What's with the hate on the visuals?

[Martyn van Buren]

I just saw RPS's rather negative review, and I have to say I'm really baffled by why that website's writers and forum members are so eager to go after AVWW's visuals.  They aren't Rembrant, but especially for an Indie game I can't see how you could find them much worse than serviceable.  I quite like them, myself --- I think they suit the game and they're certainly a relief after looking at a lot of the SNES knockoff stuff worse-funded Indies often wind up with.

[junker154]

I really like the outdoor areas, they have really good sprites and backgrounds, especially the weather effects and such are great. Also some of the dungeons are really great.

Although some backgrounds especially in the dungeons and buildings look odd and do not really fit. Most of the sprites are really sharp and it can hurt on your eyes when you play for a longer period.

I generally like them but some things are simply out of place.

[TechSY730]

No idea why people don't like it.

Other than the brightness and saturation balance (discussed at length http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,10435.msg101979.html#msg101979 and on, and there is even a texture pack posted with desaturated background elements), I love the art. I know a very busy art style may be a bit off putting, but I like it. When wandering through the wilderness IRL, you expect this level of detail and "busyness" in everything, but it isn't jarring or so distracting you can't do what you need to do (or, at least I hope so. A person who finds real-life ugly and jarring would have a hard time living )

Two relatively easy to fix criticisms, and one not so easy to fix.
-"boundaries" and "borders" between stuff can seem inconsistent, like some things seem to have a sharply defined boundary or border line, and others don't
-color brightness and saturation balance, especially on background elements
-some of the tiled backgrounds are rather, well, ugly (especially noticeable indoors and in caves)

However, these are mostly "minor-ish" issues in my opinion of the art.

[Bluddy]

I wonder how much of this is related to resolution. Could everyone who states whether they like the art also mention what resolution they play at?

My working theory is that the highly detailed (high contrast) sprites are really nice at the resolution I play at (around 1200x800), but perhaps get too fine-grain at higher resolutions, causing eyestrain.

Some of the interior background tiles are definitely ugly though.

[Professor Paul1290]

I don't really think they hated the look of the game at all. I don't think "charmingly ugly" is a bad thing coming from Jim.

I think his comments on the game being rather repetitious are more relevant in this case.

[Bluddy]

I don't really think they hated the look of the game at all. I don't think "charmingly ugly" is a bad thing coming from Jim.

I think his comments on the game being rather repetitious are more relevant in this case.

"The visuals design of A Valley are uniquely ugly, to the point of almost being a classic of game-design strangeness."

"Those folks who are expecting an ugly game design to go with the unpleasant graphical execution will find something that is well made, just a bit incoherent."

[Huw]

This has been bugging the hell out of me for months.  Ever since the switch to side-scrolling, any time AVWW is mentioned on a gaming site it attracts criticism of the art, and I just do not get it.  The graphics are very well drawn in my opinion, and I'll take a vibrant, colourful world over something like Fallout any day.

[Aklyon]

Its been bugging me as much as Huw as well.

[Professor Paul1290]

"The visuals design of A Valley are uniquely ugly, to the point of almost being a classic of game-design strangeness."

"Those folks who are expecting an ugly game design to go with the unpleasant graphical execution will find something that is well made, just a bit incoherent."

I guess I forgot about that by the time I finished reading it.

[Misery]

This has been bugging the hell out of me for months.  Ever since the switch to side-scrolling, any time AVWW is mentioned on a gaming site it attracts criticism of the art, and I just do not get it.  The graphics are very well drawn in my opinion, and I'll take a vibrant, colourful world over something like Fallout any day.

I agree.

It just baffles me how, with something like this, people complain, but they'll go play something like Fallout 3, which, honestly, is ugly and brown, and praise it as if it's this artistic masterpiece.

[Coppermantis]

Agreed. I think AVWW is one of the prettier games I've played. I think that people are confusing "good graphics" with the modern Triple-A quadrillion dollar game engines you see in games like Battlefield and CoD. Of course, some people aren't doing that, but I think that AVWW is suffering like Minecraft is--Although a lot of people find the aesthetic pretty, many more say "Eww, low-res textures." or whatever.


There is one interior background that I dislike though. It just tiles poorly, it's a greyish thing with a hole in it revealing computer chip-esque backing. It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't just repeat over and over. There is also the issue of the missile launchers in JtP missions. Seeing these tall things sticking out inside residential areas, especially when they spawn halfway off an edge is very unappealing. I understand they're there to prevent bat scroll cheese, but I think it would be better to just prevent that scroll from being used and call it good. After all, Battlefield missions prevent spells from penetrating. However, these two issues are very minor, so they shouldn't be affecting people's opinions as a whole.


The most common complaint I see is the "models don't work together" one. I simply don't know how to respond other than that I do not agree at all and think that the models are great.

[junker154]

The graphics of Fallout might be dated and have low-resolutions. But the sprites and all the textures have a style which matches the whole game and it does look great.

Well it is a thing of preference, but I do not like all crazy colours matched together.

[freykin]

Bluddy, I'm at 1600x900, and the game's art looks beautiful to me. I've liked the art from the beginning, though.

[Professor Paul1290]

In any case, I would be careful about being too quick to dismiss the article, because it does say quite a bit of how a lot of people see the game when they first come in.

[Conductorbosh]

The visual style definitely turned me off at first, though it's grown on me since then. I actually like the art now, but the animations are quite bad. Most enemies in the game, as well as the player character, are pretty static, and the animations that do exist are pretty sloppy.