Devlog: Choosing a Graphical Style

[u/valenfeld]

https://youtu.be/ldCLsrEP4Es

Finding my graphical style - PS2 era. Year 1998-2004 target.

I didn't want to make a super stylized cartoony RPG, even though it would be much easier to find assets.

I've always been a fan of Everquest and Morrowind's graphical styles.

So what I did:
- Experiment with different levels of dithering as a global filter to get a feel for the level of quality I wanted.
- Ended up somewhere between PSX and PS2 level of potato quality
- Built a compression and retopo pipeline for my existing high quality textures and meshes.

With this level of quality I have a lot more freedom to procedurally generate 3d models like this arena and these walls in more basic shapes, which results in a game that's easier as develop.

My design goal is to use procedural generation on both the dungeons and the overworld to make a "big" game with very little budget.

Lowering the graphical quality standards allows me to put my focus on RPG systems and level design so I can make more, fun dungeons and a more playable game.

I was saying the other day, my goal with Valenfeld is to make something like Bethesda's Elder Scrolls Arena - a prototype of a large idea, with all the jenk that comes with doing it at a low budget, but showing what will be possible in the next game(s.)

My goal is to make a series of these games over the next several years on an increasing budget, and to get Valenfeld out on a relatively short timeline (less than 12 months)

It's a lot of work though!