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[Kramlack]

@moi: Could you have posted a link to Lurk's account, I couldn't find it after a basic search. It would've been nice to have had it up to check out.

@Elk: Going straight into your last point about me judging you. Your opinion comes off as more of an entitlement and ego trip (not in this thread, but in the way you post) and that's where my problem lies with you. It's like you're entitled to have other people make better art and live up to your standard of spending a year on a piece.

Excuse me, but why is everyone making like, work with 3-4 colors, and zoomed in?

Make something nice!

Using this post as an example, I really don't think I need to say anymore. You're specifically telling people to do better art or it won't look "nice" to you. You're allowed to dish it out on other people like that, but when I comment on your ego, suddenly it's too much? Get off your high horse and quit bashing (yes, bashing, I didn't see you give any c+c to Geti or the others whose art you disliked) other people.

If you want to keep this going, you can PM me but I've really derailed this topic enough with these long posts. Not that it matters, as I've said my piece, and that's all I really have to say on it. As someone who liked (and still likes) your art, if there's one thing I can't stand, it's people with a big ego. To defend myself so I don't end up coming back to this point, don't bother saying it's just me who thinks this. I like to ask around ahead of time and make sure I'm not ass-backwards when I make calls like this, and I can safely say there are definitely some others who dislike this quality of you as much as me, if not more so.

[Nix]

I don't think there's anything wrong with suggesting that people should put more work into pixel art. I think that the lofi qualities of pixel art give people an excuse to put less effort into it because it looks "good enough." Bad pixel art looks better than bad pastel art, but it still looks bad. If the goal is to treat pixel art as a good choice for programmer art (because it is), then fine. But it is unfortunate that so many games don't meet their full visual potential.

[anonymous]

ugh this topic is so controversial.  why are pixels a problem   I love them, they are all square and pointed, and when put next to eachother, they fit perfectly.  they sometimes fight with eachother, most times they get along.  leave them alone.   they are like the britney's of indies.

"Time management is very important, and the guy that posted before that even with good pixelart your game could be crap..."

I hope you don't mean me, I'm not an old dinosaur yet to even have mak'd gamz.

[Kramlack]

I think that the lofi qualities of pixel art give people an excuse to put less effort into it because it looks "good enough."

Hardly. I could argue that it's harder to do low-res stuff when you have to worry about things like readability when working with such insane restrictions. I also have issues with people who use minimalism as an excuse, but I refuse to be lumped in with them just because I like doing low-res stuff.

[InventorOfTheInternet]

Gentlemen,

It seems we got stuck in rerun mode again, I'm going to have to dust off some of the internet modules.  I deeply apologize for the inconvenience.

Yours Truly,
Al Gore

[anonymous]

we're indie right.  we consider ourselves indie right.  right.  typically we consider ourselves against the mainstream right. and the mainstream is so far beyond the pixel technology.  we like vintage.  we like the old.  we're bring it back to the fore-front.  it is hip.  it is our scene.  bit bit bloop. *50c nametag beers woot woot indie*

[1982]

Well, looking at your avatar I find it hard to take your OP seriously:
Yet you complain about majority of games using pixel art, and then you present, frankly, quite bad example of pixel art in your avatar. Might be thou it was the point. I start to feel that the problem lies not in making pixel art, but like Caruso said, making very bad pixel art. And yes I've seen a lot that here and in majority of indie games.

So what made true vintage pixel art great? It is simple, artists at that time used all the skills and technical gimmickry as possible, to represent BELIEVABLE REALITY in pixelated form. You can argue with this, but it is a fact in most cases. That makes the art unique, it should be look like somewhat real, but obviously is not because massive pixelated restrictions. Some well known examples that differentiate from this are Super Marios, Lolos, Bubble Bobble... But, if you are a game designer, you see how these games actually are not about graphics at all!

Other function for pixel art back then and now, is symbolism. I feel that really lofi graphics like 8-16 pixel sprites are more about symbolic representation, than about creating any reality. That almost always works very well because symbolism is practical and has been used throughout history. I wish to see more of that. Majority of bad pixel art fall between, not quite believable reality but not symbolic either. Good example is that avatar of yours.

And yes, it is true that its easier, faster and even more fun to make lofi pixel art than anything else. It might be about laziness, but mostly about time restrictions in small productions. And you don't have to have any drawing or other artistic skills to make practical, symbolic lofi pixel art. So it suites for plain coders too. Also software to do that, is FREE.

Artists who use 50 hours for 8x8 sprite to make it convey emotion, i'm sorry, nobody cares.  If we start to talk about hand drawn 128x128 sprites, we will need army of skilled artists to make anything great out of it. Or one autistic.

No, minimalism does not equal increased challenge.

[moi]

@moi: Could you have posted a link to Lurk's account, I couldn't find it after a basic search. It would've been nice to have had it up to check out.

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?action=profile;u=446

[eclectocrat]

Uhm, pardon my ignorance, but isn't part of being indie working the best magic you can with whatever resources you can get? It's not like all these young developers are in a bind as to whether to choose the super high-poly 3d rendered graphics or the little coloured dots. You just work with what you can manage. And it's not just an artistic choice either, it's logistical, and technical. I'm not really up to snuff with 3D graphics programming, so when I started my project I was like:

Hmm... what do I have? How can I put this together to make the game I want?

I guess I could have started learning lots of new skills and stuff, but c'mon, the deck's already stacked against the little guy, you gotta make do.

[Ego_Shiner]

i would say there's two major reasons pixelart is so prevalent in indie games
1) difficulty
it is much easier than hand drawing frames and immeasurably easier than fucking painting. once you get a good rhythm going, you can easily produce dozens of frames in mere hours, rather than the hours per frame a well painted animation would take for an amateur. On top of that, well done pixelart makes it easy to give your game an iconic style, like with cave story or noitu love 2.

2) nostalgia
this is where things get a little stupid, i admit. a lot of people like to use minimalist and, frankly, boring graphics and label it as a "tribute to NES era games", even if it plays nothing like a good NES game or has graphics anwhere near as well made. Furthermore, because of this, every game that uses pixelart gets labelled as "retro", even if its done in pixelart for the sake of time management or personal preference.

all in all, i wouldn't say pixelart is the problem. pixelart is just indicative that most indie games are made by very small, often amateur dev teams who can't afford more difficult ways of producing graphics, or just like the way pixelart looks. I would say the real problem is that, a lot of the time, people just dont consider graphics important. this means that, even if there was a different way of producing graphics that was as easy as pixelart, a lot of people would still half-ass it because "graphics are just fluff, it should be about the GAMEPLAY maannnnn"

[st33d]

Pixel art renders faster in Flash and takes less development time to manage.

[JMickle]

red hits my points entirely.

without a graphics tablet or even a mouse, drawing is a little difficult on my tiny netbook. Being able to place every pixel where i want it without having to sketch first basically makes it for me. Give me something else i'll work with it.

I do fancy trying some other style that would work, for instance doing a sketch in my notepad and taking a photo of it on my webcam and editing it in gimp to see if i can get a workable style out of it.

[s0]

And yes, it is true that its easier, faster and even more fun to make lofi pixel art than anything else. It might be about laziness, but mostly about time restrictions in small productions. And you don't have to have any drawing or other artistic skills to make practical, symbolic lofi pixel art. So it suites for plain coders too. Also software to do that, is FREE.

yeah. i use "lofi" pixel art because im a bad artist and it enables me to make decent-looking games on my own, that's all there really is to it. i'd love to work with a good artist (pixel or no) sometime in the future though.

[pixhead]

ugh this topic is so controversial.  why are pixels a problem

This is what I was trying to avoid conveying in my OP. Im not saying pixels are a problem, im just having a problem with the redundancy of everyone in the indie scene feeling a need to use it. Most people have caught on and understand that is what I meant, but to the rest of you I hope this clears things up.

Well, looking at your avatar I find it hard to take your OP seriously: ( My Avatar )
Yet you complain about majority of games using pixel art, and then you present, frankly, quite bad example of pixel art in your avatar.

(Sorry for the slight de rail in advance TIG)

I made that avatar when I first learned about the indie game scene. As I stated in my OP the reason I first got into this scene was because I enjoyed pixel art, but as time went on and I learned more about the scene I got sick of pixel art. Now I can't even imagine making a game that uses pixel art.

On top of that, well done pixelart makes it easy to give your game an iconic style, like with cave story or noitu love 2.

You raised a couple good points and im not disagreeing with you, but I think that since there is so much pixel art out there it is starting to blend. Good pixel art is nice and I do notice it; but - and I hate to say it - when I see pixel art now I almost immediatly write it off as 'just another pixel art game.' So to me the more iconic styles uses different forms of art.

[HernanZh]

You know, I think it's probably you've seen too many 'bad' or 'boring' pixel art. Because I kinda feel the same way, but on vector art. After having seen so many bad flash games and boring vector art, I've started to feel negative whenever i see any kind of vector art. I can't explain it well. Or maybe it's not the same at all, I dunno

[r0ber7]

I can spend days pixeling on one sprite. Then I see a game with a main character of a few white pixels & four frames. Then I get angry.

Well, not angry, but that's the kind of "cool retroness" I don't like. I absolutely love good pixel art though, I love it more than anything 3D. With perhaps a few exceptions.

[Ego_Shiner]

On top of that, well done pixelart makes it easy to give your game an iconic style, like with cave story or noitu love 2.

You raised a couple good points and im not disagreeing with you, but I think that since there is so much pixel art out there it is starting to blend. Good pixel art is nice and I do notice it; but - and I hate to say it - when I see pixel art now I almost immediatly write it off as 'just another pixel art game.' So to me the more iconic styles uses different forms of art.

this isn't pixelart's fault though, this is your fault. you can't judge an art style based on its medium, and you can't say that good pixelart games aren't coming out anymore when we've got shit like owlboy and the iconoclasts.

[J. R. Hill]

When I see a pixel-art-is-overused thread I immediately write it off as just another pixel-art-is-overused thread.

[pixhead]

On top of that, well done pixelart makes it easy to give your game an iconic style, like with cave story or noitu love 2.

You raised a couple good points and im not disagreeing with you, but I think that since there is so much pixel art out there it is starting to blend. Good pixel art is nice and I do notice it; but - and I hate to say it - when I see pixel art now I almost immediatly write it off as 'just another pixel art game.' So to me the more iconic styles uses different forms of art.

this isn't pixelart's fault though, this is your fault. you can't judge an art style based on its medium, and you can't say that good pixelart games aren't coming out anymore when we've got shit like owlboy and the iconoclasts.

As Ive said - too many times by now - Im not ripping on pixel art, Im not saying pixel art is bad, and im not saying that we should never use pixel art. Im asking why is it so prevalent in pixel art games, and I thought that in your OP you understood that. Now I have to get personal because I feel like no one can say their own opinion on TIG or else it's taken as them bashing it, when Im not, im just trying to spark a discussion and get some other opinions on this topic. There is plenty of good pixel art coming out, I enjoy pixel art, but one can't help but question why?

I think I should just stop posting cause pretty soon (I bet you it's already started) I will just be repeating myself.

[Theophilus]

1) It's easy

2) Bad pixel art still looks less bad than other bad art (as stated)

3) It's popular