This post pushed my buttons a bit—as much as I align with the author's (somewhat gatekeeping) notion of "I like this art style, even if it's not something you're familiar with", I feel like their...
This post pushed my buttons a bit—as much as I align with the author's (somewhat gatekeeping) notion of "I like this art style, even if it's not something you're familiar with", I feel like their post turned into one big excuse for not taking on deeper artistic challenges, or taking on an art director that can deliver the same art style, but with better polish. But also, he undermines his point by showing screenshots of games that are not his, with a "similar style" (effectively his point, not mine) but hit their artistic goals far more successfully.
I really, really appreciate that this guy is turning out work that he's proud of. But I think this post isn't a logical justification of poor art direction, it's just him putting together a poorly defended excuse that he's not willing to be creatively challenged in this way.
I feel targeted... I grew up with the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision, and I play a lot of GTA because the graphics are so damn pretty. I endured the crap graphics because better couldn't be doe,...
I feel targeted... I grew up with the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision, and I play a lot of GTA because the graphics are so damn pretty. I endured the crap graphics because better couldn't be doe, not because I liked them.
(Saw this post on hackernews, so I'm just copy-pasting what I wrote there:) I'm super happy that games that look and feel like those from Spiderweb Software exist. I think it's charming. But the...
(Saw this post on hackernews, so I'm just copy-pasting what I wrote there:)
I'm super happy that games that look and feel like those from Spiderweb Software exist. I think it's charming. But the fact that he feels compelled to write an article in defense of the art style is telling to me. I think it's not unreasonable to answer the headline question with "because they're stubborn".
Their games look crap, not because of a lack of resources but because of a disrespect for visual design (it's not even "art", they could make a better looking game with colored squares). There's probably many, many ways to improve the look that have nothing to do with "AAA art". He fails to see how Baba Is You is a better looking game than any of theirs, simply because it's focused and has a good use of color and contrast. Any $10/hour freelance game artist can tell him that the problem with the games is a mismatch in detail, between background and characters, between resolution and texture detail. This makes tiles look either blurry or covered in white noise and together with a severe lack of contrast, makes the game look flat and unlit.
Solving that doesn't require hiring expensive artists, it first involves acknowledging there's an issue at the core that can't be solved by sticking stuff on top of it. I see zero patience or passion for that and that's why their games look the same as 25 years ago (and I could argue, worse, since higher resolution doesn't do them any favors).
Again, I have no problem with their games and them looking like they do but going into defense here is a battle they can't win. Their best move is to acknowledge that they don't care and do so with pride. Everything else just feels at best insecure and at worst somewhat disrespectful towards devs who care.
They don't have the budget to do AAA graphics because people don't buy the game because of the horrible graphics. Seems like a bit of investment might help here. If they want to carry on like...
They don't have the budget to do AAA graphics because people don't buy the game because of the horrible graphics.
Seems like a bit of investment might help here. If they want to carry on like this, their loss.
This post pushed my buttons a bit—as much as I align with the author's (somewhat gatekeeping) notion of "I like this art style, even if it's not something you're familiar with", I feel like their post turned into one big excuse for not taking on deeper artistic challenges, or taking on an art director that can deliver the same art style, but with better polish. But also, he undermines his point by showing screenshots of games that are not his, with a "similar style" (effectively his point, not mine) but hit their artistic goals far more successfully.
I really, really appreciate that this guy is turning out work that he's proud of. But I think this post isn't a logical justification of poor art direction, it's just him putting together a poorly defended excuse that he's not willing to be creatively challenged in this way.
I feel targeted... I grew up with the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision, and I play a lot of GTA because the graphics are so damn pretty. I endured the crap graphics because better couldn't be doe, not because I liked them.
(Saw this post on hackernews, so I'm just copy-pasting what I wrote there:)
I'm super happy that games that look and feel like those from Spiderweb Software exist. I think it's charming. But the fact that he feels compelled to write an article in defense of the art style is telling to me. I think it's not unreasonable to answer the headline question with "because they're stubborn".
Their games look crap, not because of a lack of resources but because of a disrespect for visual design (it's not even "art", they could make a better looking game with colored squares). There's probably many, many ways to improve the look that have nothing to do with "AAA art". He fails to see how Baba Is You is a better looking game than any of theirs, simply because it's focused and has a good use of color and contrast. Any $10/hour freelance game artist can tell him that the problem with the games is a mismatch in detail, between background and characters, between resolution and texture detail. This makes tiles look either blurry or covered in white noise and together with a severe lack of contrast, makes the game look flat and unlit.
Solving that doesn't require hiring expensive artists, it first involves acknowledging there's an issue at the core that can't be solved by sticking stuff on top of it. I see zero patience or passion for that and that's why their games look the same as 25 years ago (and I could argue, worse, since higher resolution doesn't do them any favors).
Again, I have no problem with their games and them looking like they do but going into defense here is a battle they can't win. Their best move is to acknowledge that they don't care and do so with pride. Everything else just feels at best insecure and at worst somewhat disrespectful towards devs who care.
They don't have the budget to do AAA graphics because people don't buy the game because of the horrible graphics.
Seems like a bit of investment might help here. If they want to carry on like this, their loss.