I have 0 artistic talent. I keep being advised to redo my project (not terribly far along) in 2d because it will be crap looking in 3d and no one would want to play it. What do you guys think?
2D
Go with whatever you’re best at. Quality 2D art is not necessarily easier to make than quality 3D art. And a game can look just as bad in 2D as in 3D.
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I wouldn’t have a preference, since both can be equally terrible with programmer art and/or bad lighting and so on.
Though with 2D art, you can replace sprites later fairly easily. And even bad 2D art can have a certain abstract charm to it.
But a bad looking 3D game can have all kinds of other issues that may not be as easily solved (lack of anti-aliasing, texture banding, bad texture filtering, lack of good mip maps, bad shadows, bad lighting, geometry clipping issues, it’s endless).
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Also try the Asset Store - there’s plenty of quality art there. Even quite a bit of free stuff.
2D or 3D, makes no difference. The trick is to design the look of your game so that it is not dependent on artistic talent, and the number of dimensions makes no difference in that. You have no art skills? Make your game stylized wireframes.
How much artistic skill was involved in making Geometry Wars? Animation and design skills, yes. Artistic skills? They’re frickin’ triangles.
Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.
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Seems to me that more people would play a crap looking 3d game… Minecraft o.O
Yeah but it’s crap looking in an ok way… because it’s “pixel art”
Ideally you want to have some kind of “stylized” bad art. Think like N64 retro low-fi look.
I think work on the gameplay and make it awesome fun. If the gameplay rocks you can update the graphics later. No amount of great graphics will make crap gameplay fun, though…
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^ What Penguin said. I’d rather playing a bad-looking game with incredible gameplay than a great-looking one that was nothing spectacular.
I will not play a bad looking game. I think it’s possible for anyone to make a good looking game with just vector wireframes or cubes. Therefore, logically, there is no excuse.
There is also no reason for it to be either graphics or gameplay. Both are always possible.
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Half of me agrees.
Half.
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Neither, work at it or don’t release it.
There seems to be some sort of fallacy you need to be amazing at one thing, I’d personally like to believe I’m not amazing at anything (weird huh?). I try hard, hard enough to get a game off the ground by myself if the occasion should ever arise.
Shiny tech demo’s aren’t games, Skyrim is far from a pretty game but a blockbuster ( a big one at that). A decent game all round is better than a pretty one that plays like rubbish.
This obviously changes if you ever work for a AAA, then it’s about how good you are at one thing. In small teams (sub 20) you generally find you need a range of skills. It should be obvious if you’re a one man band you need to be at least decent across the board, it’s too much for many but more than possible.
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Can you draw a cube? Can you make one in a 3D program and render it out?
Well then. That answers your question.
Is it game you would want to play? That’s what matters the most.
I can’t see any point in trying to make a game that wouldn’t even catch my own attention.
Honestly, I only ask because I would like to eventually bring my dream game to other people as well. I am 100% making the game for my own satisfaction, however, what’s the point in a game that only one person ever plays?
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It’s still all personal preference.
After I finally finish my first project I’ll attempt to make a tetris-type game for my wife. It’s not something that I’ll likely put a lot of effort into making look good or flashy: If you have a fan-base then cater to them… or her =). If it turns out decent then I’ll throw up for free and maybe more than one person will play it.
You won’t actually know until something tangible is completed and available for people to play.
I also think some people here might be able to help you or offer suggestions once something is available.
That’s exactly why I was gathering whether people would prefer the bad looking prototype to be 2d or 3d. There would be slight differences in gameplay, but overall, all the important aspects would remain the same