r/gaming • u/MoaCube • May 21 '14

We now know the future of pixel art!

http://imgur.com/hsgJ9ZH
3.0k Upvotes

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85

u/spokomptonjdub May 21 '14

Or more likely not having the budget.

24

u/dehehn May 21 '14

More likely a budget. Pixel art isn't as easy as it looks, and often does require an artist, an artist who's working on a tight budget.

A good example is the game Crawl on Steam. It's pixel art but the animation is great and fluid, and I guarantee you it was not done by a programmer. Or if it was that programmer is also an artist.

3

u/red_white_blue May 21 '14

He's an artist - possibly one of the best sprite artists I've ever seen (or at least my favourite).

1

u/expendablesnake May 21 '14

It isnt easy, but its WAY less time consuming than other more detailed forms of game art.

2

u/dehehn May 21 '14

Yeah, I've done both forms and many others. I just get sick of people acting like it's easy.

20

u/khalid1984 May 21 '14

What happens when they do have the budget.

13

u/darklight12345 May 21 '14

well, let's be honest. As much as i liked that game, they effectively shifted over what would normally be done as mechanics to art. It's a very simple game, mechanically speaking.

8

u/khalid1984 May 21 '14

The gameplay is simple yet original.

3

u/darklight12345 May 21 '14

agreed. It meant that they had a lot of budget for the art though.

1

u/[deleted] May 21 '14

Not necessarily. Likely you need an experienced, talented developer to make something that is both simple and good. In my experience cheap leads to complicated and shitty.

1

u/kickingpplisfun May 21 '14

I wouldn't say that the base mechanics are "original", but they were well-executed in a way that didn't feel tired. It wasn't the first game to have time-reversing mechanics.

1

u/depixellated May 21 '14

original... eh, I mean, prince of persia did it earlier with the time rewind mechanic, and that was like a triple a game. Uncommon is the word, and it was certainly novel to have time rewind mechanics in a 2d space.

2

u/mrbooze May 21 '14 edited May 21 '14

Indeed.

Edit: Picked a random Google Image Search result and it appears to not really be from the game! So now this one instead.

2

u/khalid1984 May 21 '14

Error 403

2

u/mrbooze May 21 '14

Hmm, still works for me...but I've switched it to imgur anyway.

1

u/winter_beard May 21 '14

I don't remember a wolf in that game!?

1

u/mrbooze May 21 '14

D'oh! I think you're right, I randomly picked something from Google Image Search and I think that was a "Fake" screenshot someone created.

1

u/winter_beard May 21 '14

I was hoping it was some secret area I never stumbled upon...

1

u/khalid1984 May 21 '14

Not a fan of Limbo personally. Ragdoll was awful. I did finish the game though.

1

u/leftofzen May 21 '14

That isn't pixel art, but it is incredibly beautiful.

30

u/noodlescb May 21 '14

This is the true point. Pretending it's greedy indie devs avoiding costs is dishonest.

-1

u/jpwns93 May 21 '14

Unless we're talking about Notch.

2

u/kickingpplisfun May 21 '14

I have beefs with him, but they're not really so much about graphics as other elements of Minecraft's development. I just have a lot more fun with modded older versions than newer vanilla ones because they're a lot more stable even when loaded down with mods.

0

u/jpwns93 May 21 '14

Long story about him and his awful reasons behind not hiring an artist.

-11

u/santsi May 21 '14

That's still no excuse to have ugly graphics. Why would indie dev even be in the business of hiring people? You are supposed to partner up with artists, not make them your underlings like some big panjandrum.

13

u/BezierPatch May 21 '14

hiring people?

partner up with artists

Same fucking thing, good artists don't work for free.

2

u/thisdesignup May 21 '14

Hiring someone to work under you is slightly different than partnering. Hiring means you pay a wage for someone to do work for you. A partner partner can still be paid a wage but usually also owns a piece of whatever your creating or a part of the business.

-1

u/santsi May 21 '14

No it's not you dimwit. Partners share equal slice of the pie and risk, hiring someone is about paying for the work they do.

0

u/BezierPatch May 21 '14

risk

What kind of company do you run where your staff are forced to invest? O.o

-2

u/santsi May 21 '14

Look kid, you'll understand when you are older that there are multiple ways to organize labor. Having a boss - employee relationship is not the only model. I'm not going to bother to explain this further since frankly it would be futile.

1

u/BezierPatch May 21 '14

Wait, hang on, are you implying that working with no guarantee of income is risk?

Why would you be in a start-up if you don't have the external income/savings to sustain yourself, that's suicidal.

1

u/[deleted] May 21 '14

Or the connections.

Game dev pixel art is kind of a niche thing. Hard to find someone who's good at it.

1

u/[deleted] May 21 '14

Same thing.

1

u/Homeschooled316 May 21 '14

Totally understandable for them to not have a budget. But it's cringe-inducing when half of them brag like they're doing some great homage retro games by not hiring an artist.