tilesets, the monsters, and the spells, because they were all drawn before the character overlaysFall under that. Your 'game' hasn't made progress. Your artbook has made progress.
Forum_account's emphasis here is not on overlays, but generally on art and icons and all of the
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F_A: I wasnt bashing yutput, i was simple pointing out the reason behind his short development phase. Of course he didn't make art his top priority.
I AM an artist. shouldn't that inevitably be my top priority? | |
Zane444 wrote:
I AM an artist. shouldn't that inevitably be my top priority? The overall focus should be gameplay, but if you're only the artist you don't have much control over it if your project's developer is spending time on other details. You can link them to this thread or find someone else to work with. BYOND has a lot of pixel artists who have wasted their time on projects that will never be finished. If I was going to do the artwork for a BYOND game, I wouldn't invest more than a few hours into it without seeing something playable. It is very easy to prototype a game using BYOND. If someone doesn't have a working game after 20 hours of work, they probably never will. Edit: Added this: F_A: I wasnt bashing yutput, i was simple pointing out the reason behind his short development phase. Of course he didn't make art his top priority. It sounds like you're saying that since the game has less detailed graphics which took less time to create, the game would naturally take less time to develop. WANO has said similar things but that's not the reason for the huge difference in development times. Epic has good graphics. It has a lot of the graphical effects that other games have (overlays, animations, projectiles, damage numbers, on-screen interface, lots of tilesets and mob icons, etc.). Some of the enemy icons are very detailed too. Graphics weren't his top priority but that doesn't mean the graphics are bad, lacking, or were neglected. Not making graphics your top priority means you won't waste time on them. That's the reason why Epic was playable after 1-2 months and other BYOND games are barely functioning after 6-12 months of development. It is not because the graphics are simpler and took less time to develop. The difference is because people who make graphics a high priority tend to waste a lot of time. You can make some icons, an interface, or a title screen, then stare at it for an hour and say "nah, I don't like it, I'll change it" and the whole time this doesn't get you any closer to having a playable game. If you make gameplay a top priority you'll scrutinize it the same way, but the difference is that you're scrutinizing a playable game. | |
Lige wrote:
Nevertheless, that comment in itself should be the start of a motivational post as it seems to be a problem the majority of BYOND users have -- from what I've seen, of course. I can't figure out exactly why this happens. I think it's because so many BYOND users develop games this way that people are inclined to go along with it. People won't think "could so many BYOND users be going about game development the wrong way?" because it seems unlikely, but it's actually true. I also think a lot of this comes from people not being sure what they want to make. Lots of BYOND users decide "I'll make an RPG" so they start to make the kinds of icons they know an RPG will need and they make the kind of interface they know an RPG would need. When it comes to implementing the gameplay that'll set their RPG apart from others they've got no ideas, so they just continue to work on those other details. Hopefully we can fix this if we lead by example. If you make a good game and develop it properly, people will notice. Right now there aren't many games like that, but the more we have the more likely it is that people will catch on. | |
Forum_account wrote:
When it comes to implementing the gameplay that'll set their RPG apart from others they've got no ideas, so they just continue to work on those other details. Do you actually have any project examples of this? It seems like you're assuming that games which take longer to develop are poorly designed for some reason. NEStalgia is the only successful game that I know of and it was in development for over a year. | |
Writing A New One wrote:
Forum_account wrote: It's not just that the games take a long time to develop. It's that even after being in development for a long time they're barely playable. If a game isn't playable early on, it's most likely because its developers don't value that (they're content to have a collection of graphics that isn't a playable game) and their "game" will never be playable. Spirit Age seems to fall into this category. Eternia did for a while (it still might). There was a project called "Twilight Herald" that was definitely this type of game. I can't tell if Teka's "Angel Falls" is this type of project. I don't think Makeii's Ederoll ever had anything playable posted. There were a few other RPGs with RPG Maker graphics I remember playing but I can't find them right now [edit: Perdita was one of them, still can't find the other]. I thought they were made by The Magic Man and Calus Corps, but they must have been made with people I often confuse with those two (I don't think Generiquest was the one I was thinking of, though given its state it could certainly fit into this category). Most of BYOND's anime games and other fangames fall into this category because it's easy for people to say "I want to make a ______ game!" and occupy themselves drawing icons without ever turning it into a real game. Basically, it's any game whose hub entry or forum posts only contains screenshots or videos of mobs standing around. Usually the mobs have clothing overlays, their names shown below them, and there's a nice looking HUD. If you're lucky there's one screenshot that has a huge graphical effect for some attack or ability, but other than that there's absolutely no sign of gameplay. If someone is going to release a full fledged RPG like Spirit Age, then it's going to take longer than a few months. Sure, anyone can have a playable game in a few weeks, but developing an actual RPG is no easy task whereby you can release it after a handful of development hours. What about Epic is not fully fledged? You want to say that Epic was made faster because it's lacking something that Spirit Age and Eternia have but that's not really the case. Those games might have more detailed graphics (even that's debatable) but that doesn't account for a difference of 6-8 months of development time. Epic wasn't made in a few months because the game is simple or lacking details, it was made quickly because the developer prioritized things correctly and didn't waste any time. | |
I think developers set their standards too high for an initial release. Your game doesn't have to be 100% finished in order for people to actually play and enjoy the game. Minecraft had nowhere near as much content as it does now when Notch first released it to the public and as far as I can tell it had no negative effect on the game whatsoever.
If you want a game that has 10 dungeons, 50 spells, and 100 enemies, that's fine, but letting people play the game at 3 dungeons, 20 spells and 30 enemies isn't going to be catastrophic. That's what updates are for. | |
Do you realize that making a "base" is needed because it cuts down the time of drawing/animating individual characters for NPC's? Using a generator, you can create a wide variety of character designs with the clothes created. It has nothing to do with anime games, but any game in general.
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The problem isn't that people make or use generic base icons that overlays can be applied to. The problem is that people focus far too much on it. Sound effects are important too, but after three months of working on a game you should have more than just a few sound effects.
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Indeed. After taking a look at Spirit Age back a few months ago, it seems like the majority of the time was spent on aesthetics - there was next to nothing gameplay wise. I think FAs point is that if he were working on a game for several months, he wouldn't have flashy UIs and awesome graphical effects but next to no gameplay.
However this could be because we have a lot more reliable artists than we do programmers. Look at how many times WANO had to make "Need A Programmer" threads for his game. It makes sense that he'd have a lot of art and no programming/gameplay if no programmer is dedicating themselves to his project. | |
It's just the fact that Icon Art is something anyone with MS Paint can pick up and be halfway decent at in a day or two. It's not something that requires a lot of experience to be good at. If you have an eye for art, then you can be a pretty decent Pixel Artist.
A lot of these developers are Icon Artists trying to fill the role of designer and programmer as well, so when it comes to actually doing the hard part, they push it off and do something they're more familiar to. Programming is just something that you have to work at for a few years to be really good at in order to shell out the quality of games that a lot of people are looking for. Although I personally don't use libraries, I do support their existence in the fact that these less experienced programmers have the more complex tools at their disposal, thanks in no small part to Forum_Account as well. It gives them the tools they need while they're still learning the language better so development isn't slowed to a crawl. So the problem indefinitely lies simply in the lack of motivation to complete a project, not necessarily a lack of skills. | |
Solomn Architect wrote:
It's just the fact that Icon Art is something anyone with MS Paint can pick up and be halfway decent at in a day or two. It's not something that requires a lot of experience to be good at. This is the most ridiculous statement I've read all day. Unless you are a some sort of well experienced artists in other mediums, a "day or two" is not even close to the amount of time it takes to become good at pixel art. Hell, even if you are, there are aspects to pixel art like color conservation, developing pallets, and perspective, that take time to master. | |
Okay, I guess you have me there. I draw digital art in Photoshop and have been doing art for years, at any rate, with research of techniques, that's about how long it took me to get fairly decent at pixel art. Mastery is not really a question of time, it's your ability to learn and apply information on the fly.
Albeit, you can't deny that pixel art is something much easier to pick up than programming. | |
I do apologize if it seemed as though I don't respect the talent of skilled pixel artists. I completely understand that to be a true master at pixel art requires a lot of experience, however I meant that getting a good start on the trade isn't quite as arduous as programming.
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Solomn Architect wrote:
I do apologize if it seemed as though I don't respect the talent of skilled pixel artists. I completely understand that to be a true master at pixel art requires a lot of experience, however I meant that getting a good start on the trade isn't quite as arduous as programming. Well I wouldn't make quite that blanket a statement. Some people who are naturally better at organizing and logical thinking might find programming much easier than pixel art. And someone with natural artistic abilities would catch on to pixel art much quicker than programming. The point is, both trades take time to get good at. I just took offense to how in your first post you made it seem like pixel art was child's play that takes a couple days for anyone to master. | |
That wasn't quite my point. There is a level of skill required, however I do feel that most developers on BYOND flock to art design because they find it easier. Another theory is that they find it a faster source of instant gratification. With programming, you'll be working for hours and hours before you finally see meaningful results of something that looks like a game. With art, you can spend 10-15 minutes on a good character base and see the results immediately afterwards.
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EmpirezTeam wrote:
However this could be because we have a lot more reliable artists than we do programmers. Look at how many times WANO had to make "Need A Programmer" threads for his game. It makes sense that he'd have a lot of art and no programming/gameplay if no programmer is dedicating themselves to his project. Most of the problem is that BYOND users give artists too much credit. If someone posts a single nicely-drawn icon everyone is impressed, even though it takes more than one icon to make a game. If a programmer posted one proc, nobody would care. BYOND does have some talented pixel artists, but I think this happens mostly because BYOND has a lot of people with no artistic talent. Because many BYOND users admit to lacking artistic ability they're more easily impressed by pretty icons. Saying that people focus on graphics too much covers up the problem that a lot of these games actually look terrible. People have gotten so used to seeing bald men in diapers standing on tile-based maps that they think that's what games are. The game with the best graphics is the one with the best looking diaper. The graphical appeal of a game depends on more than just how well made each icon is. It depends on how smoothly things move, how tile-based things look, how much depth things appear to have, and what kind of visual effects you have. There are many BYOND games with nice tilesets that you can't appreciate because your eye is just drawn to how clearly visible the grid is. There are many games with nicely drawn mobs that look great when standing still, but look terrible when moving because it's tile-based, or because they're only 4-directional and can move in 8 directions, or because their movement animation doesn't come close to syncing with their actual movement (which is usually caused by tile-based movement). There are many games with nice enemy graphics but they don't show any visual indication of damage being done and it just looks incomplete. There are many games with nice tilesets that look completely flat because there's no shading. That's not to say that the artist is at fault. Often the programmer would be responsible for the things I've mentioned. Still, I get the impression that people assume their game will be visually appealing because they paid out the nose for a pixel artist. You can take good graphics, put them together in a game, and still have it end up looking awful. Luckily, you can do the opposite too. Here is an example of a simple map made with very plain icons. It looks terrible. Here is the same image with shading. One single difference changes it from terrible to decent. Imagine how good the shaded image would be if it used nice looking turf icons. These details are like sound effects. When you start working on a game and it doesn't have sound effects you get used to that. You think it's fine with no sound. But then, as soon as you add sound effects, you realize that they make a *huge* difference and can't imagine how you thought the game was any good without them. | |
Well, I do enough art to know how a decent character base should be proportioned, so for me, it's more a game of regurgitating the information I already know. I generally don't have to sit around and play with it before I get something I like. At any rate, that probably does explain some of the bad quality of art from a lot of pixel artists, however I think that good art is less a factor of time, and more a factor of skill, and what level of quality you're willing to accept. It's definitely true that you only get out what you put in.
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I didn't mention overlays specifically. You and Zane444 both claimed that your games take longer to develop because of the more detailed graphics and you both mentioned overlays. I was just going along with that.
The reason you gave for Eternia taking longer to develop than Epic is that Eternia has a greater "level of aesthetic customization" but that doesn't add up. You can use placeholder graphics or re-use overlays until unique ones can be made for each item. These aesthetic details are non-functional and cannot hold up the implementation of the gameplay. The difference in graphical detail alone can't explain how one game can be completely playable after 1-2 months and another is marginally playable after 6-8 months.
Lots of BYOND users focus on graphics. What happens most of the time is that people have a rough idea for a game and make some graphics (or have them made). Once they see their base icon walking around a map they imagine how awesome the game will be. They end up falling in love with their idea of what the game will be like and this prevents them from making actual progress. In their imagination the gameplay is perfect but they don't know how to make that. Anything they implement wouldn't live up to their imagination so they don't implement the gameplay and just tinker with the interface and icons.
You're always better off starting with the gameplay. If you have an idea for what the gameplay will be like, this lets you get it playable early to see if it's fun or not. If you don't have any idea how the game will work, this approach will force you to realize that. On the surface it looks like BYOND has a lot of games that were never finished, but really, most of them were never started. There are very few projects where the developer had a clear idea for a game and simply didn't implement it all.