Does it worth to make a game with paintings?

Started by lapsking, Tue 26/07/2022 14:21:31

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lapsking

I'm thinking of making a game with oil on canvas paintings. The idea comes from the fact that I'm a painter. I wanted to be a game developer since I was 7 after playing Maniac Mansion though later in high school I realized my spirit is more comfortable with arts so I studied painting in Tehran Art University and became a painter but my wish for becoming a game developer was always there in the background. Now after I made my first game The Will just to know if I'm able to make a game or not, I'm thinking of mixing both painting and developer careers and make an adventure game using both. I paint oil on canvas and I'm thinking about an adventure game about Assasins (Hashashiun), since I'm Iranian and have visited their main fortress in Qazvin and read books about them I should do well with story. But the questions is "Does it worth the hard work?" It won't be a commercial game and I won't get any profits (I'm at that stage of life that don't need much money right now), but painting all backgrounds with oil on canvas will take months. Do you think it's a good idea or is it over the top? Do you know anyone who made a game with paintings? Do you think it's bonus to have hand painted backgrounds or is it just waste of time? Are you more interested to play a game made of paintings rather than photoshop, or it doesn't matter. I post one of my paintings about Assasins I painted years ago which is called The Return of Sabbah. Any insight or comment or opinion is appreciated.

https://lapsking.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/the-return-of-sabbah.jpg
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js

Why don't you try to make a demo with some screens ? You could verify that you are really interested, and the reaction of others to your demo. If you do that, i promise i will play it and make a true report (not just only « i like it / i don't like it »). So you will have at least a return.

True paintings seem interesting to me. I don't know if adventure games have been done already with that. Probably yes but i don't have examples in my mind.

lapsking

Quote from: js on Tue 26/07/2022 14:34:41
Why don't you try to make a demo with some screens ? You could verify that you are really interested, and the reaction of others to your demo. If you do that, i promise i will play it and make a true report (not just only « i like it / i don't like it »). So you will have at least a return.

True paintings seem interesting to me. I don't know if adventure games have been done already with that. Probably yes but i don't have examples in my mind.

Yes, I'm already thinking about making a demo, but even a demo can take more than a month. But I think that's the best way to start it.
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Danvzare

I second the demo.  (nod)
Try to restrict it to two or three rooms, and hopefully it won't take too long make.
This will also let you gauge how much effort a full project will require.

heltenjon

Play to your strengths. The painting looks good, and it looks playable, too!  ;-D If you can make an art style that's distinctly your own, then go for it!

I also very much like the thought of you delving into the Persian history for inspiration to your story. It sounds like something that would be hard for outsiders to make, and I for one would certainly be interested in seeing more games made that takes into use global settings/history/myth from outside the European/North American perspective.

Creamy

I think the biggest challenge with traditional  art is to animate the sprites and to integrate them convincingly in the backgrounds.
 

lapsking

Yes, the sprites will be the biggest challenge specially that my traditional art is much better than my photoshop. And yes I think I have to stick to Persian/Iranian themes otherwise I'm just mimicking western themes and will have nothing new or original to contribute to AGS. Though it seems the best way to know if this project is possible or not is making a demo. Thank you for the comments.
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heltenjon

Creamy, who replied over here, made a game with painted graphics, Bob Escapes, so he knows what problems may arise.

Crimson Wizard

#8
I'm not an artist and only speak as a "technical person"; from the technical perspective, I'd imagine, that the downside of a physical art vs digital art is:
a) more difficult to apply additional edits;
b) difficult to make copies (e.g. have two versions of same scene for testing);
c) no image layers, or more difficult to make ones.

All the above may affect game making, especially the later stages, when you (and/or your testers) are testing your partially complete game and realize that you need to adjust numerous small things.

For instance, in regards to layers, the game scenes are often composed of the pieces, where characters may walk behind some of them (e.g. a part of the wall, a furniture). Or objects that change shape (opened door or wardrobes, for a quick example). It's important to plan this ahead when designing a game scene. You can use masks to create "walk-behinds", but that may work well for pixel art where there's a clear pixel-precise edge between objects, and may not work well for other art styles. So, with digital painting, authors often create scenes split into layers, so that they could adjust different pieces separately, move them around, and export as separate sprites. With real painting, I'd imagine, that would require even more careful planning, and maybe extra editing in a graphic software.

Doing game prototype with unfinished or simple art may also help; that is - only draw complete picture after you've got game logic worked out and tested.

I assume real paintings might work best for the visual-novel style of the game though, where the characters don't walk freely around, and there are little to none moving parts overall.

fernewelten

#9
I think I've seen an animation done exclusively from oil paintings.
There are complete commercial adventures made from clay figures and clay environments (The dream machine). Or from paper cutouts.
So oil painting an adventure, that's doable in principle.

You'd paint your canvasses and then scan them in in some way. If your paintings are A4 or smaller, a fairly standard scanner will do. If you paint A3, well, A3 scanners do exist, but AFAIK most of them are aimed at office environments; getting an A3 scanner that is good for art might be pricey.

It's hard to grasp what makes a game that is “worth it”. The art is only one aspect of adventures. There's also the story and the world building and memorable characters and the puzzles and the minigames and the background music and perhaps the voice acting etc.

It's even harder to forecast the “worthiness” of a game before it has been done. 

Your paintings might be something that makes your adventure special and lets it win art prizes and competitions and charm the players. You might perhaps even get money from artsy European (French?) institutions for it. Whether this will actually happen, well, nobody will be able to say.

lapsking

#10
I'll download Creamy's game and will play it in these days. Thank you Creamson for your comment, yes needs lots of thinking ahead, I'll keep your points in mind but the real problems show up just after I start making the game. So I'll make a demo to see if I'm able to do it or not. And by saying does it worth it I mean, the same game, same story, same puzzles, one done with traditional art one done with photoshop. Do players even care that it was all painted by hand? Or for them it's the same as long as the graphics are good. Now that you mentioned clay it reminded me of The Neverhood, but that was a massive project! Anyway I don't need scanner as I have a camera which takes high resolution pictures.
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newwaveburritos

I think people mostly care about cool art, yes, but this is a very distinctive style that certainly qualifies.  Also, to Crimson's points about future edits, I think using the painted background as a base layer would be great and then you could add to it which gets to Creamy's point that it would be tough to make all of these individual pieces fit together.  But I think it's a great idea...just a lot of work!

FanOfHumor

Another example of adventure games made in paintings is several of "Humongous Entertainment's" games.Although it was more work for them to do physical art it had a certain quality texture to it that was great.As for the layers.They made the backgrounds as paintings and drew the things that move and animate in pencil and colored the animations in digitally .You could make the paintings as backgrounds and draw the things that move as digital art if its any easier.

lapsking

I ordered canvases, can't wait to start. I also think digitally drawing characters is easier. I might need help for characters and sprites, if anybody is interested to help?! But first I'll try to paint few backgrounds. Thanks everybody.
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FanOfHumor

Just a tip.If you are using a camera to convert your paintings to digital art I would suggest setting your camera at a very low resolution so that you don't have to scale down the painting digitally.Scaling from a large camera resolution down to a reasonable scale that ags can handle can get a bit messy.

lapsking

I've set my game resolution 1920x1080 and 32-bit on AGS. As long as AGS can really support this, I think it will be fine.
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