Is this art style too simplistic?

[lolman1c]

In this post I will be going over two questions. 1. Is this art too simplistic for a game? and 2. Which style do you prefer out of the two styles I have used.

Hello! I'm Lolman, i'm also new here. I am in no way a professional pixel artist and actually have a degree in History rather than design or anything. Pixel art has just been a hobby of mine and I've created very little non private art for the past few years I have done it. However, I've started to pick up an interest in producing my own Point and click adventure game (much like the ones I used to play as a kid). I've helped develop games in the past (mostly 3D) but I've always secretly wanted to produce a "retro" point and click with, in my mind, a modern twist. Although, I'm not sure about the style I love (a very very simplistic art style). So I was wondering if you guys could give me your opinions as I've messed around with this kind of style for a while now but I know a lot of people prefer detail to imagination(Although I want my story to just guide people rather than dictate people).


Style Number 1 : This Style is very blocky but it allows me to create a 3d effect and produce more detail. Although I dislike this because I feel like I  have to make it look "bad" (noisy) for it to work...




Style Number 2: This style is much more simplistic and has little detail but I like it more. It leaves a lot up to the imagination and make the world a lot more cleaner. In this image you also see the type of style I want for my characters. This is basically finale as I love the sword and sorcery style. Although the downside is that I lose the 3d effects and rely more on straight lines for depth.




I see lots of art using this style and I know some games do it as well (although I honestly can not remember the name on them). Also recently a game called "the last door" came out and uses a very similar style to the one I was messing with. This gave me a little more confidence that people won't brush this game away because it was too simplistic in style.


Finally: Here is my title screen for the game. I cheated a little on the style but I wanted it to look my way.



Please post your opinions below! And don't worry if you really hate the art, everything is helpful.

[Cassiebsg]

Don't hate it.

I would rather see it posted in it's original intended size with the zoom tag though (hint: you can edit your post and change that ).

Really like the title screen, it shows immediately what the game story is about. Only have trouble figuring out the flying creature on the right (dragon?).

Has for which one I prefer... think I like the minimalistic better, but then again, it's hard to compare (for me anyway) when the screens do not have the same size.

Whatever you decide to do, rememberer that it's your game, and you should do what feels right for you. Unless you have a producer on your back telling you what to do to grab the maximum number of players (in that case, go Baywatch style... ).

[Mandle]

I love the top picture and the title screen (maybe the dragon needs its wings all the way up or all the way down instead of mid-flap).

Of course the cabinet in the top picture is way out of whack perspective-wise. In this one point perpsective you shouldn't be able to see the side at all. But this may have been a concious choice on your part I'm thinking to show the depth of the item and ignoring the rules of perspective on purpose. I think this is fine to stylize your art in this way and as long as it is done consistantly throughout the game players will just get used to it and accept it as reality.

Looks like a great story too. I imagine it's about two lovers who get thrown into different eras and are trying to get back to each other? The mirroring of the WWI scene and the fantasy scene is really nicely achieved.

Best of luck with the project! I wanna play it!

[lolman1c]

I love the top picture and the title screen (maybe the dragon needs its wings all the way up or all the way down instead of mid-flap).

Of course the cabinet in the top picture is way out of whack perspective-wise. In this one point perpsective you shouldn't be able to see the side at all. But this may have been a concious choice on your part I'm thinking to show the depth of the item and ignoring the rules of perspective on purpose. I think this is fine to stylize your art in this way and as long as it is done consistantly throughout the game players will just get used to it and accept it as reality.

Looks like a great story too. I imagine it's about two lovers who get thrown into different eras and are trying to get back to each other? The mirroring of the WWI scene and the fantasy scene is really nicely achieved.

Best of luck with the project! I wanna play it!

I agree with you about the top image. It does look kinda better but as you said the perspectives are off. This is to make things look weird (I'm going for a dull part in the start to show how the future is dull). However, I feel like I couldn't keep this up throughout the game. I like things to be unique so by doing the second style I can be unique and coherent.

And thank you both for understanding my title screen. I wanted to make that before I even started on the game so I can give people a great preview of what is to come. The story is about two lovers from the future (one a Women called Sophie, who is an engineer, and a man named John who is her Husband: He isn't very smart but has a great interest in old things and history). Something goes wrong on the grand opening of a new machine to find dark matter and Sophie is fired back in time. John goes after her but is told that there is no specific time that she was sent to and so (with the help of Sophie's previous inventions of Nano bots to keep him immortal although not invincible) John travels through out time to be with her again. The game will be split into a few episode about 15-30 min each. This way I can gain reactions to the story and develop it over time. Also the two objects they hold are their key objects that survive with them throughout the whole game. John has a general history book and Sophie has a plasma torch. And yes the thing in the background is a Dragon. I've shown it to a few people and about 7/10 knew what it was so I might modify it a bit.

Also does anyone know if I'm allowed to sell these games? I doubt I would do it for this one but I've always wanted to make a series of point and click games and just sell them for like 99 cent/pence each. I myself just enjoyed buying small games and playing them on my Iphone in recent years and thought I might share some of my stories this way.

[Mandle]

Wow, sounds like an amazing story. So, if I have it straight, the husband has to live through like thousands of years of history in real time (for him, I mean no time-jumping) to find his wife who is somewhere in time but nobody knows quite where...Now that's dedication! I would want to never hear again "All you do is sit around all day" after going through that!

As for selling AGS games: YES! It's totally legal. In fact many great commercial titles have been made in AGS including this year's winner of Best Game at the AGS awards: The Blackwell Epiphany (the whole Blackwell series in fact). It is common curtesy to mention in the credits that the game was made with AGS which was developed by Chris Jones, and a bit of a tradition to maybe include a blue cup somewhere in the game as an easter egg kinda thing.

Best of luck again with the project. Sounds great!

[Snarky]

The premise sounds a lot like a certain Doctor Who arc...

Spoiler

(Amy & Rory)

[close]

The graphic style is fine, but I think it would look a lot better if you stuck with one consistent resolution, instead of mixing in smaller pixels here and there and having the characters (and title, on the third screen) on a different grid than the background. That just looks sloppy.

[Monsieur OUXX]

The title screen's concept is nice but the contrast and saturation are badly chosen, making the image very busy and noisy. In the end it's not very readable.
The other ones are cool!

[lolman1c]

The premise sounds a lot like a certain Doctor Who arc...

Spoiler

(Amy & Rory)

[close]

The graphic style is fine, but I think it would look a lot better if you stuck with one consistent resolution, instead of mixing in smaller pixels here and there and having the characters (and title, on the third screen) on a different grid than the background. That just looks sloppy.

I've never seen Doctor Who. The guy doesn't live throughout most of time as they find ways to jump. You also play as both characters.