Why do people like this style? One might think that it is just old styled crap (Some people think that it is from lack of skill or something?) Is it nostalgia? I love pixelart but I grew up around Nintendo handhelds that were all pixel art, and IDK why I like it, I think it is just the simplicity.
The reason I ask is that I also like N64 style graphics but not many games use this style (Blurry low res style :p) Could this style be liked in a game or would it be classed as just crappy graphics?
A bit of all but think of it as one of the possible ways to skin your game… the retro-effect suits some games very well indeed!
Well, mostly because stuff like that just looks good. People aren’t quite interested in the graphics, I mean sure they have a nolstalgia feel to them but that feeling is only complete if it is good pixel art. Sometimes you get very well done pixel art, and other times it is just crap. Most of the drek that has been pumped out of the indie scene really is touted as being 8 bit, but it isn’t actually 8 bit at all, usually due to the fact that the sprites aren’t even using an 8 bit color scheme.
What is most important in retro games is the art direction. If it is done well and hits that nostalgia bone then I would say that is correct retro art and good to use in a game.
I found that the retro style is kind of ruined to me. There were a few great games as of late that used it, and alot more than ruined it. Pretty much all indie game developers these days are “8 bit” ( not really ) platformers these days and trying to sell them and make the next braid.
Anyway that’s just my 2 cents on the retro style.
Two thoughts on this.
One, I’d like to imagine that it evokes a more gamey feel. The more realistic a picture gets, the more a player expects only realistic interactions. If a visual is abstract however, anything can happen, evoking a broader sense of wonder.
Two, the less detail something has visually, the more the imagination has to fill in, which can lead to a better connection with the player.
Three, ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException.
I’d take the old Donkey Kong and from that, Mario Bros pixel style over any of the modern realistic styles. The look of the games themselves say ‘fun’ whereas the more realistic graphic games of today say can we out-gross (in both senses of the meaning) the last version of this same game?
Well, I think pixel (and cube-voxel art) has completely taken over the indie world because:
I don’t mind pixel/cube-voxel art (in fact, I quite like the style), but honestly I’m a bit tired of it. Almost every indie game coming out these days is aiming for nostalgia. What about looking forward? Why not some awesome abstract visuals, or hand painted sprites, or even a nice cell-shaded 3D world?
As for Nintendo 64 graphics… I honestly can’t see those working as an intentional style, I think it would just look bad.
Actually, I’m picturing a game with a slightly modified N64 style, with lot of solid colors and geometric shapes. That… might work.
It’s really ugly, but if your game is really good it compensates it to the point where you enjoy it and forget the graphics
For me it varies. If you look at many Ouya games there’s a lot of pixel art, a lot of fake low-resolution displays with limited color palettes. Sometimes the colors are chosen carefully and it looks good, sometimes it’s just plain ugly and I can’t relate. Many people definitely do it just because it’s easier, cuts down on how many pixels you have to draw and disguises your crappy art skills. An example comes to mind. VVVVVVVVVV … or however many V’s that’s supposed to be… pretty good gameplay, story, etc… low-res limited-palette pixelized graphics are basic/badly drawn but they work with the game okay. In other cases pixel art is just awful. And in some cases it can be absolutely beautiful - there is something tremendously inviting about less detail and using fewer colors.
Next gen graphics are great, but it requires everything to be great, and it must maintain a constant level of detail, which is almost impossible. Plus the brain is an expert in spotting irregularities.
When the finest of detail is carefully crafted for you, there’s no room for interpretation, and what you see is what you get. Hence your brain isn’t expecting poor quality features, and it doesn’t accepts it as part of the rest. Every aspect that lacks great quality stands out, and it’s a downer.
On the other hand pixel graphics awakens imagination and curiosity. You don’t need to craft every single detail, you don’t have to fill in the blanks because your brain is doing so already, the world is being crafted inside your brain in real time. Irregular lack of quality is left often too, as it’s easier to maintain consistence in quality when there is no fine detail to mess up, and it’s much more solid experience than an irregular quality next-gen graphic game.
I hate pixel art, and avoid anything that uses it. It’s perceived as being easy to create, so it’s a favorite of developers with no artists, or limited budget.
However, I would think N64 style graphics would go over better. If you look at Mario 64, it has a clean look and would still work well today. No need to make things pixelly on purpose if you’re going N64 style. I think the key there is a simple world with clean lines and toon colors.
I do suspect that abstraction is one of the elements that make pixel art popular.
The book The Art of Game Design touches on that sort of thing from a couple of perspectives. From the chapter on “The Experience is in the Player’s Mind”:
“When we are presented with a picture already drawn with lines, it has been “pre-digested” in a sense, matching a part of why people find cartoons and comics so soothing to look at – our brain needs to do less work to understand them.”
“Our minds look at a complex situation and try to boil it down to a complete set of rules and relationships that we can manipulate internally.”
And later on the topic of avatars that represent the player:
“In his excellent book Understanding Comics, McCloud makes the interesting point that the less detail that goes into a character, the more opportunity the reader has to project themselves into that character.”
I’m sure that’s just one element of why abstract game art can be appealing, but I’m sure it’s a lot more complex than that. Abstract art is able to to push colors and moods farther and yeah, for some it’s a nostalgia thing.
My earlier gaming consisted of playing a lot of games with pixel art, but it was always there because of technical limitations. Now those technical limitations could have actually been a good thing in a way, I suppose. Abstraction is something applicable to 3D games too. Remember how creepy the original Silent Hill was? The graphics were crappy, so your mind had to fill in the blanks. Powerful stuff!
To echo what nigh everyone else has said, a large part is the “lack” of detail allows your mind to fill it in yourself. It’s also why micro-scale Lego mecha can look so amazing.
Pixel art also can feel more like art, provided it is done well. Go over and browse Pixel Joint a while…you may need a napkin for the drool. There’s something to be said about a well designed palette, and it’s something that you don’t see much of in newer games.
The flipside, however (again, just echoing), is that folks can much easier decompose a piece of pixel art. And then they can see how the pixels were placed. Whereupon they think to themselves, “well, that looks easy!” not realizing that, just like any art, good pixel art takes a combination of skill and practice to get right. Whereas 3D modeling already appears to be complex from the get-go (“The heck is this ‘unwrapping’ thing I have to do to make textures?! And whaddya mean modeling sheets?”), and thus intimidates people into taking the “easier” route of pixel art.
Pixel art uses the psychology of ‘iconic art’ as described well by Scott McCloud in his landmark work, “Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art”. Your eye see’s:
__/
and your brain interprets a face. Cause it knows how to recognize patterns. There are wonderful sites on how you can make a series of squiggles and then take to circles (“0 0”) and put them almost anywhere and interpret a ‘face’. Its effective cause that’s how the brain works. And yes, it’s cheaper to make and performs better.
Gigi.
Sure it performs better, but is it really cheaper to make? I mean, the good stuff. I’ve never commissioned any game art, but I have this vision of animated pixel art as needing countless hours of individual pixel clicking.
Animation is definitely the most expensive aspect of production where pixel art is concerned. But when you’re using pixel art, the expectations are lowered, and you can get away with fewer animation frames. With more complex styles, there is an expectation of smoother animation.
And yes, generally speaking pixel art is much faster to produce, and thus cheaper. It is also easier to polish it, and hand it off to other artists for further refinement. Standard 2D graphics have been around for so long that they have reached a level of standardization that doesn’t exist for 3D models. And finding and hiring 2D pixel artists is going to be a lot easier and cheaper as well. 2D pixel artists require less technical training to do their thing than a full-on 3D artist would.
Pixel art in itself can provide a lot of detail regardless of how simple it looks to the naked eye because our brain sort of “fills in the blanks” and have our minds imagine what the game looks like aside from its gigantic pixels. But a game that’s done correctly with pixel art (perfect example is Riot) can prove to be a fantastic looking game; because we have enough “Next Gen” stuff coming out from industry giants, why can’t indies embrace pixel art?
Not to mention that pixel art comes as a loved art style by many older audiences of the industry who grew up with such style when Next gen did not exist!
I like C64 and EGA graphics, partly because of nostalgia but also because I would say they are unique artistic styles, although caused by limitations of technology. There is something very appealing about impressive things done with limited capabilities and for some reason there’s usually a certain degree of darkness in the art of that period, which I like.
Game-wise, I prefer a colorful, animated style. Developmentally, I like pixel art because (to me), it’s easier to build and animate than 3D art.
Sure, one would argue, ‘because you’re creating a model, 3D art is actually easier for motion, because you retain the base model throughout the animation!’ If you’re skillful at 3D art, and have the time to make high-quality 3D assets, good for you. No, seriously - nothing beats well-done 3D. Conversely, everything beats poorly done 3D. For reference, note that Final Fantasy VII has not aged well…
On the other hand, people always give pixel art a raw opinion because ‘it takes longer/is harder’. If you’re going crazy and trying to create a fully-animated 256x256 character, I would argue 3D might be the easier route, but most of the time you’re not. Even at 64x64 and 128x128 sizes, it’s relatively simple (provided you have the right tools) to create a good 2D character/game object - remember, you’ll nearly never use all of those pixels. I’ll concede that technically, it is more challenging in that you’ll often find yourself working with limited palettes if you’re hand pixeling your objects (I prefer 4-5 core colors, a dark shadow color, and a super-dark outline color, though some styles can do without the outline. White works great most of the time for highlights…but avoid pillow-shading!)
At the end of the day, I think it’s based on A) your time budget (for me, pixel art is faster) and your skill level (for me, I’m more practiced at pixel art than 3D modelling/skinning, though not for lack of effort.)
I think there is some danger of narrow your audience if you use certain types of pixel art… it depends on your background/generation. I grew up mostly skipping the 8-bit generation and jumping in feet-first at the 16-bit era… so when I see games trying to do 8-bit style art to me it sort of reeks of just too dam basic and really too extreme. But that’s perhaps because I was used to the 16-bit/32-bit art on the Amiga (ie 256 colors etc). I think the newer generation of gamers now, teens etc, probably have a hard time relating to the really old art styles because they didn’t grow up with it, they were practically born into a world of 3d games. I do agree that that MOST 3D art is horrible and often people do 3D just because, and for no good reason, and end up with horrible looking models with low levels of detail and ugly textures, and then you just know that if it were done in pixel art it would’ve looked so much better.
Nostalgia, plain and simple. It’s cool to be lo-fi, retro and geeky so it appeals to the hipster sensibility perfectly.