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[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

What! I only found one poster so far. Those things are really hard to find.

[Akhel]

I find it rather stupid that some posters can only be found in Normal mode. I finished the game in Hard Mode, now I'm aiming for a minimum-kill run on Extreme... why should I be forced to play on an easier, less exciting mode just to find them?

[Melly]

I find it rather stupid that some posters can only be found in Normal mode. I finished the game in Hard Mode, now I'm aiming for a minimum-kill run on Extreme... why should I be forced to play on an easier, less exciting mode just to find them?

Are you sure it's that way? I haven't finished it, but if that's the case then it's an issue.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I suspect it's due to getting lesser points to upgrade with in other modes, and you probably need all the points used toward crack and strength in order to get access to all the areas in the game.

But sure, every game has small mistakes here and there, I don't think this is a major problem. Any more than, say, all the slowdown you get in the final battle. I can live with such things.

[muku]

Actually I disagree with the idea of talent. I don't think there's any type of inborn artistic talent that some people have and others don't. I mean, I'm sure genetics matters to some degree, but I think it's not as important as most people believe. It's easy to say that something is a talent, but most good artists argue with that, they know that it's mostly their hard work. Usually it's really annoying to someone who is considered a good artist to say that it's just "talent" because they know how much hard work went into getting to be as good as they are, and saying it's just talent implies that they aren't responsible for how good they are, that it's just an accident of birth.

Oh but you need both, talent and hard work, to excel in some field. (Incidentally I don't think talent has as much to do with genetics as with upbringing, but it doesn't matter, these are still things you can't really change after the fact.)

And even if you insist that it's all just practice, then my point still holds: it would take the common not-so-artistically-adept person years (at least) to become really good at it, and those are years in which one a) could have made one or more games with worse graphics, but which are overall better, and b) could lose interest in the project at hand completely because perfecting one's art seems so overwhelming.

See, life is finite, and you can't be a master of all trades. I'm sure you have some sort of weakness in at least one game-related discipline; now, when you put out a game into which you have put years of your life and all your passion and then someone points a finger at that specific weakness (of which you are well aware) and says "You should have put more effort into that!", would you think that's fair?

[Valter]

Kao: It's not like you aren't allowed access to the poster areas in harder difficulties. It's just that you don't have enough points to get them all, like RinkuHero said. For some of them, you need to have your tazen, kotero, crack, and strength all maxed out; this would be pretty much impossible on extreme, and even on hard for the early levels. A lot of the posters just require proper point management, which you don't have on later difficulties. I think it would be possible to get them all on hard mode, though, as long as you got every single supercharge.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Oh but you need both, talent and hard work, to excel in some field. (Incidentally I don't think talent has as much to do with genetics as with upbringing, but it doesn't matter, these are still things you can't really change after the fact.)

And even if you insist that it's all just practice, then my point still holds: it would take the common not-so-artistically-adept person years (at least) to become really good at it, and those are years in which one a) could have made one or more games with worse graphics, but which are overall better, and b) could lose interest in the project at hand completely because perfecting one's art seems so overwhelming.

See, life is finite, and you can't be a master of all trades. I'm sure you have some sort of weakness in at least one game-related discipline; now, when you put out a game into which you have put years of your life and all your passion and then someone points a finger at that specific weakness (of which you are well aware) and says "You should have put more effort into that!", would you think that's fair?

But I wasn't saying that the graphics should be better. I'm just saying they're not as good as those in Out of This World. Where did I say they should be better?

[Cheater‽]

You guys are MAINSTREAM.

[GregWS]

Oh but you need both, talent and hard work, to excel in some field. (Incidentally I don't think talent has as much to do with genetics as with upbringing, but it doesn't matter, these are still things you can't really change after the fact.)

And even if you insist that it's all just practice, then my point still holds: it would take the common not-so-artistically-adept person years (at least) to become really good at it, and those are years in which one a) could have made one or more games with worse graphics, but which are overall better, and b) could lose interest in the project at hand completely because perfecting one's art seems so overwhelming.

See, life is finite, and you can't be a master of all trades. I'm sure you have some sort of weakness in at least one game-related discipline; now, when you put out a game into which you have put years of your life and all your passion and then someone points a finger at that specific weakness (of which you are well aware) and says "You should have put more effort into that!", would you think that's fair?

I completely agree.  The graphics did/do bug me, but I'd never accuse him of not trying.  I probably couldn't have even created graphics at that level.  Now, that said, I've remedied this problem by playing to my strengths and sticking to three things I can handle: pixel art, pre-rendered models in SketchUp, and scanned sketches I've done (colour pens).  I'm sure someone won't like a game of mine because of that, but whatever, it's what I can do.  I'm certainly not criticizing his graphics outright, I'm just not a huge fan of vector-y looking stuff (or actual vectors).  There are exceptions of course, but yeah.

Oh, and he used the "Up" key as jump.  That is unacceptable!!!  I won't even accept that from Smash Bros.!  Given that this is indie, he should just quickly make that key mappable or set it to something else for v1.1 or something.  Then I'll definitely give it a second try regardless of the graphics.

[Valter]

I completely agree.  The graphics did/do bug me, but I'd never accuse him of not trying.  I probably couldn't have even created graphics at that level.  Now, that said, I've remedied this problem by playing to my strengths and sticking to three things I can handle: pixel art, pre-rendered models in SketchUp, and scanned sketches I've done (colour pens).  I'm sure someone won't like a game of mine because of that, but whatever, it's what I can do.  I'm certainly not criticizing his graphics outright, I'm just not a huge fan of vector-y looking stuff (or actual vectors).  There are exceptions of course, but yeah.

Oh, and he used the "Up" key as jump.  That is unacceptable!!!  I won't even accept that from Smash Bros.!  Given that this is indie, he should just quickly make that key mappable or set it to something else for v1.1 or something.  Then I'll definitely give it a second try regardless of the graphics.

Uh, how much of this did you play? Using the up button for jump is bad only when you have lots of things you need to do in mid-air. However, shooting is disabled while you jump. In fact, jumping is so not important that complaining about it just wastes more time than learning how to use one hand to jump and move around, instead of two. Big deal.

[muku]

But I wasn't saying that the graphics should be better. I'm just saying they're not as good as those in Out of This World. Where did I say they should be better?

Okay, you didn't. You said

I love this game, certainly the best indie game of the year so far, but, I agree that its graphics aren't the best.

and you also said that (seemingly) in response to some posts which complained about the graphics. Forgive me if my conclusion was presumptuous

You also said

Out of This World clearly had much more effort put into the graphics

which to me seemed to imply that you think Iji could have had much better graphics, but Daniel just didn't want to make the effort.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I didn't mean he didn't want to make the effort, but I did mean that it could have had better graphics if he put more effort into it. I don't think anyone would disagree that if you put more effort into something, it generally becomes better. I'm sure even he would agree that he didn't put most of his effort into the graphics. I didn't mean that he was too lazy, I just meant that the graphics didn't have as much effort put into them as games with better graphics.

What I would have done in his position is get someone else to help me with the graphics. If I'm not good at something, and don't have time to improve it, I get someone who is better than me to do it. He did with the music, and that turned out pretty well.

I do think it's kind of a shame that the graphics are the way they are, because it means the audience will be limited to those people who give the game a chance despite the screenshots. Screenshots really matter in deciding to download something. A lot. When I saw the game up at first here and on Tim's blog, I didn't download the game. It was only until I saw a lot of positive comments on it that I gave it a chance. And I'm happy I did.

[Akhel]

Kao: It's not like you aren't allowed access to the poster areas in harder difficulties. It's just that you don't have enough points to get them all, like RinkuHero said. For some of them, you need to have your tazen, kotero, crack, and strength all maxed out; this would be pretty much impossible on extreme, and even on hard for the early levels. A lot of the posters just require proper point management, which you don't have on later difficulties. I think it would be possible to get them all on hard mode, though, as long as you got every single supercharge.

The game itself says it's not possible to get some if not on Normal. Wanna check? Go to the poster viewer and press Enter.

Forcing the player to play on a higher difficulty level is a challenge; forcing him to play on a lower one is a design flaw.

But don't get me wrong! I loved this game and I want more.

[Akhel]

By the way, did you guys see this?

And can't someone rename this thread to something more related?

[Seth]

Well I guess I'll give this a shot despite the graphics, you guys convinced me.  It just seems so lacking in style and atmosphere.

[Akhel]

To everyone complaining about graphics:



Enjoy your suck.

[Inane]

I love this game :D.
Beat it, and found one poster so far.

[Akhel]

I love this game :D.
Beat it, and found one poster so far.

For a moment I thought you meant Crysis... :D

[Melly]

I found that the graphics kind of 'grew' on me. I guess that's because I like so much more about the rest of the game that I get accostumed with the sprites. And it was only really the drawn sprites and cutscene pictures that might have bothered me, cause the level tiles, despite simple, were pretty well done (though I felt they became repetitive after a while, mostly just recolored from sector to sector. I did like some of the more subtle effects, though.

Also, Crysys poster are so very rare. They unlock new ways to work your processor into bloody tears with more unoptimized code.

[Valter]

By the way, did you guys see this?

And can't someone rename this thread to something more related?

Oh. My. God. Yes.