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[Eclipse]

well i prefer well done "toon" 3d to pixel art myself 

kiddies prefer 3d because in modern games, it just looks better. And because they are born in the 3d games era

[Guillaume]

Pokémon came in pixel art, and it kicked serious butt.

Definitely. Because Pokemon is an AWESOME game. If it had had crappy game mechanics with the same graphics, kids would have hated it.

In the end, it doesn't matter- that whole "kids like realistic graphics" argument is flawed to the core.

[darthlupi]

It's my experience that most people enjoy games more when they are easy to understand what is happening in the game and children are just little people without as many environmentally induced filters. 

I haven't played many games with kids where the graphics got them as excited as their ability to do "cool" things in it.

If they know that button a OBVIOUSLY makes this happen and you are able to convey that with your chosen art style then you are a rocking.

I would focus more on the accessibility and the feedback from the game.  From my experiences with chillins you have to constantly engage them with new little experiences.  They haven't had the terrible burden of patience thrust as completely through their souls yet. 

Work on the game, and quietly watch as some little ones play it.

[Anthony Flack]

My daughter is nearly 6. She really likes cartoons, much more than boring "realistic" TV. She is generally more interested in 2d games because they are more graphic and cartoon-like, more appealing, easier to grasp etc.

Kirby on the NES is a really good game for that age group. She also *completed* the Kirby game on the original Gameboy, in all its monochromatic glory. Pretty impressive given her usual attention span.

She also has been hooked on playing Sonic on the Megadrive/Genesis, Donald Duck on the Game Gear, and Bonk and Jackie Chan on the PC Engine/Turbografix. She's a platform gamer

She has shown no interest in any realistic-looking 3d game.

[inkBot]

Given the sheer amount of kids (around 11) joining up on the various pixel art forums, the notion that kids do not like pixel art is simply untrue. Add to that the fact that a considerable amount of games on the DS contain pixel art.

Kids will like games with good pixel art, kids will also like games with good 3D graphics.

Like all things, it really depends on the kid in question.

kind of pissed me of.

I mean... it's bleeping Contra!

[Anthony Flack]

I get the impression the kid didn't much appreciate being lectured about Contra by a smug older dude.

[inkBot]

Well yeah maybe. But when the guy asked about the graphics the only thing the kid said was that their heads didn't explode like in Call of Duty. 

Listening to it again I don't really agree that the guy was lecturing him on it. Maybe it got a bit touchy with the fanboy comment, but hey, if you say Halo enough times (can't help it, love that smiley)

[Anthony Flack]

Well, he certainly seemed to be mocking the kid for not liking Contra. But not everybody has to like Contra!

Meanwhile, my daughter has arrived and the first thing she asked to do was put Kirby back on so she can finish it. So once again, in our case the 8-bit consoles have proved to be the favourite. It's not about the graphics (I don't think that she has even really noticed the different hardware generations), it's the style of game.

[moonmagic]

To be fair, playing Contra by yourself when you are used to playing newer games is kind of brutal. I don't think that guy was lecturing him that much; he was maybe asking him some rather leading questions. Maybe asking him what his favorite / least favorite part of the game was would have been better.

Aside from the bosses, I consider most of Contra's sprites on the good side of serviceable. Kirby and Super Mario 3 do a better job at showing off the NES's capabilities.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Contra has pretty boring looking artwork. Play something like Metal Slug and you'll get a more effective response. I'm not a fan of Contra either, as I never played it back in the day.

Games like Kirby do an awesome job with the limitations of the NES. There's nothing missing in what Kirby is trying to present. Contra on the other hand just looks silly now because it's trying to be semi-realistic in its art direction.

I think Pokemon and Kirby are perfect examples of pixel art done well and in a manner that's so appealing that it's not even an issue.

[inkBot]

True Contra isn't the prettiest game on the NES. If that kid had been showed Metal Slug, he would probably have liked it. A guy at my previous job had a Metal Slug cabinet. Envy!   

[moonmagic]

Although maybe using a run-and-gun as a "hey, do you know about older games? Halo 3 suxxx!!" vehicle is a little flawed, due to the patience the typical run-and-gun demands of the player.

Metal Slug is great, but they still require precise playing to get through in any kind of fashion.

Obscenely detailed pixel art for the resolution, though.

[etoothy]

I think that most people outside of games think of pixel art as a childish thing.

I really doubt that to be true, but I can see how it can be associated with.

In my area, (southern california) there is an event named I am 8 Bit, celebrating art that comes from videogames. There is one piece that caught my attention and its the excite bike piece, as it blends 2D design with 3D shapes. I believe this bridges the gap between both aesthetics and it can be celebrated by everyone who is into games!

(Also, hello everyone! First post.)

[Hempuli‽]

I think that most people outside of games think of pixel art as a childish thing.

I really doubt that to be true, but I can see how it can be associated with.

In my area, (southern california) there is an event named I am 8 Bit, celebrating art that comes from videogames. There is one piece that caught my attention and its the excite bike piece, as it blends 2D design with 3D shapes. I believe this bridges the gap between both aesthetics and it can be celebrated by everyone who is into games!

(Also, hello everyone! First post.)

Good manbaby post! But remember to introduce yourself in the Obligatory Introducion Thread found in the General category!

I have nothing to say to this. I guess I enjoyed graphics that were cartoony but not very 'retro'. For example I really loved the graphics of Super Mario World.

[Zaphos]

Google thinks i am 8-bit is malware ... 

[Corpus]

the majority of what people call "pixel art", including most of the stuff in that 'show me some of your pixel art' thread, is incompetent and lackluster, and would be shameful to appear in a commercial game, even in the snes era. because pixel art is often used as a way to disguise poor art skills, people who are actually good at it are rare. i mean, there's a difference between:

We seem to be looking at profoundly different 'show me your pixel art' threads.

[Eclipse]

i think i've to agree with paul, today we all love to do 8bittish stuff, or characters that barely resemble Atari 2600 things, but in that era artists were all struggling to achieve more colors and to work with bigger and bigger sprites. They wanted to hide blocky pixels, trying to do graphics specificately for CRT screens.

this is what i call awesome pixel art (both snes games)




And i don't remember any indie game even near to this stuff...

minimal pixel art is a great way to achieve cheap and possibly atmospheric art for a game, but it's going to be overused and it's not so artistic nor prettier than real old games

[Corpus]

The majority of the stuff posted in the pixel art thread (that is to say, over half of it) is of a high calibre - often better quality than can be found in many commercial 2D games - if you actually read it. It also tends to be of a decidedly higher resolution and colour count than anything that could be achieved with 8-bit hardware. 16-bit would usually be more accurate. This is all theoretical exaggeration and hot air with little basis in reality.

[EDIT]
Proof of my claims:










I'd quote, but it'd take too long as I'm in a hurry to get out.
[/EDIT]

As for the original topic, I think it depends on the context. Kids nowadays are used to seeing pixel art on their mobile phones and handheld consoles, but they'd probably think something was up if they got it on the Xbox 360 or PS3.

I remember playing Full Throttle when I was a kid, and, back then, I didn't even realise it was pixel art, because I hadn't seen anything else - it looked pretty realistic to me. Then again, I was 6. I don't know if this could qualify as being related in any way to this thread.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

The majority of the stuff posted in the pixel art thread (that is to say, over half of it) is of a high calibre - often better quality than can be found in many commercial 2D games - if you actually read it. It also tends to be of a decidedly higher resolution and colour count than anything that could be achieved with 8-bit hardware. 16-bit would usually be more accurate. This is all theoretical exaggeration and hot air with little basis in reality.

i think we've just different standards of high caliber. all of those examples look amateurish to me. they have good points, and the artists have potential, but they are nowhere near as polished as the stuff you see in, say, chrono trigger or ff6.

although i do disagree with eclipse when he said that *no* indie game has approached such high caliber stuff. some have, they're just the exceptions. braid has, as has aquaria. the remakes of cave story and (especially) la mulana have. there are about a half dozen other examples. even orchard-l's work (in missing, alphasix, fedora spade, and saturated dreamers) is pretty professional (that's why i like him so much). and of course konjak's games. and of course many japanese indie games are very polished (the japanese indie developers tend to focus more on graphics and presentation than western indies do, and are far better at it).

but those are the exceptions, the majority of indie games which attempt pixel art either look terrible to me, or purposefully go for a minimalist style (like knytt stories) which looks good but doesn't rely on the pixel art to carry it (instead relying on color choices and such). going through the 'top games' list on the tigs db, i'm struck by how bad the graphics for most of those games are, despite how good the games are. iji is a paradigmatic example of that trend: very amateur graphics, but wonderful gameplay.

[Eclipse]

i didn't said that they only do 8 bit stuff, even if the first one in your counter example is much more close to 8bit graphics than 16bit stuff.
about the others, i think the fox would look A LOT better in 1:1 pixels, not 2x sized.

The only one i really like is the green bug-man, but none of the above can be compared to top snes\megadrive games.

Also you're seeying that one in hi resolution, with a 320x240 fullscreen ris none of the above will look good in a commercial project, sorry.

I love pixel art, and i'd love to see hires games using pixel art, the closers are maybe Nitrome flash games.

Also i'm talking about full indie games, not much about a single character or few tiles, the vast mayority of indie platformers looks awful compared to SNES ones, just browse TIGdb.

Paul, i was referring strictly to pixel art, i love Aquaria art and i dig Braid one, still the Cave Story remake is quite ugly, as they are keeping the original palette only increasing the resolution, i'm sure that Cave Sotry WII would have looked quite average during the snes era.
La Mulana remake instead looks a lot more polished.

The only indie games featuring pixel art that really looks great are Konjak ones for me, mostly Noitu Love 2