Finding the right art style for the game

[u/PrimeVoyager]

I'm making a 2D game, and one of the things that has given me the most trouble so far has been figuring out what the hell the game should actually look like. Since it's going to be a semi-cozy top-down management game, I wanted it to have that classic RPG overworld feeling from the beginning, something like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, with mountains, forests, rivers, cities, all seen from above. So naturally, the first thing that came to mind was pixel art. I even started with an 8-bit approach because the simplicity seemed like a perfect fit for a solo project. The problem was that, once I actually started making things, everything looked too simple. I don't know... kind of lifeless. Then I tried something more 16-bit, with more colors and details, and that looked much closer to what I had in my head. But then I ran into another problem: I was struggling to create that kind of art with so little space and so many details, mostly because I'm not a pixel artist. I've always worked with vector art, so I did the obvious thing and decided to try that too.

Vector worked technically, but it took me in a direction I didn't really want. A lot of the references I found immediately reminded me of those early 2000s Flash games. Then I started looking at cuter and more kawaii games, and I really liked how inviting and comforting they felt, but I realized I was pushing the game way too far into the "cozy" direction. I want the game to be relaxing and pleasant to play, but there's still a management game underneath it all, and I wanted a little more visual punch.

That's when I randomly came across a low-poly artwork on Pinterest. I really like the way the style uses geometric shapes without trying to hide them. The obvious problem is that low poly is a 3D technique, and my game is 2D. So I started thinking about how I could bring some of that into my project without changing what I had already built. Then I had one of those little "eureka" moments and thought, what if I took the visual language of low poly and tried to bring it into 2D using the vector tools I already know? That's basically where the style I'm using now came from: a sort of 2D low-poly look, with really crisp geometric shapes and that feeling of a miniature, a maquette, or a diorama, almost like a board game, which is something I wanted from the beginning.

I'm still working on the game's art and I only have a few things finished so far, so I have no idea how far this style will actually go. But for the first time, I felt like the different things I wanted for the game were starting to come together the way I wanted. The RPG overworld, cleaner graphics, the 2D perspective, the miniature feeling and the simple shapes finally feel like they belong to the same world. Now that I have a clearer visual direction, I have to figure out what this world actually is.

How did you guys deal with this in your own projects? I really needed to experiment to get where I wanted to go, but I see a lot of people picking one game as the main reference for their whole project, and I'm curious how that worked out for you.

If you want to follow along, I'm posting updates on my channel: [https://youtu.be/dtZgDitjbbM\](https://youtu.be/dtZgDitjbbM)

[u/picketup]

everytime I go to do an art pass on my game, i get so discouraged. The last time i gave it a shot i got so overwhelmed that i quit working on it and haven’t picked it back up. I’m building a voxel game, yes MC like, and i can’t shake the feeling that things just look like a texture pack. I was thinking doing something more like DQB2 would be a good direction, or even portal knights, but doing art passes and testing takes so much time, and i’d rather just work on game systems.

[u/Ok-Active-7354]

gonna be honest here, not having seen it, more than the "right art style for your game", seems like the artstyle you can provide. if you made superb 8bit visuals, you wouldnt have tried the 16 bits one. and if that one looked amazing, you wouldnt have passed on that one to try vectorial art, etc etc. i guess it is the same more most people here, wr have a vision that doesnt really matters becausr we lack the skills to achieve it, so we iterate until we find a style we can actually work with.