next »

[i_mush]

BRIEF INTRO OF ME (skip if too long, sorry )
Hi everybody, I'm new to this forum and, in general, I'm new to any kind of indie game development community.
Before you might even realize it, I'll clarify who you're talking with: I'm an experienced mobile developer which is LESS THAN a noob for what concerns game development :D. The question(s) I'm about to ask now might sound silly for a lot of you, but I'm asking you all to be patient, and try to put yourselves in my shoes and understand that any silly thing I might ask helps me to fill a hole in what I'm learning, making me more confident about the things I have to deal with.

I've always appreciated the movement behind indie game development maybe because, loosely, I've always seen some similarities with the movement behind indie music (which I listen to, for the most). At its core, a lot of indie games are very fine pieces of art, and I can feel, by playing with them, the passion of who made it that lies behind.
I've never been an "actor" into it, I've been just a "gamer" hunting for pixel art-retro style art bites.
But since I "ran out of hobbies" lately, and  I'm a programmer and I love my job anyway, I wanted to give it a shot and try to develop something simple, just to have a feel and understand if I have "something to say" as a game dev, or I better focus on my job and just enjoy other's devs games as I always did.

So after some search I decided to start learning SpriteKit, I know a lot of you might disagree but spritekit right now is the best compromise between ease of use and time I can spend on game development (plus, I'm an iOS developer so I won't get confused by a lot of things in the toolchain).
I'm getting more confident with the concepts behind game loop, how to split a game into modules and objects, and so on.

THE QUESTION : What effort a coder should put in the graphics of its game? (I told you it was silly :D )
I've seen a lot of indie game devs profiles, and a lot of them where focusing on art and programming at the same time. Even if I have a pretty decent taste, I have to train hard and learn a lot to produce some decent graphical resource, and even if there is a part of me which would be very happy to start drawing stuff in the spare time, I have to face the reality: it takes away a lot of time that I could spend, otherwise, on coding.

I'm here to ask what is your opinion about it, if a coder should be even the art maker, or if a team is mandatory.

Thanks a lot for reading this wall of text :D I'd be very glad to read your thoughts and suggestions about anything.

[clockwrk_routine]

talking from experience it's good to focus on one side of the spectrum and find others doing the opposite to work with.  though it's good to train in multiple things.

from what I know, as just a programmer it can be pretty hard to find an artist to collaborate with if you don't have something really interesting to show, or games under your belt.  unless you can of course support them a little.

each part of gamedev involves so much time, that going solo means you'll probably end up neglecting huge areas of the game itself, such as design, which is probably the worse possible position.

Though as a programmer, you can still make a slick game, with minimal time spent doing graphics.  You just need to find a style that's minimal, maybe not minimal, but one that is easy to produce but looks interesting enough.  Like really low poly stuff that has a great color scheme is easy to pull off if you know how to work with colors enough.  Katamari Damacy for instance, but you can get even simpler.

Solo also means you're just going to have to learn to limit your scope and find satisfactory levels in the other areas of gamedev and try not to go any further - out of necessity.  Design should always be your biggest focus, then whatever you are good at, focusing on anything more than what you're comfortable with will just take away from design imo. 

Yea always keep room to think about design.

[Muz]

I think it's more that if you want to see something done, do whatever it takes. You see people starting businesses where they play the accountant, technician, salesperson, etc. Same goes for indie - code and art are both vital. If you can't find someone do all of it yourself until you prove to someone else that you're serious.

Ideally, in any industry, everything runs without you. You'd want redudancy in any kind of industry. A coder or artist quits, the game doesn't get shut down because of redundancy. That's how non-indie games are built. Also by building this, you open your doors to selling off your IP.

But indie studios don't live in such an ideal world. So people have to take on several roles.

Also it's a very good idea to learn how everyone else does things. If you're going to take a manager role, it's important to know how the art works too.

[crumpet]

Art's a great thing to learn. It's also quite hard.

I've seen several cases of programmers turned artists, and honestly I think that's a great way to go. You start out making games with a very simple aesthetic (very pixelised graphics, only use 4 colours, etc...), allowing you to make simple graphics. Who knows, it might also bring about some great new ideas to your game. Do this enough and you'll find yourself slowly but surely getting better, you can remove limitations, and you'll eventually be good enough at art that you can make a game that stands up on its own.

If you don't want to make your own art, that gets harder. If you have a friend or acquaintance with some art skills, you might be able to get them to work for you, but unless you have quite a killer prototype, you're going to have a hard time convincing anyone to work with you.

So unless you right away want to make your first "Big project" (which you really shouldn't, as you no doubt know ), do your own art. Put limitations on your art: for example, work only in black and white (not even greyscale, just pure black and pure white), doing simple blocky retro graphics. Work your way up. It's worked out fine for a lot of devs I know, it works fine for me. Being kind of good at art is useful even if you have an artist on your team; you can sketches to help convey your vision to them. Art is a skill that it can rarely hurt to have. You're learning to work in a new environment, so it's a perfect time to learn how to do art.
So learn how to do art

[Gregg Williams]

The best position to be in, IMO is to have a partner that is an artist.

Second best, is to just pay an artist.

There are of course awesome folks out there that do both, and even to pretty decent levels, but usually those levels are less than what you would get with a dedicated person, or they come at huge time sinks. Like a two year project for a single dev, and a single artist, suddenly becoming a six year project for a single person, that is likely still gonna be of lesser quality.

Depending on how controlling you are, and how much financial room you have to play with, hiring an artist might be better than having a partner as an artist.

[crumpet]

It's great to have an artist, but IMHO that's only good once you think a certain project is going to be big.

No point involving anyone in a project you'll be dropping a day later. Make sure you're quite into a project before you bring anyone else in with you (generally advice I think holds true for more than just artists...)

[Gregg Williams]

It's great to have an artist, but IMHO that's only good once you think a certain project is going to be big.

No point involving anyone in a project you'll be dropping a day later. Make sure you're quite into a project before you bring anyone else in with you (generally advice I think holds true for more than just artists...)

Yes, this is very good advice. Don't be like my early days and spend tens of thousands of dollars on art assets, for projects that got canned.

[EasterlyArt]

I'm more or less going to re-iterate what everyone else has said, but short and sweet.

A) Programmer/coder should focus more on making the game work and have structure and leave the visuals to the artist.

B) If you choose to make your own graphics & program, make it simple enough that you can finish your game.

Now I have yet to finish a game, have already had some friends drop out on one project, and some others buddies let me join in on theirs. I can say, however, as an artist it makes me excited knowing that the programmer has a good idea how they want the game to play and has a jank looking (visually bad) build that plays well. Have something to show! In the instance where both programmer and artist work together to create a game: learn to compromise (really important), don't sweat the small stuff, be organized and timely, provide constructive critiques to work that gets done (don't just say you don't like how something looks), keep on track and move forward.

Progress is a huge motivator, more than neat ideas and concepts that stay on paper or in text documents.

"Just keep your mind on the shit you want and off that fucking shit you don't".
 — Jimmy Boyes

[i_mush]

ok guys, thank you all for your answers.
As far as I can understand now, It's better I trust my sense and just start making out something :D!
I've decided to start by whiteboxing my game and in the meanwhie, try to make some very simple and minimal art, so I can focus on both things with a certain degree of flexibility.

[Jherin]

To me, I think cross-pollination is hugely beneficial to your growth as a developer. Any new skill or discipline you learn should influence your work in another and only makes your work more unique. I'm an artist and designer who dabbles in code and music, amongst other things. Some of my interaction design teachers often talk about what they like to call a "T-shaped designer". A T-shaped designer is both a specialist and a generalist, with one skill that they pursue primarily, but not exclusively, while being proficient in other skills/positions relevant to your work. I think it's important to be a little bit of a jack of all trades, as long as there's some relevance to your own work and the work of the people you're working with, while maintaining some specialty or expertise in one thing.I think this approach has been extremely helpful to me, and I'd recommend it to anyone else looking to grow as a developer.

[Udderdude]

Acquiring multiple skill sets is definitely one of the better things you can do to improve as a small team/solo developer.

[feminazi]

uh, i do both gfx and programming, but also i was fortunate enough to have grinded out that stuff as a kid. if you don't have the time, either pay someone to do the art for you or just learn it as you go. also you don't have to actually learn to draw, learn to make the art that's required for your game. not a lot of game artists know how to draw anyway.

[ink.inc]

grinded

good word

[feminazi]

idgi

[ink.inc]

i mean to say that it can definitely feel like a grind some times haha

[Muz]

It is a grind. You need at least a few months working on stuff and failing. Heh, I grinded out my project management skills as a kid so I'm happy hiring someone to do everything.

[oodavid]

i_mush - I'm in a similar boat, a boat manned by programmers unproven in game development with acetone for fingers - any art I touch will become ruined by my ketone sweat. Try to make it easy for yourself and realise that if you make a game with coder graphics that people want to play, you're onto a winner! Take a look at Super Smash Ball, a great example of a game that I want to see finished and is fun with the coder graphics!

Don't worry about game development being any different to other software projects; there's a g'dozen traits that are interoperable - time management, planning, iteration, good programming practices, feedback etc. etc. the only things that's really different is the product.

[Conker534]

I say make your own art and code, because it is not mandatory to have a team.

For example, my game is being created only by me, so I'm doing the sound, gameplay, and artwork for it. I'm leveling up all those skills as I go along, and I'm glad I never paid anyone to code for me/do art for me, because I wouldn't have grown along the path.

Also I can't draw for shit, but I think I can make some okay pixel art.

Maybe in 5 years I'll be even better.

[Julien]

Hmm very different advises here 

[Conker534]

Also you will improve as long as you keep outputting art work. I'm one of the slowest artists I know when it comes to growth, but I still improve every day that I make things.

For example,

This is one of my first pixel art pieces I've ever done, its awful. But if you look at any of my games, you can tell I've improved a lot.

Also if you have the time, I suggest you head over to a pixel art forum, or study games that inspire you, and really study the art. Copy it, reference it, all of that stuff. You'll learn more if you copy other artists. I learned a lot from doing that.

Good luck!