"Aesthetics"

[Job McYossie]

I'm getting really tired of seeing games with poor visual design and having it defended by people saying "you can't say it's bad it's an aesthetic design and it's beautiful!" 400,000 games with really low res textures isn't a "homage to the oldschool days" it's "this takes a lot less work!"

Now, I'm not saying these games with unimpressive sprites 'n' stuff are bad games, not even a little. I am saying that what the design choice was when they decided each pixel on screen would be 4 times bigger than needed, it was because it was cheaper. And there's nothing wrong with that, but trying to push it as "artistic" is just so full of itself.

I'm also not saying that these lowres games are bad artistically, look at starbound, that game is very pretty, but it uses smaller resolution everything.

[Varrok]

Yes.

[STM]

[Nepsotic]

Yeah, I was gonna make a thread about this a while back. Yes, you don't need good graphics to have good gameplay, but that's not an excuse for laziness, which is what people use it for nowadays.

[Varrok]

I don't think it functions well as a thread. The topic is complete after the first post. There is literally nothing more to add.

[Job McYossie]

I was hoping someone would disagree and then I could roast them.

[Varrok]

Your opinion wasn't that extreme, and you even pointed out exceptions. What did you expect, really?

[Nepsotic]

Yeah your thread's shit and you're shit.

[Job McYossie]

I know I'm shit dw I already figured that out.

It doesn't matter how good or bad the thread is anyway.

[Nate]

No more meta-discussion about this thread's goodness or shitness. On-topic, please.

[RoryF]

My complaint is '8-bit' games that clearly use true colour just with blown up pixels, or an even bigger sin is '8-bit' games that then use loads of bloom-like effects and transparent stuff. It's all arse in general.

[Varrok]

I dislike the fact that indie games have pixel art but the graphics is not pixel-perfect, and e.g. a character can stand between pixels of the background. It annoys the heck out of me.

[Manco]

Counterpoints:

1. Indie developers do not have the time or budget to go all-out on amazing fantastic graphics. Low-res/retro/2D art styles offer a high degree of flexibility while being faster, cheaper and less resource-intensive to produce and play.
2. Games intentionally taking advantage of retro aesthetics are doing so to evoke a particular feeling from their players. This doesn’t mean they are trying to perfectly recreate a SNES game experience, just call back to one, so they are not under any obligation to make the game with a particular palette of colors or pixel resolution.

[Varrok]

Just like they did with NnT. The game wasn't supposed to be amazing, but merely to recreate the feeling of a much better game.

[Manco]

tell me more about how you hate NnT, I really haven’t heard enough already

[Varrok]

I wish I could, but I can't. Aesthetics in NnT weren't that bad. It certainly failed to capture the original dark tone, but for an Unity game... the graphics were fine. Maybe a bit too bloomy, but you can edit that out.

Unity is a very weak engine though, so the standards fall down respectively

[Job McYossie]

It's fine that indie devs use it for easier to make, less resource intensive graphics, but it's that they do that and then pass it off as cool hipster and retro.

As far as your second point, there's only SO MANY games I can take making that claim

[Varrok]

I'd say, if you do something, do it right. If you aim to make a game that looks like a SNES game, study for a while how SNES games work. If you don't, that's plain laziness Nep mentioned.

[Job McYossie]

Take a look at Freedom Planet, I think THAT game pulls the "homage" card very strong and fairly. It's very obviously taking from other games, and meant to play like them.

[Manco]

Unity is a very weak engine though, so the standards fall down respectively

Engines are as good or bad as the developers using them and the design decisions behind the game. There are excellent examples of Unity games with strong art direction and great graphics.

It's fine that indie devs use it for easier to make, less resource intensive graphics, but it's that they do that and then pass it off as cool hipster and retro.

That’s called marketing. You can’t sell a game by saying how “yeah we made it look this way because we couldn’t afford to do it better”, you have to sell how everything is a deliberate choice made to create the best possible experience.

As far as your second point, there's only SO MANY games I can take making that claim

The market is definitely saturated with SNES homages. I can’t wait for the second wave where developers start making PS1 homages.

I'd say, if you do something, do it right. If you aim to make a game that looks like a SNES game, study for a while how SNES games work. If you don't, that's plain laziness Nep mentioned.

No, it’s making decisions about features. Every game developer has to weigh up decisions on what content to include and what content not to include in their games; in your example the developer can very well decide that expending resources on coming up with a solution to make character sprites never use subpixels when moving across the screen is not a wise investment and that working on another feature would be a better use of their time.

It’s also one thing to reference something and another to emulate it completely. Filmmakers can choose to use black-and-white or film grain to evoke the feeling of older movies, that doesn’t mean they need to go back to old methods of camera framing or voice recording as well.

Take a look at Freedom Planet, I think THAT game pulls the "homage" card very strong and fairly. It's very obviously taking from other games, and meant to play like them.

There’s definitely merit in creating a game in this way; that doesn’t mean other options are invalid. Would Fez be better if it was more accurate to retro games?

[Varrok]

Engines are as good or bad as the developers using them and the design decisions behind the game. There are excellent examples of Unity games with strong art direction and great graphics.

No. Unity has weak texture size and polygon limt and you can't get past that with just good intentions.

That’s called marketing. You can’t sell a game by saying how “yeah we made it look this way because we couldn’t afford to do it better”, you have to sell how everything is a deliberate choice made to create the best possible experience.

You can market something without lying. It's possible

No, it’s making decisions about features. Every game developer has to weigh up decisions on what content to include and what content not to include in their games; in your example the developer can very well decide that expending resources on coming up with a solution to make character sprites never use subpixels when moving across the screen is not a wise investment and that working on another feature would be a better use of their time.

There’s definitely merit in creating a game in this way; that doesn’t mean other options are invalid. Would Fez be better if it was more accurate to retro games?

Fez is pixel perfect. Or, voxel perfect, if you prefer.

[Manco]

No. Unity has weak texture size and polygon limt and you can't get past that with just good intentions.

OK so besides me not being able to find any hard answers on texture or polygon limits in Unity, you’re assuming an engine is defined entirely by how much it can put on screen at once. A good engine is not about how many textures or polygons it can use, and neither is good art direction.

You can market something without lying. It's possible

Aww, did the big bad indie developer hurt your feelings because they didn’t advertize their game as “retro” instead of “low budget”?

Fez is pixel perfect. Or, voxel perfect, if you prefer.

Yeah, sure it is.

[Nepsotic]

I'm not just talking about retro style either. Games with shitty graphics get defended blindly because "GRAPHICS DON MATTER IT GAMEPLAY MAEK GUD GAME". No. Fuck you, you piece of hipster trash. Imscared is not a good game just because it has shitty graphics. It wouldn't even be a good game if it had better graphics, but it would be more tolerable, that's for sure.

Also, good graphics does not necessarily equate to realistic graphics. Retro styled games can have fantastic visuals but the lazy tripe attempting (and the sad fact that they are succeeding) to recreate Minecraft's style of pure UGLYNESS does not invoke any sort of feeling other than frustration and de-immersion. If it wasn't a word, it is now.

It's not all about the poly count, but it is about not being ugly as shit. Minecraft and Imscared are ugly as shit. They have excuses for being that way, whether they are legitimate or not is another question entirely, but either way, they are still ugly as shit.

People seem to forget that videogames are still primarily a visual medium.

Aww, did the big bad indie developer hurt your feelings because they didn’t advertize their game as “retro” instead of “low budget”?

This is dumb. You can have a low budget and still not look like complete shit. You can make a good looking game with zero budget, it all depends on whether you're prepared to put the effort in or not.

Making games is not like making films, there are numerous free softwares about that, if you learn how to use them, you can use to create fantastic looking and fantastic playing games. If you don't know how to use them, it's not like you have to pay to learn, either. The internet is literally all of mankind's knowledge at your fingertips.

I agree with your point about art direction and technical limitations, though.

[Manco]

I'm not just talking about retro style either. Games with shitty graphics get defended blindly because "GRAPHICS DON MATTER IT GAMEPLAY MAEK GUD GAME". No. Fuck you, you piece of hipster trash. Imscared is not a good game just because it has shitty graphics. It wouldn't even be a good game if it had better graphics, but it would be more tolerable, that's for sure.

While I agree that bad art shouldn’t be ignored just because gameplay is good, there is a possible flip side to the argument: developers who lack aesthetic skill but want to create games. Should we be deterring people from creating games just because they cannot produce a specific aspect of the experience to an expected standard?

I also can’t help but notice you focus in this instance specifically on people defending the game, not the developers creating the game. If people enjoy a game in spite of the graphics that is entirely their right to – it’s not up to you to tell them to have a lesser experience any more than they can tell you to ignore the parts you disliked.

People seem to forget that videogames are still primarily a visual medium.

I was just gonna reply with “technically it’s primarily an interactive medium”, but that got me thinking about the possibilities of games based purely on non-visual cues. I could see a game based entirely on audio, for example, although it would be tougher to sell to a wide audience.

This is dumb. You can have a low budget and still not look like complete shit. You can make a good looking game with zero budget, it all depends on whether you're prepared to put the effort in or not.

I’ll tell you what’s dumb: equating the marketing of a game by focusing on positive traits as lying. That’s my specific problem with what Varrok said so please don’t try to interpret that as me defending bad art decisions in games.

Making games is not like making films, there are numerous free softwares about that, if you learn how to use them, you can use to create fantastic looking and fantastic playing games. If you don't know how to use them, it's not like you have to pay to learn, either. The internet is literally all of mankind's knowledge at your fingertips.

There are numerous things wrong with this statement:

1. Filmmakers also use software nowadays – in fact there are even movies made entirely with CG, just like games! And just like games, a movie isn't made arbitrarily better or worse by how well its makers know the software.
2. Intimate knowledge and ability to use software does not automatically make one capable of creating “fantastic looking and fantastic playing games”. It’s entirely possible for someone to have vast technical knowledge and zero creative skill.
3. Being able to find free tutorials and knowledgebases for software does not necessarily make one better at using them. Game development in particular is complicated as shit, and while good reference material will lower the barrier for entry it isn’t going to stop plenty of people simply finding it too hard, too stressful or too time-consuming.

[Nepsotic]

Yes, but my last point was referring to the fact that you don't need a budget to create a good looking game. If someone has zero creative skill, a load of money isn't going to fix that.
And don't give me anything about hiring staff, either. There's plenty of skilled people on places like Newgrounds looking to be part of a team for nothing.

In regards to your first point, no. Nobody lacks ALL aesthetic skill.
Look at stuff like World's Hardest Game. It shows what it needs to and it isn't an eyesore. The way it did its visuals was probably the best possible way, so it's not like somebody with zero talent in art couldn't create something passable or pleasant to look at.

[Varrok]

I like how Manco clearly isn't much into serious game programming, and he assumes he's the expert on what makes a good game engine

[Nepsotic]

Well he's right that it's the builder that matters and not his tools, but that doesn't change the fact that there are objectively bad engines and objectively good ones.

[Phylum]

I like how Manco clearly isn't much into serious game programming, and he assumes he's the expert on what makes a good game engine

You can't rate a game engine solely on how it handles visuals. Unity does well for being easy to jump into and make things happen. There are probably thousands of games that would never have been made without Unity. It gives people a lot of tools to make games, which is exactly what an engine should do. What it can't do is teach people how to structure large projects, how to manage time or how to actually code, which is why there are so many garbage games. Lots of people are quick to judge Unity based on the output, but that just speaks for how easy it is for people to dive in to.

Unity isn't as beefy graphically as UE4, but that does not make it a bad engine. Even if it was the least powerful graphically of all common commercial engines that doesn't make it bad.

Anyway, there isn't a problem with people making 2D pixel art games if they know why they're doing it and they have the artists to pull it off. It's not about the medium. That said, to compete with a new AAA game which has gigantic art teams tirelessly working on high-poly character models and a top-tier tech team developing cutting edge procedural animation engines, 2D seems a lot more approachable. There are more noticeable problems when you don't get 3D really right - like the UXB disarming animation in NNT. You're no longer working with a fixed grid of pixels, you're wrestling thousands of points in space.

[Crashpunk]

I have zero game design experience other than messing around in the Source engine. But for me. Whilst I agree gameplay is the most important part of a game. Graphics and aesthetics are a definite close second.

If a game looks shit. I won't enjoy it. Simple as. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt if that game is 20 years old. But even then, the classics which are still good today usually hold up visually. And games which don't (Tomb Raider, Goldeneye ect) I don't enjoy as much.

I love how games look and is usually what I remember most about a game after playing it. Take Darkest Dungeon. I fucking adore the art of that game. I looked into it because of how the games looks. And turns out the game plays really well.

[Nepsotic]

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