[FILLED] Looking for artist(s) to develop new style for A Valley Without Wind.

[goodgimp]

As far as looks and aesthetics go, the latest is my favorite. I saw the screenshot and the wasp and I immediately wanted to play that game. I think Darren looks really good, the background is very atmospheric and definitely has me feeling like I'm playing after an apocalypse, and the wasp is just ten kinds of awesome.

I don't know what the costs are, or how the communication is, or all the other factors that go into it, but as far as looks go that one was the most striking and really grabbed me. That wasp needs to get into the game one way or the other, it looks awesome.

[Aklyon]

That one is all of the awesome. I'd say more but the other guys have mentioned most of it already.

[Nanashi]

@Misery:
The argument was a deeply personal debate between contrasting matters of opinion and aesthetics.

I get very sensitive around dismissing the importance of artists and artwork because I'm quite personally familiar with the amount of effort it takes (even if I do not personally do art for a living) to do good art, and it was not perhaps the best argument to intervene in as I interpreted the intrusion as a hostile act.

You, Misery, were taking sides in a personal debate. If you do so, you should usually expect some resentment at your intervention. I do not dislike you. (edit: I just realised I omitted a personal apology for possibly hurting your emotions, but the best I can do is an expression of regret that it happened. I can apologise for my personal deficiencies though - a much wiser person than I would probably not have done that.)

When I see statements such as "I wish most people didn't care about looks so much", I tend to interpret it as an attack on the majority of people having shallow tastes, which links directly into my "sophomorism alarm" conditioned response (Why should everyone think the same way that you do?).

Everyone is entitled to an opinion about what they think is important in a videogame, but I draw the line at denigrating other peoples' tastes as a form of insidious elitism. People are persons, not statistics.

As a result, I voluntarily removed myself from the discussion for the next day to stabilise my emotions as I took the criticism about swearing rather personally - I don't swear at people to make them feel bad (Saying "bloody games" with reference to games which are anything but bad is not a personal attack.), but I was starting to use a personally unacceptable amount of overbearing sarcasm (which is the lowest form of wit and quite hypocritical when used against sophomorism).

It was getting very unconstructive, so I'm not going to speak any more about this matter as I refuse to bring myself down to the level of petty bickering I think Ulrox is ultimately trying to goad me into - Exactly how do you think I'd react to your reply about my making "flamebaits"? Do you actually think about consequences or are you just trying to be malicious? I think the answer is pretty obvious.

--------------

Getting back to the topic - there's been a bit of news about chucklefish doing a very similar Terraria/AVWWish experiment recently which lends some food for thought:
http://playstarbound.com/about/

It's a little different from AVWW, but I was actually thinking that the vision of social interactivity they have for the game is rather interesting:
"each and every planet has unique coordinates in the Universe that you can share online, so other players can check out exactly what you found!"

Of course, it remains to be seen if it'll actually deliver on the premise (I withold judgment), but that's definitely something that would drive me to talk about the game with friends. Exploration really isn't much fun without the ability to share discoveries.

[Coppermantis]

It's a forum, people are going to contribute to discussions whether you like it or not. I do personally stand on the side of Music>Graphics but I don't feel like anyone here has insulted the profession of Artist. I read the original post and all it said to me was that a game with good music and atmosphere can make up for poor graphics but some people only judge a game by graphics. Even an artist should know that a game should not only be judged by looks alone, and if a good game is dismissed because it looks sub-par that is indeed sad. Atmosphere is also an important part of Ulrox's comment, as graphics =/= atmosphere. VVVVV, Super Meat Boy, Minecraft and Cave Story for example have pretty low GRAPHICS quality but they certainly look good and have a nice artstyle.

I understand your point but I do think that you're overreacting. No where did Ulrox say that he doesn't like people who prefer graphics to music, to me it just seems like he was making the point of a game that is dismissed for looks alone is unfortunate.

Please note that if Ulrox actually did mean what you've inferred, then I stand corrected. I'll let him have the final word on what he intended.

Sorry if this is convoluted and hard to read, It's late and I'm tired.  No more need for hostilities, let's just have a civilized discussion about Valley's art shall we?




ANYWAYS.

That Starbound game looks neat and I do also like that coordinate system. It seems like a cross between a MMO like World of Warcraft and a procedurally-generated game like Valley or Minecraft in that you're not all necessarily playing in the same simultaneous world but planets are synced so you can visit what others have seen. Wouldn't work for Valley without heavy modification but a neat concept. The Art Style looks reminiscent of the original G work.

Speaking of which, why are they being called G, H and K? Is it just for organization's sake or are their names being withheld on purpose? Or, and this is unlikely, are they actually called G, H and K?

[Misery]

@Misery:
The argument was a deeply personal debate between contrasting matters of opinion and aesthetics.

I get very sensitive around dismissing the importance of artists and artwork because I'm quite personally familiar with the amount of effort it takes (even if I do not personally do art for a living) to do good art, and it was not perhaps the best argument to intervene in as I interpreted the intrusion as a hostile act.

You, Misery, were taking sides in a personal debate. If you do so, you should usually expect some resentment at your intervention. I do not dislike you. (edit: I just realised I omitted a personal apology for possibly hurting your emotions, but the best I can do is an expression of regret that it happened. I can apologise for my personal deficiencies though - a much wiser person than I would probably not have done that.)

When I see statements such as "I wish most people didn't care about looks so much", I tend to interpret it as an attack on the majority of people having shallow tastes, which links directly into my "sophomorism alarm" conditioned response (Why should everyone think the same way that you do?).

Everyone is entitled to an opinion about what they think is important in a videogame, but I draw the line at denigrating other peoples' tastes as a form of insidious elitism. People are persons, not statistics.

As a result, I voluntarily removed myself from the discussion for the next day to stabilise my emotions as I took the criticism about swearing rather personally - I don't swear at people to make them feel bad (Saying "bloody games" with reference to games which are anything but bad is not a personal attack.), but I was starting to use a personally unacceptable amount of overbearing sarcasm (which is the lowest form of wit and quite hypocritical when used against sophomorism).

It was getting very unconstructive, so I'm not going to speak any more about this matter as I refuse to bring myself down to the level of petty bickering I think Ulrox is ultimately trying to goad me into - Exactly how do you think I'd react to your reply about my making "flamebaits"? Do you actually think about consequences or are you just trying to be malicious? I think the answer is pretty obvious.

Lol, seriously, it's allright, dont worry about it.  Tempers flare on forums sometimes.  I tend to jump in mostly because I'm really rather irritable (and usually really bored, it's not a good combination, heh).

As for what I meant by "swearing",  it wasnt the word "bloody" that set it off, use that word often enough myself, hah.  Frankly, I dont remember WHAT it was.  It might not have been anything.  I'm reeeeeeaaalllly absent-minded, I'm capable of doing things like making a sandwich but forgetting the bread, so dont take things I say like that TOO seriously.    Mostly, I just wanted to calm things down before any screaming started, that's all.

But yeah, it's all fine now, no harm done!   



I agree about the artist bit though, I know someone who does art, have seen how much work it takes, so I do respect artists for their skill in that.   Cant draw worth a crap myself, really, never could.  Unless you want a pic that looks like something a cat coughed up, I can probably manage that at least!

[Nanashi]

AFAIK they're taking a different approach to the game - I think of AVWW as more of a survival-oriented mission-based game while Starbound seems to have a "screw it, let's procedurally generate everything" approach, which includes even procedurally generated monsters (http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/starbound-monster-generator.8037/) so it's more like a 2D Spore (hence you can tell people where you found strange looking monster X) and might pragmatically end up as a design/game balance nightmare.

It also doesn't seem very Diablo-inspired, unlike AVWW's enchants system. More like fooling around in Spore+Terraria.

Their approach really does show the advantages of pixel art though - it's incredibly modular and easy to generate (even someone who "can't draw" could do it) - which is something you might like to take into consideration when choosing an art style.

[Wanderer]

That's a very pretty set piece, I agree.  Take a standing model of Darren in an Abandoned town and while it wouldn't be as spooky it would, to my eyes, be equivalent, though I do like their take on the wasp, that's pretty neat lookin'.  From the reactions I guess it's better artwork though.  Then again, I've never seen the need for this entire thing anyway, so bear with me if my reactions seem strange.

EDIT: Before I get called on the carpet for that... Yes, I can tell the background is de-focused and has more detail as well, and that the cell shading and the like on the characters is more detailed.  It is *pretty*, I won't argue that.  Is it *better*?  There's so much going on there that during any type of movement it'd just be a huge purple blur to me... roughly equivalent to the big white/blue blur behind most of the environments now.[/EDIT]

My understanding, however, of a large amount of artwork complaint was the animation stiffness and integration as much as it was background and art components.  My apologies if it's lost in the pages upon pages in this thread, so someone please link me if it's there, but have any of the studios been able to provide an animated version other than the very choppy one of Darren a while back?

[Coppermantis]

AFAIK they're taking a different approach to the game - I think of AVWW as more of a survival-oriented mission-based game while Starbound seems to have a "screw it, let's procedurally generate everything" approach, which includes even procedurally generated monsters (http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/starbound-monster-generator.8037/) so it's more like a 2D Spore (hence you can tell people where you found strange looking monster X) and might pragmatically end up as a design/game balance nightmare.

It also doesn't seem very Diablo-inspired, unlike AVWW's enchants system. More like fooling around in Spore+Terraria.

Their approach really does show the advantages of pixel art though - it's incredibly modular and easy to generate (even someone who "can't draw" could do it) - which is something you might like to take into consideration when choosing an art style.

That sounds like it would be an absolute nightmare to make. Granted, I don't know much about programming but 100% procedurally generating a massive yet persistent world sounds painful.

[Misery]

That's a very pretty set piece, I agree.  Take a standing model of Darren in an Abandoned town and while it wouldn't be as spooky it would, to my eyes, be equivalent, though I do like their take on the wasp, that's pretty neat lookin'.  From the reactions I guess it's better artwork though.  Then again, I've never seen the need for this entire thing anyway, so bear with me if my reactions seem strange.

EDIT: Before I get called on the carpet for that... Yes, I can tell the background is de-focused and has more detail as well, and that the cell shading and the like on the characters is more detailed.  It is *pretty*, I won't argue that.  Is it *better*?  There's so much going on there that during any type of movement it'd just be a huge purple blur to me... roughly equivalent to the big white/blue blur behind most of the environments now.[/EDIT]

My understanding, however, of a large amount of artwork complaint was the animation stiffness and integration as much as it was background and art components.  My apologies if it's lost in the pages upon pages in this thread, so someone please link me if it's there, but have any of the studios been able to provide an animated version other than the very choppy one of Darren a while back?

I'd wondered about that as well.

Though, there were still plenty that were complaining about the art in general..... from still screenshots, and the like.

But yeah, be nice to see an animation example.




......and that Starbound game, argh.   Another game I'd love to try, but is not actually playable yet....  Always with the waiting, and I have like, negative patience.

[Ulrox]

The saddest thing I think is that a game with really good music / atmosphere always triumpfs good graphics. AI war is a very VERY good example of this. The music is so atmospherical and awesome. I really wish we as a race (humans) would care more for music and artistical integrity rather than things looking good :S

Note that I wrote artistical integrity. That also means that I want the art/graphics to be good, but different from modern warfare or battlefield etc etc. Trine 2 looks absolutely gorgeous but I doubt that they spent billions trying to make the same realistic graphics that 90% of games nowadays try to make. All of the castlevania games uses 2d art that I find to be much more gorgeous than most AAA games, and the music in those games are much more awesome than most AAA games, and the sad thing is that the amount of money it takes to create art like castlevania's isn't that much compared to AAA games.



These are good graphics for me, how much do you think that cost compared to this:

?


These kinds of discussions are ALWAYS subjective. Which means that there is always going to be some people who disagree with me, or agree with me, and we'll never come to an agreement. On top of that, I'm heavily medicated and as such I dont really care to be malicious or evil or whatever. I just want us all to get along and be pals and stuff hehehe.

Edit: I just realized that the best example I could make was world of goo

This game was made by 2 people... They made the music and art, and its one of the most gorgeous games ever made/the music rocks my socks
How many people was used to make Gears of war again?

[Nanashi]

I don't see what that has to do with anything. How many people do you think it takes to make a game soundtrack?

Touhou music is ridiculously popular, did you know it was all composed by one person? Konami has the entire Bemani series which is nothing BUT music - do you know how many artists they employ? (two). Know how many music artistes they employ?

Vanguard princess is an extremely beautiful sprite 2D fighting game and the art was completely done by ONE person, yet I don't think that anyone would say it had unappealing art. Visual quality has nothing to do with the amount of money you pour into a project nor the number of people you employ, all the games you posted above have cohesive art regardless of budget - and even that Starbound game (which is all simplistic pixel art) has a forum OOZING with people raving about the art, which is something I don't really see in AVWW.

Fact is, we don't have many threads here going on and on about how awesome the art is. The gaming world does find a slight bias towards the importance of graphics because they really are very important - none of those games above have the art style of ZZT.

Do you know how much they're paying Jeremy Soule to create yet another generic uninspired audio soundtrack without a coherent melody for every single one of the "AAA" games he scores?

Resources getting "wasted" on making graphics appealing aren't any less productive than moreso than resources getting wasted on any other factor. There's plenty of western games I've played with completely forgettable soundtracks that yet plastered "AWARD WINNING COMPOSER" on the cover (usually Soule, but not always).

The reason people prioritize graphic development over audio development is because it's a lot more difficult to force potential customers to listen to a game than it is to have them see it. That alone is why people pour so much money into graphic technology, although it obviously doesn't always pay off. It doesn't mean "graphics are less important than sound". Quite the opposite, in fact. My issue is only with your statement that seems to devalue the importance of graphics compared to sound. Realistically speaking, I beg to differ very much so (very many people play games with the sound off).

[Ulrox]

Well, I figured I'd explain my original post since people were asking for it. I dont want to derail the thread more. If you make a different thread I'll talk to you, otherwise I'll try to be on topic. Sorry.

[Nanashi]

Well, I figured I'd explain my original post since people were asking for it. I dont want to derail the thread more. If you make a different thread I'll talk to you, otherwise I'll try to be on topic. Sorry.

No, don't apologise, it's definitely partially my fault for fixating so much on one statement that was purely an opinion - and you were probably just trying to say that people waste too much money on developing 'better' modern graphics (this is usually actually just a 3D game issue), so the context was completely different.

If you were just saying that many modern games place too much emphasis on being visually stunning and completely forget the need to have an interesting or engaging soundtrack, I could not agree harder with that sentiment. I can't throw a brick in Steam without hitting a high-production modern game with music I find rather dull and insipid (no melody).

[Ulrox]

If you were just saying that many modern games place too much emphasis on being visually stunning and completely forget the need to have an interesting or engaging soundtrack, I could not agree harder with that sentiment. I can't throw a brick in Steam without hitting a high-production modern game with music I find rather dull and insipid (no melody).

Yep, its quite sad.

[tigersfan]

Speaking of which, why are they being called G, H and K? Is it just for organization's sake or are their names being withheld on purpose? Or, and this is unlikely, are they actually called G, H and K?

The names are being intentionally withheld. All three, as you might imagine, have an internet presence, and we don't want opinions formed about the stuff based on the other stuff that's out there. Only on what they do for this project.