There’s a bit of a paradox with indie game dev.
On the one hand, art is one of the last things you want to tackle. Often at the beginning of a project things are still in flux, and it can be difficult to predict exactly what assets will be needed for the game. Any effort spent on art that is later unused is wasted time and money. Speaking of money, Art is very expensive, and often new projects simply cannot afford top level visuals.
It also takes a lot of time to find the artistic vision for a game, and you don’t want people to lose interest in your game when they see art that is still a work in progress. To quote the developer of Tooth and Tail,
“the game should look utterly [awful] until it’s absolutely amazing. People will always assume that halfway-decent programmer art is the final visual target”
But on the other hand, art is the first thing you need! When you need to get people excited about a project to support it, you need art. People may back a project based on concept art alone, but no one is going to share a screenshot of your code.
Thankfully, there are some art styles that can look good while being comparably cheap.
Super Hexagon and Geometry Wars look great using simple vector graphics that are programmed rather than drawn.
Kingdom and Hammerwatch embrace their pixel art and make it look absolutely beautiful!
Minecraft has popularized voxel graphics (essentially 3d pixels), and other games like 3d Dot Heroes show it can work for other genres as well.
For the King and Empires Apart show how far you can take a few polygons.
Unfortunately, these art styles don’t work for every game. It would be dissonant to make a super casual game that looks like Limbo, or a hardcore strategy game that looks like Flappy Bird.
Gameplay, theme, and art style: each of these should compliment the other. If BeaRPG’s theme is a teddy bear defending a child from nightmares in the dreamworld, would a voxel-based art style feel too rigid? Maybe even too playful? Wouldn’t we want things fluid, vibrant, and with a certain sense of solemnity, like Ori and the Blind Forest?
I could maybe capture that feeling using a style like Hammerwatch, but would doing so now actual detract from the game? I’ve implemented the latest version using two different art styles. Which do you think makes the best impression?
It’s nice to hear your thoughts on choosing an art style! It definitely has massive effect on perception of the game quality. As a mainly sole-dev programmer I see my options as buying bespoke art (generally pixel art as it tends to be cheaper), doing something with vectors myself (if the game is abstract) or buying from an asset store.
Yes, definitely buying art is a good solution. It does put another restriction though on what your game’s topic and theme. There isn’t a lot of game-art for sale features Australian aborigines.
What engine are you using for your book?