My compliments to the artists

[Huw]

I feel compelled to post this because I keep seeing negative comments about the graphics and I just can't believe it.  Watching the videos and looking at the screenshots over the last few months, I always thought the artwork in AVWW was gorgeous.  Now, having played it myself, I'm even more enamoured.  It looks ten times better on my PC.  I think it's a really beautiful game - from the dynamic skies to the sprites (particularly the early icicle monsters) down to the lovingly-crafted inventory icons.  My compliments to the artists.

By the way I'm running at 1600x900 with everything enabled.  VSync is a must in a game with this much scrolling!

[x4000]

Thanks a ton, Huw!  The list of artists on this one is long indeed, but I've been coordinating everything and bringing it all together.  Phil and I are the only two who have done custom art specifically for this game, but there's hundreds of artists who've provided commodity art (for a fee) that I've adapted and used.

I think a lot of it boils down to taste, and especially the fact that no other game really looks like this one; for good or ill, depending on who you ask, this game doesn't really look like any other game.  Personally, I'm really pleased with how it's shaping up, too -- prior to the switch to side view I was never really satisfied with how things were coming together, but since that shift I've been really pleased with how things have just all of a sudden gelled.

And yeah, I love it with vysnc also.  The only reason it isn't on by default is because folks with weaker graphics cards will see a framerate drop that is pretty substantial from enabling that.

[PLivesey]

I wholeheartedly agree with Huw's post.  The art style is very unique in this age of realistic-esque graphics.  AVWW has a look that I consider quite a retro style (it reminds me of Turrican on the Mega Drive) but done for the modern PC.  The little touches are great, as well as the lightning.  Great job guys.

[x4000]

Thank you!

[Ozymandiaz]

Indeed, even with the few brief minutes I had today I was hery happy with how it looked.

[Nalgas]

VSync is a must in a game with this much scrolling!

As far as I'm concerned, v-sync is a must in all games.  It is not optional.  If something doesn't run well enough with it, it doesn't run well enough to play it, because I can't deal with the tearing making everything look like a mess.  I will drop the settings down to nothing before turning it off, or put off playing something for a year or two until I have better hardware.  D3DOverrider loads on boot and forces v-sync and triple buffering in all games, whether they like it or not, and that's final.  Heh.

[Huw]

Phil and I are the only two who have done custom art specifically for this game, but there's hundreds of artists who've provided commodity art (for a fee) that I've adapted and used.

Phil's still on the team?  That's great!  (Hi Phil!)

I remember when he first came on board during the development of AI War, and what an instantly fantastic effect he had on the look of the game.

[x4000]

Phil isn't working fulltime or remotely close on this game, unlike with Tidalis or AI War 2.0-3.0, but he's done all the really tough things I couldn't figure out another way to solve on my own (the workbenches, the wind shelters, the pixelart icons on the world map and all the citybuilding graphics), and he's done some big boss graphics that I've not yet implemented, too.  Among other things.

Hopefully if this takes off, he'll be able to do more with us on more of a fulltime basis.  He's currently doing a lot of projects for various other indies, as well as us.  I think he was one of many who did some for Retro City Rampage, among other titles.  Though that one might just have been Maxime, Phil's friend who did all of the CoN art.  Can't recall for sure.

But anyway, yeah, every time I run into something hard that I can't artistically solve myself or with commodity art, I give it to Phil.