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[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i agree, of the ones i mentioned the cave story wii version isn't the best, however, the portraits in that game (and the background-cutscenes during the ending) are pretty amazing, even if the rest isn't -- it's not amano-quality portraits (like the ones in kartia), but they're still among the better portrait art i've seen in games

i like the green bug man best of those examples too, but i still think it has one problem: it's a bit hard to tell what the heck that thing is. things should be readily distinguishable.  trees should look like trees, flowers like flowers, and bug men like bug men, you shouldn't have to guess at what a thing is

and yes, i know sometimes people purposefully go for something that you can't easily interpret in order for it to remain vague and mysterious, but i think it's best to leave that for special occasions: you don't usually want everything in your game making people go "what am i looking at??"

also, there are *elements* of pixel art in braid and aquaria, even if the whole thing isn't. as an example, the sprites in braid are pixel art, but not the backgrounds; the gui in aquaria is pixel art, but not most of the sprites (some of the smaller sprites look like they were drawn pixel by pixel though, but we'd have to ask derek)

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

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

out of curiosity, could you point out the parts in orchard-l's games which don't look professional? it might always help him improve.

[Eclipse]

out of curiosity, could you point out the parts in orchard-l's games which don't look professional? it might always help him improve.

Missing is pretty much awesome, but i'd to point that the whole game is done like an old adventure game, so even the graphics looks like that, and it fits.

Talking about Boundless Ocean, it looks like an early megadrive rpg, or like an 8bit rpg with 16bit-like graphics, the characters sprites for example have very stiff animations, like 2 frames walk cycles and stuff like that belongs more to the very first Final Fantasy games

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

boundless ocean is a bit old and i didn't mention it because it was when he was just learning pixel art -- how about his newer stuff, like saturated dreamers (the game i'm working on now)?  anything that can be improved in these?

http://pics.livejournal.com/rinku/pic/000z2rpy
http://pics.livejournal.com/rinku/pic/000z1er6

[poorwill]

n/m, don't want to get involved.

[Eclipse]

wow that looks very good

if there's something that seems strange to me in that pics is that the water looks a lot like a mirror, it's basically only a gradient and it's a bit in contrast with the fact that all the objects are pixellated and full of details, but maybe it looks different in motion.

Another thing that maybe accentuate this difference from objects and water is the fact that every object has a very bright purple tone when it blends with the water, instead they should have a darker color.

if you don't mind the quick & dirt edit:



left one is the edited one, i think it blends better with the environment, the fault of the original one was that it was shaded too bright so it pops out too much to blend with that dark water, not every detail needs always to pop out, the ripples around the stone are nice, but they don't need to be bright as the shading on the rock, it's a bit like if a painter lit his scene all the same, good painters uses brighter tones only where they want to focus the eye

It looks really awesome anyway and i'm looking foward to play it

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@poorwill: i'm not sure what you mean. "those particular examples aren't as good as the high watermark of the golden age of pixel art" is not a quote from me, i never said that, to my knowledge. what did i say that made you think i was saying something like that? i don't think comparing pixel art to art in games made in the past implies that that was a golden age. i don't think it was a golden age, they have as many bad games then as they do now.

@eclipse: hm, good point. because of technical limitations i don't think it'd be possible to shade the color similar to the water in every area, because the water color constantly changes for different areas. but your edit does look like it'd improve it a bit, will pass on the info to orchard-l. also, i'd like to experiment with water textures and effects later, but so far i haven't been able to come up with anything that looks better than a plain mirror (besides, i kind of like the idea that the lake is perfectly silent and motionless)

[poorwill]

@poorwill: i'm not sure what you mean. "those particular examples aren't as good as the high watermark of the golden age of pixel art" is not a quote from me, i never said that, to my knowledge. what did i say that made you think i was saying something like that? i don't think comparing pixel art to art in games made in the past implies that that was a golden age. i don't think it was a golden age, they have as many bad games then as they do now.

Your examples were from the SNES.  That era was the golden age of pixel art!  The last period where virtually everything was 2D and done in that style.  And of course it wasn't a quote - I was teasing you about your miserable example.  Here:  If you want to show that most of X set couldn't hang with any of Y set (a set you now just admitted is filled with garbage), you don't give examples of some of the best Y set has to offer.  It is dishonest.  And I am being polite.
But now, I'm gone - you never saw me in this thread.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

well, if your objection was just that i chose good examples rather than average examples, i could give some average examples too -- i think the pixel art posted in corpus's post is not as good as the average pixel art on the snes or ds or such, and as examples of that averageness:

[Eclipse]

so maybe just try to use a darker tone below the object, even if it's impossible to make it blend perfectly on every zone it will surely be less noticed, and the awesome objects lighting would stand more

the genesis\snes era was FULL of crappy looking games, no dubt, but as we have all of those awesome looking games of out childhoods we can surely at least try to learn something more or imitate them in a more modern or stylish manner, for example Paul's game uses a very soft palette of colors, like the one used by square in many snes games.
I think that most of the time pixel art is only used to do art fast, more than anything, i'd love to see more stuff like the screens paul posted around the forums and less minimal blocky pixel art if it fits the game, for example even if Knytt is awesome as it is, it would be astounding with art of orchard-l's quality level.


Edit: why this flame? :\ let's get the discussion from a creative point, Paul wasn't saying that all the new stuff is shit or something, only that a lot of indie developers uses pixel art as cheap way to do the game graphics instead of trying to find a compelling style. Frankly every time i see a mockup with blocky characters and 4 colors backgrounds i see a lot of entusiastic comments, and i think we're alienating ourselves. I love even space invaders graphics, but we're going too far in celebrating that sort of retro-minimalistic stuff, it alienates a lot of players for sure.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

it's an eternal problem that wanting people/games/whatever to be better than they are now conflicts with people who think what they are now is good enough -- it's kind of impossible to avoid offending people even if your attention is only to help them get better

again, i think the japanese indie scene is a good thing to examine. japanese indie games (like armjoe, visual novels, touhou games,

, and thousands of others) typically use tried and true game mechanics and don't innovate too much, but have exceptional polish, usually even better than some mainstream stuff. yume nikki was exceptional: it was an experimental game with pretty bad art, but most of them are the opposite: genre games done really well. western indies seem to have the opposite problem: they tend to make original gameplay, but are horrible at polish (increpare, as much as love his games, is a good example of this). so i'm just saying, why can't we try to do both? why not originality and polish?

[poorwill]

Okay, not gone.  Stop replying to my posts plz thx.

Paul:

And I think the stuff Corpus posted isn't the best stuff in the thread.  I think it was representative.  He could not have posted a better set of images to get a sense of the stuff in the thread.  He totally, utterly failed to stack the deck in his favour.  But I'm not going to get into a pixel beauty pageant, I'll just say there there is a lot of stuff in that thread that easily exceeds your examples in creativity, skill, and personality.  Which doesn't make a dent in your larger point - that would require a large, tiresome survey of the thread, indie pixel art in general, and retail pixel art in general.  Too much effort for me.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i didn't mean to stack the deck in my "favor", i don't see this as some type of battle. i just named the two games that popped into my head first

[poorwill]

so i'm just saying, why can't we try to do both? why not originality and polish?

Why not:  experimental games with no polish, genre games with lots of polish, and experimental games with lots of polish.  And shitty games that are worth playing to gape in awe at their badness.  
I think we can agree that would be best!  
I also think you are in a different place here from where you started.  But that's good, so yay!

[Eclipse]

yes that thread has for sure some very stylish and ace stuff, but as you said it not representative of how western indie games tends to look.
Another important point is the fact that a lot of indie games are still being made by a single person, so finding someone that's good in programming\game design and also a good artist is not an easy thing for sure.

That said, i've a bucketload of graphics to finish today! later! >.<

oh also, it's quite normal to expect an answer to a post, if you don't want people to reply to your words ...do not post them! saying "i'm gone" expecting people to stop replying and trying to have the last word over something isn't that polite

[poorwill]

oh also, it's quite normal to expect an answer to a post, if you don't want people to reply to your words ...do not post them! saying "i'm gone" expecting people to stop replying and trying to have the last word over something isn't that polite

Please understand: I typed a big long post to begin with - and then deleted it because I didn't want to get involved.  Paul saw it before I deleted it, and replied to it.  Out of politeness, I stayed around and responded as briefly and, yes, politely as I could - all the while making my intentions clear that I would rather not.  But nobody gave me permission to leave   It is rude as hell to make an offhand challenge to one's status as a gentleman - one that demands a response - when that person has made it clear, multiple times, that they really don't want to be involved in the discussion at all.  Please do not presume to lecture me on manners, sir.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Why not:  experimental games with no polish, genre games with lots of polish, and experimental games with lots of polish.  And shitty games that are worth playing to gape in awe at their badness.  
I think we can agree that would be best!  
I also think you are in a different place here from where you started.  But that's good, so yay!

that's what we have now, and if we had an equal proportion of those it'd be great, but instead we have like 25% 25% 1% 49% of those four categories instead -- i'm suggesting that the 1% needs more and the others could use less, and that polish is more important to fun than most people who make indie games give it credit for

[poorwill]

That's a dream though.  Maybe a nice dream - I'm really not sure - but just a dream.  I am not sure that there are disproportionately few games that are creative and slick, but in saying that I really don't know what I'm comparing this to.  My imaginary ideal?  Other industries/mediums?  All of human endeavour?  I don't know.  I want more slick/creative games period - I can agree on that.  I am working on one now!  But it doesn't have pixel art

[Mipe]

What are you lot rambling about? Bottom line is that children prefer smooth graphics to boxy (pixellated). That is a fact. Period. There is no denying it, no matter how many monocles you pop. Pixel art is mostly domain of nostalgic gamers and artists.

I don't see why you lot have to keep arguing for this or that, it is like arguing whether kids prefer cabbage or chocolate milk.

Seriously, this thread... 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

That's a dream though.  Maybe a nice dream - I'm really not sure - but just a dream.  I am not sure that there are disproportionately few games that are creative and slick, but in saying that I really don't know what I'm comparing this to.  My imaginary ideal?  Other industries/mediums?  All of human endeavour?  I don't know.  I want more slick/creative games period - I can agree on that.  I am working on one now!  But it doesn't have pixel art

i think the proportions are always in flux and can be changed, often by seeing examples. for instance, cave story enhanced the whole love of retro pixel art metroidvanias in the indie games community. before it was released, there was a different skew, a different dominant art style, different dominant genres. so the subculture changes organically. i think people talking to each other and making and showing examples of what is possible is one way of influencing a subculture, particularly in a subculture as small as this.