Serious question
What's the point of still using pixel graphics for PC game in the year 2016?
It's the best way of getting decent-to-good graphics in a low-budget video game.
Vector graphics? They have a steep learning curve and require expensive software.
3D polygonal graphics? Even in the current year it's difficult. Sure, you have free tools like Blender, but the learning curve is far, far worse and you need to license a premade engine, and most indie developers want to do as much as possible by themselves.
>>332573956
Thanks
>>332573495
laziness and trendiness
Because people want to make them. Is this a problem to you?
Despite the reasons, pixel art can be good. It just requires more effort than modern devs are willing to put into their games.
it's cheap and aesthetically pleasing. if those games couldn't use pixel art they probably wouldn't be made
because there's no other option
if you were to make a game, you'd do it, too unless you feel like spending 2+ years learning art
>>332573495
Aesthetics. But all the examples in your image are total shit.
>>332574606
This is the truth.
>>332573495
indie scum here, im not even sure myself, its actually surprisingly hard to make pixel art look good, i guess one advantage is your spritesheets dont take up as much space though but dont look at me for advice i cant art for shit and im pretty much using placeholders for everything at the moment
>>332575032
noce ulillilia background
pixel art isn't helping you because you've used so many pixels it may as well be regular art
try making your character like 15x15 pixels and see if it looks any better
>>332573956
Honestly, I can see some holes in this kind of reasoning. How could japanese indie devs, back in 1980, do all those awesome games with anime sprite art? Mind you, they had a computer (PC-88) at least 30x slower than modern computers, and their teams were made of generally 3 to 5 people.
Why do we still see "pixelshit" nowadays? I don't think it's just cheaper, but also lazier.
*pixelshit = not any indie graphic, but the kind of low-detail shit like those generic platformers we so hate.
>>332575032
What kind of direction are you going for with your game?What's it like knowing your game will never be popular because you aren't rich and can't pay the media to a advertise your game?
You can't have graphics without pixels, thus all games use pixel graphics
>>332575535
Vectrex used vectors.
3d uses voxels and polygons.
>>332575647
and how do you think those vectors/polygons are displayed on a screen?
>>332575196
>>332575450
Going for a cel shaded style but il cross that bridge when i come to it
Done really want to be popular but im weaponising autism so hoprfully my game will be pretty polished when i finish it, i guess if im actually a good enough developer then other people will like it but im quite a ways off yet, still working on game mechanics and shit which is actually pretty fun when stuff goes right
>>332575450
Not him but through dedication and constantly updating your blog on tumblr or something like that should do the trick.
>>332575363
which japanese artists are we talking about? people always bring up metal slug as an example of great pixel art, but metal slug had somewhere in the ballpark of 20-30 artists, and it took them several years to make 1-2 hours of art iirc. a lot of indie games either have one guy doing programmer art and trying to make it look acceptable, one guy and a contractor, or two guys at most.
as an example: avgn game developer: one guy and a music contractor
undertale: one guy and several art contractors
>>332573495
Relatively easy to make and look good without any art/drawing skills at all, its that simple.
Abundance of tutorials to do various pixel art and easy to copy assets just aid this method
>>332575941
Do you even know what vectors are?
>>332573495
>lazy dev
>it's easy
>pretend to be "retro"
>>332573956
Pixel graphics also have other advantages. In the case of a modding community it enables content creators to put in serviceable graphics or kit bash. The graphics might not be on the level of other mods but are still presentable and so you're not heavily restricted by artist work. Starsector or Minecraft is a good example of this.
>>332575363
I think it's just a difference between Japanese work ethic, culture, and standards. Japanese studios will pour their heart into a game even if it means going under.Indieshit is also fucking lazy
>>332573495
It's cheaper and easier, letting devs work on getting good gameplay, in theory at least.
>>332575196
oh forgot to add, if your doing pixel art make it a power of two, 16, 32,64,128 ect, 15x15 will fuck your shit up
>>332575941
idiot. the vectrex didn't render vectors to pixels. it projected vectors directly onto the screen using a cathode ray, the same way that analog oscilloscopes work
>>332576043
Do you even know what pixels are?
>>332575998
Older than Metal Slug. Look up PC-88 and PC-98 games.
>Low standards.
>Lazy artists.
>Fast cashout.
The indie game scene in a nutshell.
It can look great but nobody is willing to put in the work anymore and nobody appreciates it.
Most modern games that use are incredibly lazy and look terrible compared to what can be done but because so many people associate sprite / pixel graphics with retro games and NES, SNES, Mega Drive era, people are content with games that use it aesthetically and for nostalgia.
you guys should read
dinofarmgames.com/a-pixel-artist-renounces-pixel-art/
>>332575363
Because apparently fucking everyone in Japan can draw well. And there's a huge difference between 5 professionals and 5 random dudes that dropped out of college to make video games.
Really the issue here is not just that the team is small, but that they usually lack an actual artist and don't have the means to hire a good one to do that kind of work (good art is expensive as fuck, mind you). Many "pixelshit" indie games are usually one programmer and one "idea guy" doing the whole thing, or one guy doing it solo.
>>332575647
>Vectrex
Have you ever played a game on a vectrex? It's not that pretty.
>>332575363
La-mulana drew high resolution art for the backrounds and thendownscaled them for the wii release but lost the original files for the PC portand pixel graphics for the enemy/character/npc sprites. What do you think of that?
>>332575972
Yes but what do you wish to do with the game, I'm not talking about art direction, I'm referring to GAME direction.
>>332576284
You mean the VIDEOGAME scene in a nutshell.
AAA games and indie games are produced by the rich to be as simple as possible and made popular in order to lower the standards of the masses.
All the popular indie games are made by people who are able to shill.
>>332576212
Vector displays aren't the same as CRT/LCD/LED monitors, anon. That's why the Vectrex came with its own display.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_monitor
Look it up on youtube, it's pretty interesting.
Indie games, one of the larger users of pixel art, usually tend to rely on mods to keep the games interesting alive (see almost all building/block games, stardew valley, etc). Pixel art makes modding easier. Sure, a stylized, drawn artstyle may make the game look good, but it makes the custom content from modders that helps keep the game alive harder to make look good. I mean, you have quite a few good looking mods for Terraria and Stardew with good art, but a LOT of the custom class mods for, say, Darkest Dungeon look either flatout bad, break some of the original art's rules (like showing eyes) or looks like a badly put together mashup of different class' art.
>>332575363
Those big, awe-inspiring pixel art works were made by professional studios who did absolutely everything they could to push the limits of the hardware at the time.
Indie games are usually made by 1-3 people, and most of them are more skilled in programming than anything else. Making "pixelshit" isn't necessarily being lazy, the issue is they're not professionals and don't have the budget to hire professionals.
>>332573495
it's dick easy to make pixel graphics.
>>332576043
>>332576202
>purposefully ignoring the point
can't play a game without a screen, a screen uses pixels, thus all games use pixels. Meant to say voxels instead of vectors though
It's just the easiest way to find good generalist artists that aren't tech-illiterate. 3D plebeians do know some tech, but usually specialize on just one thing and can't do anything else, so they're useless to a non AAA studio.
>>332576268
i know what pc-88 looks like. i played the DOS port of princess maker 2. your claims are simply too vague to refute. people always say 'japanese retro games had better graphics than modern indie games and they had the same resources' but it depends entirely on which games you're comparing
>>332576441
Oh i know about the direction, its a platformer with several different overworlds and rpg elements but the platforming is based around core mechanics ive been working on relentlessly and they work pretty well with the platforming, i actually scrapped an entire game and re-purposed all my scripts to work with this new one because i think its got a lot more potential
>>332576284
spot on m8
>>332576838
>>332576284
>>Low standards.
>>Lazy artists.
>>Fast cashout.
>Modern videogames in a nutshell.
FTFY
>>332576682
i get it. a ha ha, you were trolling all along! how funny! no, you're a fucking idiot
>>332576554
Wrong. See Blassty, one of the first games made by Squaresoft. It had a team of 6 people. And it can't be all the work of big studios, because there are dozens of those games on the PC-88/98. Most of the stuff is junk, but there are real gems in there.
>>332576441
I don't think Notch was rich before Minecraft
>>332576682
A VECTOR DISPLAY DOESN'T HAVE PIXELS
>>332576268
alot of PC98 games looked great but most games (if any) on don't even get up to 30 fps.
>>332573495
>see terraria screenshot
>immediately want another playthrough
i have 392 hours and this needs to stop
>>332577103
Minecraft was before the indie scene boomed, games like Cave Story/Original La-mulana didn't get popular that way either. just like AAA games, it's now run exclusively by the rich.
>>332577216
Well, most of the games were simulators or VNs. Also porn.
>>332573495
>332573495
Because putting a limit on your project's scope from the start helps make it a better project in the long run. Pixel graphics and especially games that try to capture a time from a specific era in gaming gives a good frame of reference as to what their project should be and how it should work.
It's a lot smarter than just saying sky's the limit and trying to make a project with no scope, look at any recent final fantasy game. Noone ever, ever said "Why not make it smaller and simpler, y'know, a scope we actually can handle with a reasonable budget?" And they made shitty games for it.
>>332577040
I never said big studios, I said PROFESSIONAL studios. That means the artists working on it probably took countless art courses, and also had the skills to translate it to the form of primitive digital art.
>>332577160
Name 5 games in the last 20 years that use a vector display
>>332574606
It's not like modern developers are full of painters that paint a tonne of shit before they even *begin* making the actual assets or anything.
Nope, Pixel Art is so much more hard than digital art because, uh... It's pixels!
The real reason most indie pixel games look so shitty is because indie developers are seriously lacking in decent artists. Probably because the majority of programmers are fuckwads that alienate any artist they work with by constantly saying they're the most important part of game development when, in reality, they're actually the most replaceable.
>>332577472
You'd be surprised how big the Vectrex homebrew scene is.
>>332573495
abstract graphics like pixel art are great when you have no money and time to spend on it but still don't want them to get into the way of gameplay (or be distracting because of the ugly look)
>>332573495
AVGNA is based upon ripping off of old games, that's the entire idea.
Terraria would be extremely difficult to do with another art style and make it still look and play well.
>>332577609
wonderful. still irrelevant
>>332577532
Or maybe the fact that they don't have the funds to hire an artist without Kickstarter.
>>332573495
It's all PC development can afford. Real games go to consoles.
>>332577736
>homebrew games aren't real games
wew
>>332577729
>Terraria would be extremely difficult to do with another art style and make it still look and play well.
>still
>look
>still
>play well
Terraria plays like a dumbed down MMO and literally uses SNES Final Fantasy sprite rips for its graphics. It doesn't "look and play well" in the slightest.
I find it hard to believe that hand-drawn graphics a la Skullgirls and Child of Light are hard to transpose from drawing into game asset. Sure it's tedious to have to draw everything, but it looks fucking good.
This pixelshit is just OVERDONE to a point where I - as a consumer - won't even LOOK at a pixel game just because I feel the dev didn't care for that aspect. If he said "fuck it" to graphics, then he said "fuck it" to other shit as well.
If it's just you making your game, go fucking hire an artist, god knows they're begging for jobs nowadays, pay his or her bitch ass half a grand to crank out some pretty shit and the other half at game completion. Then scan that shit into MS paint. You probably have the money to spare faggot dev.
Stop this pixel garbage already and DIFFERENTIATE YOURSELF FROM THE MARKET
>>332577745
True, because by the time you're good enough to actually make workable game assets you're probably good enough to get paid to do it. It's not the same for someone who's good enough at programming to make a platformer.
![Image2[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/hpjdVRW.png "Image2[1].png")
Because drawing and animating is hard and takes a lot of time.
And it instantly makes your whole work more cohesive as long as you keep the same pixel size for everything.
>>332577984
It plays nothing like any MMO ever made.
>>332578235
>pay his or her bitch ass half a grand
hahahahaha
If you find an artist who will work for this you'd better play the lottery because you're one lucky fucker.
Honestly, back in 2013 I would've said exactly the same things you said, because pixelshit oversaturation is nothing new. But I've actually sat down to play a lot of the games I dismissed and found them fun. Now I really don't give much of a fuck.
>>332577984
>Terraria plays like a dumbed down MMO
- Quote from man who stopped at Skeletron.
>>332578235
Hotline Miami is great and it used pixel graphics.
>>332573495
if you are an indie dev with limited time and resources you pretty much have two options
try your best to make "modern" graphics, which takes a shitton of time and will pretty much always look like ass
or
make pixel graphics, which are easy as fuck and give your game a "wow so retro and indie" look
also, people seem to even prefer pixelgraphics in their indie games, so it's a no-brainer
>>332578235
>If it's just you making your game, go fucking hire an artist
With what money?
>>332578235
>go fucking hire an artist, god knows they're begging for jobs nowadays
It's really fucking easy to make money with art right now, especially if you're down to pander. Way easier than it was 5 years ago.
>>332573495
Terraria and Gungeon look decent honestly
main thing I don't like about both of them funnily enough is the player character sprites but thats not so important
in terms of environments,enemies, effects, and animations they're very passable
>"Laziness"
>"Money"
>"Muh nostalgia"
Are the reasons you're going to get given. If you're looking for actual reasons, a lot of the young adults (18-25) who are making indie games these days grew up with games that were heavily grid-based and palette-restricted. Dozens of indie teams do it for shill reasons but there's an argument to be made for indie games that do pixel art just because it's what the developers have a passion for.
>>332578482
>>332578618
>grind ore to get next tier of gear to grind more ore & repeat
>grind enemies with tiny drop rates for specific items
>actual content consists exclusively of MUH EPIC RAID BOSSES
You're right, MMOs at least have exploration.
>>332579638
You're talking about progression, not how the game controls.
>>332578752
it's a good game but it has terrible art
>>332577103
every game that notch shat out before and after minecraft was fucking terrible was the reason. the majority of his games are just remakes or 'demakes' of other games. he just struck it rich making a more accessable infiniminer
the pixel graphics thing is the indie devs starting the gaming industry over again. they'll get better and better at it till they catch up to semi-modern graphics too.
>>332581503
It's happening.
>there will never be a good low poly PS1/N64-inspired game because 3D is still inaccessible to indie developers
>>332575363
There's an argument that could be made that graphics were more important back then so they could dedicate more time towards it. They could easily make a passable game, but the way you made the game more appealing is with effective graphics.
With indie games, a lot of the time goes into the programming versus the art, because people care more about the program nowadays. The games that are made specifically with the art style in mind can usually be light on gameplay, or the art is severely simplified in order to focus more attention on the program itself. Or they hamper gameplay entirely in order to try and make their game about a "message". It's a priority system.
I mean, consider Touhou. That series is made by one guy. And the art of the characters have ranged from absolutely horrible to mid-range passable. And that's fine, because he's just one guy, but you can tell that ZUN cares more about the other elements of the game like the gameplay and the music versus the art of the characters.
And yet the characters still get a ton of fanart, large recognition in various communities, porn up the urethra, and still getting games for over 20 years now.
Most indie devs are of the mindset that they can be a ZUN. They can pass on a unique art style as long as they focus on making a game worth playing, or a game that is easy to enjoy. It's why you should easily support the indie devs that go the extra mile with unique art style, a unique score, and good gameplay for a complete package. More people seeing it as a better option will mean less reluctance to do it.
>>332573495
>Serious question
>What's the point of still using pixel graphics for PC game in the year 2016?
Artstyle choice.
