay yet somehow it did more for me in the short time playing it than many big budget releases I've played.
I've come across a few free indie releases like this that just blew my mind and accomplished exactly what they set out to do.
Posted October 28, 2012
I'd rather have well-done 2d art that ages gracefully than early 3D which does NOT age well. Some games I cannot play due to so many jagged polygons and what I call Edward Hamhands Syndrome (where, due to the various limitations of the time, a lot of characters had hands that looked like hams).

About limitations and art style: the limitation(s) that were present in the late 80s and early-to-mid 90s are still there but they have changed forms. Now, instead of hardware and software we have financial limitations. In order to see this for yourself, ask an artist their going rates for whatever art style you are going for and you'll be floored.

Another point concerning art style is that it should actually fit the game. For example, take a look at Hotline Miami and I mean a good, hard look. The game is basically the anatomy of a psychological breakdown. For something as brutal as Hotline, you will need to have an art style that is sleazy, rough, and maybe ugly at times in order to leave a lasting impression on the player and maybe have them examine the game a bit further than "lol grafix suxxors!"
Posted October 28, 2012
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Red_Avatar: You honestly believe those are proper excuses? And yes, I call it lazy because it would mean some effort from their part to let someone else be involved
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keeveek: It's not effort. It's money. Pixel artists can cost $1,000 a week. Niche indie devs don't have money for that.

Small indie teams don't take salaries at all. They make games in their own time. They can't afford to HIRE (not "invite" or "involve" as you say) a proffesionalist.
Did you read what I wrote? There's legions of artists who would gladly work for free in exchange for a small bit of the royalties afterwards - mostly because they need work experience, stuff for their portfolio, etc. You know the word FREE? I'll repeat - there's no legit reason you can't get help from art folks unless you really hate for your game to look decent.

And again, if they could do it 20 years ago, why can't they do it now? Why do we have to suffer mind-numbingly ugly games which use "retro" as some cover-it-all piss ass excuse for why their game looks hideous and has the atmosphere and style of a cleanly cut plank of wood.

Note that I'm not saying that minimalism can't work in games - for some games, that's fine - but if you see that the huge majority of indie games have graphics that make 25 year old games look amazing ... something is wrong. There's a huge amount of free stock graphics out there, there's tons of tools, tons of people willing to work for little or no money, etc and yet we get graphics that could run on a 8086.
Posted October 28, 2012
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Red_Avatar: snip
In business, you usually either want something good or something free.

"Good, cheap, fast" -> pick two.

If you expect pixel work on a high level, you shouldn't expect it to be free.

But I agree with you on some level - if an indie team doesn't have ANYBODY who could execute a decent looking 2d graphics, than maybe they should make text adventures...
Post edited October 28, 2012 by keeveek
Posted October 28, 2012
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Red_Avatar: snip
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keeveek: In business, you usually either want something good or something free.

"Good, cheap, fast" -> pick two.

If you expect pixel work on a high level, you shouldn't expect it to be free.

But I agree with you on some level - if an indie team doesn't have ANYBODY who could execute a decent looking 2d graphics, than maybe they should make text adventures...
Who's talking about high level? Does it have to be so black and white? Either absolutely shit graphics or top end graphics? Come on - Teen Agent had pretty horrible graphics yet it was still functional and had its own charm. It doesn't stop these games from being fun but replaced those bad graphics with simplistic graphics and you're losing something.

I mean, there's a ton of pretty amateuristic looking shareware games and a lot of them are still pretty great and even have a good atmosphere because they at least TRIED to make it look right.

And if you stick with 320x200 and with simple sprites, even a half-talented graphic designer can make something great looking. Plus, you're actually helping these artists to grow into fully blown designers and in the future they may get a lot better and help you on future projects. It's a win win situation.
Posted October 28, 2012
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keeveek: maybe they should make text adventures...
But that requires good writing and a good parser. You don't have to decide, what to do, if the player inputs "fuck troll" in a platformer.
Posted October 28, 2012
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azah_lemur: The NES had some beautiful games, with very nice art so there's no excuse for such bad pixels.
None of which were produced by indies.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Being indie an excuse for crappy graphics?(167 posts)(167 posts)
(167 posts)