What do you think of this art style?

[Lemunde]

I'm working on an engine for a graphical roguelike. I'm going for something that's functional and at the same time not totally hideous to look at. So I came up with this:

 

[Wyrmlord]

Go for it.

It looks great.

 

[Barrow_Bug]

Sorry, no love from me.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Sorry, no love from me.

Hush you. :evil:

 

[Barrow_Bug]

All's I'm saying is that I don't love it. Do I support Lemunde's exploits? For sure. Do I dig the art? Not so much. Mind you, if you do complete a really great indie CRPG with great characters and C&C, I'll be sure to bitch about it being vapourware for you! :D

 

[Black_Willow]

Some squares and green blobs, and a "B" (or maybe /b/?)
So, where's the "art" part?

 

[circ]

Looks a bit wargamey. I prefer ascii though.

 

[asper]

Something worth trying is adding a thin black outline to the trees, and to other sprites. Eschalon does this for example, it makes things look better, in my opinion.

I think you should focus on the game and gameplay itself. When you have a fully working game and its awesome enough, you can worry abuot tilesets and the such, and go looking for people wanting to make some, or even buy some graphics.

 

[Lemunde]

Something worth trying is adding a thin black outline to the trees, and to other sprites. Eschalon does this for example, it makes things look better, in my opinion.

I think you should focus on the game and gameplay itself. When you have a fully working game and its awesome enough, you can worry abuot tilesets and the such, and go looking for people wanting to make some, or even buy some graphics.

Yeah, you're right. That does look a little better.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I was gonna suggest the black outlines as well. The trees look much better now.

I voted "not bad" based on the first pictures.

 

[mondblut]

And "B" is a balor or a banshee or a bugbear, correct?

(god, smite those alphabet-haters please...)

If you're doing a freeware game, how hard is to steal a thousand of sprites from the games of old?

 

[Hory]

Do a good engine and then find someone good to do the art style. Don't be a 2nd Vogel.

 

[obediah]

Good enough! Concentrate on the important stuff!

 

[DraQ]

Bleh!

If you want graphics, but can't be arsed to make it live up to today's standards, go retro.

Hi-res plus zero details looks gut-wrenching horrible, and your shots show just that.
You take all the assets at your disposal, then squander them, while you could have taken less, but utilized them fully.

I know that a roguelike is a whole different animal from side-scrolling, pixel physics based worms-like, but take a look here, for an example of good, low budget graphics.

 

[DefJam101]

Second screenshot is much better.

Loosk alright, tough to tell. Need more sprites!

 

[Machined Plate Man]

You made sprites for the trees and the walls, why don't you make one for the big B too?

 

[elander_]

Sprites for beings are harder to do than sprites for blocks and structure. There's an easy solution. Grab some free concept art or photos of animals and larpers and use them as icons.

 

[Piety]

Creatures are not only harder to do individually, there are lots of them. There's only so many different terrain types, but a whole slew of different monsters (hopefully). Plus, given this is a roguelike, there's the matter of tradition.

I think it looks perfectly serviceable. So long as it doesn't actually make the eyes bleed, it's all about the gameplay. Good gameplay makes bad graphics look better by engaging the imagination, but it doesn't work the other way around.

 

[Lemunde]

Sprites for beings are harder to do than sprites for blocks and structure. There's an easy solution. Grab some free concept art or photos of animals and larpers and use them as icons.

I've considered this but there's other issues, primarily getting a consistent art style. Later on I may go back and try creating some character sprites myself but, as many have said, get the gameplay down first then spruce up the graphics. Right now I'm focusing on the easy stuff. Most of the sprites you see didn't take very long to create and I've added even more to that since I posted it. The hard part is the coding and there's just a few things I absolutely have to get out of the way before I start focusing on gameplay. That said, I already have collision and pathfinding completely done so the hard stuff is out of the way.

 

[mondblut]

Creatures are not only harder to do individually, there are lots of them. There's only so many different terrain types, but a whole slew of different monsters (hopefully).

Between Goldbox series, Wizardries and Might & Magic, not a single fantasy creature would be uncovered. Hell, there are even ready tools to extract gfx from half the RPGs of old.

Plus, given this is a roguelike, there's the matter of tradition.

Mass human sacrifices also was a matter of tradition to some peoples. Thankfully, they were slaughtered to the last man.

So long as it doesn't actually make the eyes bleed, it's all about the gameplay. Good gameplay makes bad graphics look better by engaging the imagination, but it doesn't work the other way around.

No gameplay involving fighting alphabet would make bad graphics better.

 

[sportforredneck]

As for giving graphics to a roguelike, I think it works just fine. Would this engine be released for public use?

 

[FeelTheRads]

Walls and ground are fine. Trees and the B are terrible.
If you're going graphical at least go all the way. It looks very inconsistent to have graphical tiles for certain things and ASCII for others. Plus, the tiles are huge, I prefer the extended view simple ASCII graphics offer.

My opinion: go ASCII.

 

[Barrow_Bug]

Where's the bloom?

 

[Muty]

Trees look a bit blurry, apart from that it looks good

 

[DraQ]

Scaling everything down by a factor of 4 might be a good thing and help for the horrid featurelessnes of it all.