6 ms·

I think the problem is that the game is in Uncanny Valley. It's trying to achieve a certain level of detail/realism, but it's falling short of expectations. T

I think the problem is that the game is in Uncanny Valley. It's trying to achieve a certain level of detail/realism, but it's falling short of expectations. This might be completely intentional, to evoke a feel for games from an era that did the same thing, but comparing to Baba is You highlights the developer doesn't understand that. Baba is You has gone completely in the opposite direction in terms of graphical detail, come out of the Uncanny Valley, and is now sitting atop Cuteness Peak. The dev needs to decide where he wants the game to sit and why.

gtirloni 7y ago
The article explains in detail where he wants the game to sit and why. Sorry, I don't follow.
- glenvdb 7y ago
  If the dev truly understood where he wants the game to sit and why he wouldn't have compared it to Baba is You.
- barryhoodlum 7y ago
  But his games don't sit where he thinks they sit. It's baffling as there's a huge market for "retro" looking indie games, and has been for a decade or so. Plenty of successful and influential indie games made by a small team (or even a solo developer) in the past decade have been really successful despite looking like they could run on an NES or a Commodore 64, with limited palettes and chunky graphics. But there's a difference between that and what appears to be placeholder programmer art.
  - sgift 7y ago
    > in the past decade have been really successful He makes indie games for 25 years. They feed him and his family. That sounds very successful to me.
    - barryhoodlum 7y ago
      I'm not saying he's not successful. He's implying you either have shoddy graphics, or spend big money on AAA graphics. But they're not the only two choices, and that's proven - there are successful games without AAA graphics that also don't look bad. If he's feeding his family on his games, changing his attitude to their appearance could expand his audience significantly for relatively minor effort.
      - jmull 7y ago
        > He's implying you either have shoddy graphics, or spend big money on AAA graphics. He really is not. The article goes into the details of the nuance of where his games are graphically. Not to mention he specifically addresses what you're talking about. The next step up in art quality is to add one person to his permanent team, which roughly doubles each game's budget and roughly doubles the sales needed to support that budget. That's a big step and he's not willing to take that risk. Not sure who would be in a better position than him and his wife to assess the risk for that, so it's very hard to argue with that judgement.
        pharke 7y ago
        I think others have pointed out that this belief that he'd have to hire someone is a fallacy. There are some pretty basic techniques that he could learn from literally watching a few YouTube videos that could be applied to his existing graphics that would just take them to the next level. He's leaving money on the table because he's too stubborn to admit that visuals matter to a lot of people and the basics of design aren't so complicated that they'd eat his dev time/budget.
        Cookingboy 7y ago
        >The next step up in art quality is to add one person to his permanent team, which roughly doubles each game's budget and roughly doubles the sales needed to support that budget. That's just simply not true. He just needs to increase revenue by the additional budget to support the budget. So unless he was only break even before with revenue == budget, he doesn't need to double the revenue.
- mlvljr 7y ago
  Oh, you passive aggressive silver tongue devil!
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
ludston 7y ago
Eh. I played some of his games and they were pretty fun.
haversine02 7y ago
The art doesn't even need more detail or realism, it just needs consistent detail. Even just a simple palettization/pixelation preprocessing for every sprite could be enough - https://i.imgur.com/oPH7paD.jpg https://i.imgur.com/oPH7paD.jpg
- Karliss 7y ago
  And making sure light is consistent. In the first picture some objects like banners, notice board, bathtub shaped thing have clear shadow below them, others like fence, green plant, mushroom don't. Buckets have light coming from left side hay stack from right, other from top. I wonder if it would look better if some objects were flipped horizontally.
  - spiderxxxx 7y ago
    That's at least 50% of it, if he had given his artists any direction it should be this: Light coming from top left, soft shadows. Give the artists a palette and let them create. When you don't have any limits, your creativity is unbounded, and that can be bad for delivering something on a time budget.
- pharke 7y ago
  That is a surprisingly good result. It literally changed my perception of those screenshots from "that is some gross and sloppy artwork, I'm keeping my money" to "hey not bad, I might buy that"
- opportune 7y ago
  Wow, it is amazing how much better the bottom picture looks. How hard is palletization to do?
- platz 7y ago
  Amazing result

gtirloni 7y ago

The article explains in detail where he wants the game to sit and why. Sorry, I don't follow.

glenvdb 7y ago
If the dev truly understood where he wants the game to sit and why he wouldn't have compared it to Baba is You.
barryhoodlum 7y ago
But his games don't sit where he thinks they sit. It's baffling as there's a huge market for "retro" looking indie games, and has been for a decade or so. Plenty of successful and influential indie games made by a small team (or even a solo developer) in the past decade have been really successful despite looking like they could run on an NES or a Commodore 64, with limited palettes and chunky graphics. But there's a difference between that and what appears to be placeholder programmer art.
- sgift 7y ago
  > in the past decade have been really successful He makes indie games for 25 years. They feed him and his family. That sounds very successful to me.
  - barryhoodlum 7y ago
    I'm not saying he's not successful. He's implying you either have shoddy graphics, or spend big money on AAA graphics. But they're not the only two choices, and that's proven - there are successful games without AAA graphics that also don't look bad. If he's feeding his family on his games, changing his attitude to their appearance could expand his audience significantly for relatively minor effort.
    - jmull 7y ago
      > He's implying you either have shoddy graphics, or spend big money on AAA graphics. He really is not. The article goes into the details of the nuance of where his games are graphically. Not to mention he specifically addresses what you're talking about. The next step up in art quality is to add one person to his permanent team, which roughly doubles each game's budget and roughly doubles the sales needed to support that budget. That's a big step and he's not willing to take that risk. Not sure who would be in a better position than him and his wife to assess the risk for that, so it's very hard to argue with that judgement.
      - pharke 7y ago
        I think others have pointed out that this belief that he'd have to hire someone is a fallacy. There are some pretty basic techniques that he could learn from literally watching a few YouTube videos that could be applied to his existing graphics that would just take them to the next level. He's leaving money on the table because he's too stubborn to admit that visuals matter to a lot of people and the basics of design aren't so complicated that they'd eat his dev time/budget.
      - Cookingboy 7y ago
        >The next step up in art quality is to add one person to his permanent team, which roughly doubles each game's budget and roughly doubles the sales needed to support that budget. That's just simply not true. He just needs to increase revenue by the additional budget to support the budget. So unless he was only break even before with revenue == budget, he doesn't need to double the revenue.
mlvljr 7y ago
Oh, you passive aggressive silver tongue devil!
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

ludston 7y ago

Eh. I played some of his games and they were pretty fun.

haversine02 7y ago

The art doesn't even need more detail or realism, it just needs consistent detail. Even just a simple palettization/pixelation preprocessing for every sprite could be enough - https://i.imgur.com/oPH7paD.jpg https://i.imgur.com/oPH7paD.jpg

Karliss 7y ago
And making sure light is consistent. In the first picture some objects like banners, notice board, bathtub shaped thing have clear shadow below them, others like fence, green plant, mushroom don't. Buckets have light coming from left side hay stack from right, other from top. I wonder if it would look better if some objects were flipped horizontally.
- spiderxxxx 7y ago
  That's at least 50% of it, if he had given his artists any direction it should be this: Light coming from top left, soft shadows. Give the artists a palette and let them create. When you don't have any limits, your creativity is unbounded, and that can be bad for delivering something on a time budget.
pharke 7y ago
That is a surprisingly good result. It literally changed my perception of those screenshots from "that is some gross and sloppy artwork, I'm keeping my money" to "hey not bad, I might buy that"
opportune 7y ago
Wow, it is amazing how much better the bottom picture looks. How hard is palletization to do?
platz 7y ago
Amazing result