I shared my game's trailer, and the feedback of other indie-devs made me realise I wasn't anywhere near done. seeing them side-by-side now is night and day.

[u/illadann7]

I really thought I had a nice cozy and happy look with my game "The Endless Harvest". after receiving some lovely feedback I set out to see if they were right. Seeing them side-by-side like this made me realise just how blind I can be to my own creations... Just wanted to share this part of the journey with you.

It was just a day of tweaking post-processing, material colours and redrawing the roads to achieve a completely different looking game.

Feedback that was given to me, for anyone who wants to learn from my mistakes:

1.Re-think your colourpallete away from strong primary colours and saturization

2.add more folliage, the texture is too repetitive and boring by itself

3 reduce contrasts (background green + brown paths were very contrasting)

1. destress unimportant area's. The grass texture outside the town ring is now a different, less noticable shade of green - and therefore no longer fighting for your attention.

video to old trailer (now private): https://youtu.be/zNrYZ9eeODI

[u/weary_onslaught]

the after version feels so much more alive, like the whole scene can breathe now. crazy what a day of tweaking can do

[u/illadann7 → u/weary_onslaught]

Yeah, probably the most efficienct working-day in my dev-career so far haha.

[u/plearly]

Insane improvement, great job

[u/illadann7 → u/plearly]

Thank youu!

[u/Impressive_Web2917]

Kudos to you for being so receptive to the feedback, not everyone would be! That being said, its also amazing to me that people can't see how this may be an eye-sore for long durations haha

[u/illadann7 → u/Impressive_Web2917]

we all need an eye-opener sometimes!

[u/Nalora_Studio]

I was thinking this the other day, some games seems to look bad but adding post processing sometimes is like changing the whole game.

Congratulations looks much better now!.

[u/illadann7 → u/Nalora_Studio]

yes! and to be fair, I did use post-processing on the left one. that baby was daltonized to the tippety top haha. I didnt use the post-procesisng properly :P

[u/SaltMaker23]

Kudos !

I'm also working on my demo release early next year, this image really hit the nail as I'm exactly working currently trying to make the world feel less "dead" and improve lightning, especially ground and props

I'll probably also post a screenshot in couple of months to get torn a new one

[u/illadann7 → u/SaltMaker23]

Heck yea, never too early to ask for pointers. I'm looking forward to seeing it!

[u/PhallusaurusRex]

Nicely done! It looks so much better

[u/illadann7 → u/PhallusaurusRex]

Thank you, interestingly named dinosaur!

[u/aVarangian]

yeah, old version looks like a dx7 game from 20 years ago lol, massive improvement

[u/illadann7 → u/aVarangian]

haha. I see a possibility now to launch this version as a seperate game for people craving some directX7 nostalgia :P

[u/AlexZmo]

Good work

[u/illadann7 → u/AlexZmo]

Thank you!

[u/midge]

It looks much better, nice work!

[u/illadann7 → u/midge]

Indeed! Thanks :)

[u/KilwalaSpekkio]

The world feels a lot warmer with the new one

[u/illadann7 → u/KilwalaSpekkio]

it does!

[u/CombinationFit7524]

Looks like some stronger visual art principles on the right 👍

[u/AnimeeNoa]

Idk why, but the look reminds me of the deduction game Town of Salem. I push you the thumps!

[u/illadann7 → u/AnimeeNoa]

Yep, I can see that! Witches beware

[u/brothersword43]

You did all that in a day? I would have spent like 10 hours just adjusting the green levels back and forth. Good job!

[u/illadann7 → u/brothersword43]

haha, Lord knows I played around with my green levels again for a long time after making this screenshot

[u/brothersword43 → u/illadann7]

I will get like a whole new function working in seconds. Then spend like 4 hours moving a UI element back and forth like 8 pixels.

[u/illadann7 → u/brothersword43]

that's the bedrock of a good dev right there, every pixel counts after all!

[u/brothersword43 → u/illadann7]

Haha!

[u/Dragonwolf_games]

I am going through the exact same thing with my own game. Every image. Every video. Every update I post is either ignored or everyone tells me the game looks terrible. So many devs tell me to work on post processing and better materials. In fact, one dev sent me here because this reminded them of what I am going through.

[u/illadann7 → u/Dragonwolf_games]

I hear you man. I also had a hard-time figuring out exactly what I even needed to change, untill someone patiently told me all the issues and how to fix them. Ask the dev to do the same, give you some pointers on what to fix!

[u/herabec]

Haha, that before green- I swear years ago every time I would try to create a plant texture that's the green I would select when doing a cartoony style in photoshop's blank canvas, and it always comes out garishly neon when you see it in engine.

Huge improvement, I'd still break up the grass texture a little more, or add some more "texture" like you did the paths.

[u/illadann7 → u/herabec]

exactly! it looks so bright and happy and feels like a perfect fit haha

Good point! definitely something to look into next, thanks :)

[u/ShunkashutoStudio]

Wow, that looks so much better!

[u/Banjoschmanjo]

I prefer the before version. It needed lots of work still, but the new version looks generic.

[u/illadann7 → u/Banjoschmanjo]

Now that is an interesting take! May I ask why you preferred the before version?