I try to build games for fun and learning, and I consciously avoid anything that goes beyond my (non-existing) knowledge about creating 'professional' game art. Just investing some of his own time reading up on the fundamentals of art, visual language, perception, color theory, could vastly improve his judgement. I almost feel bad for disagreeing with someone who obviously put so much love in his games and rightfully stands behind them, but I cannot shake off the feeling that there is a huge potential for improvement there that does not involve hiring additional people, more expensive artists, etc. In the end, though: Jeff had been successfully making games he loves for 25 years. Most importantly, though: it's a striking and consistent look. That crappy animation arguably makes it look even cheaper, but it also brings the game more alive, and it's certainly more expensive. If you go for bad art, just go all the way, and make it look consistent.īy the way, Baba is You, referenced at the end, is an absolutely brilliant game, and while the art looks cheap like a toddler drew it, it's all animated they have three versions of every sprite and keep rotating them. I still prefer the ascii version, though). Later he wanted a nicer interface and went for this kind of pixely tiles, and to be honest, I don't like it (edit: I just checked again, and the art looks far better than I remember. That's basically what Jeff Vogel is saying about moving up from his poor inconsistent art to slightly better art, but it's also how I feel about moving up from ascii characters to his style of 'crappy' art.ĪdoM is a fantastic roguelike created by Thomas Biskup, which originally had you as an battling other ascii characters. Sometimes 'better-but-not-good-enough' is a trap. What you cannot do is mix and match the levels-that's very jarring and people will complain. Look at Exile and Avernum-they have a consistent art level across everything and don't strike me as ugly. You can choose any of those, be consistent, and people won't feel too bad.

And the background sprites look like they are from 'My First RPG Maker'.

The characters look like bad pseudo 2.5D from 1993. The portraits look like potato cam from 1999. The bottom icons are gorgeous and would fit in a AAA game. Again, that's designer failure-not art failure.Ģ) If you look at QW, there are 4 different levels of art. And the visual design of the characters makes distinguishing classes difficult. QW has similar issues in that the character design isn't very distinctive: without those horrible colored circles you can't tell friend from foe. That's a huge mistake in visual design-and that is the fault of the designer not the artist. I must have looked at the Avernum picture half a dozen times and actually missed the 3 other characters in the picture other than the cloak and the dragon. There are two problems: 1) the poor art actually causes one significant design fault and 2) I think the problem is actually that his art is too good in places.ġ) If you look at Avernum 3 and Queen's Wish, the characters you are supposed to control don't 'stick out' visually. But if that's the case, he should just admit that, rather than hiding behind his choice to use a top-down perspective. Maybe the insult is unintentional, because he genuinely can't tell the difference himself. It's also insulting to the artists who worked on those games, producing better results in a similar budget. It's an insulting strawman to say that the people criticizing his art would also reject these other games with simple art. Even Ultima V shades one side of its walls, something none of his games have accomplished based on these screenshots.

(Screenshot of Atari Adventure) - 'If you don't like it, maybe the problem is you.'Īpart from maybe(!) Atari Adventure, all of those games look far better than Queen's Wish. (Screenshot of Baba is You) - 'If a game that looks like this can be a hit, maybe there can be room for me?' 'Queen's Wish has a very retro square-tile top-down view, reminiscent of old Ultima games, old Pokemon games.' (Screenshot of Ultima V) - 'This is what looks normal to me' I think it's these quotes in particular that are the most pitchfork-worthy of the lot: However, at regular intervals throughout this article, he feels the need to accuse his critics of also disliking other games with simple art. If he only was talking about his own art, then fewer people would be rubbed the wrong way.

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