Game News The Way of Wrath to be published by Hooded Horse

[luj1]

What's up with the kiddie aesthetics in these new games?

Because people are creatively bankrupt

In the industry there is a big crisis of originality

Contrary to popular excuse, you dont need millions of dollars for that. You just need talented artists

You speak of Morrowind which had a fairly low budget yet an amazing world due to centrally authored content by 2-3 very talented and educated people

People dont understand art direction. They dont understand color palette. Look at a game like Perihelion which accomplished more with 3 colors than all this modern trash with 100000 colors and effects

Titles like Pillars of Eternity had budgets in the many millions of dollars to achieve their art.

With such bum understanding no wonder we are in the age of mediocrity

Also PoE rehashed the old BG approach to 2D environments , its one of the most unoriginal games in recent RPG memory, also failed epicly as a franchise, in worldbuilding and core systems. its frankly amazing

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Well, the Amiga was well known for its art and music direction. Psygnosis is pretty classic in that regard. I was pretty engaged into ACS as a kid and there isn't a lot to that engine.

 

[Rincewind]

People dont understand art direction. They dont understand color palette. Look at a game like Perihelion which accomplished more with 3 colors than all this modern trash with 100000 colors and effects

Yeah, Perihelion is one of the best looking games (not just RPGs) ever. And it was developed by three guys from the Hungarian demoscene while still attending high-school (!). I remember reading about it in Hungarian computer mags back in the day before it was released; it was a huge deal for a few pre-18 kids to get signed by the legendary Psygnosis.

Everything about this game just screams METAL, I love it!

There's some interesting info about the development on Edvard Toth's webpage who did the gfx (now he lives in Los Angeles). A few quotes:

“This is the best-presented submission we have ever received.” [PSYGNOSIS about the prototype of Perihelion.]

The game was created by only 3 people under pretty challenging conditions (don’t even ask). Taking this project to completion while going to school still remains to be the most difficult but most rewarding thing I have ever done.

One signature element of the game was the shared, common 32-color two-tone palette which in retrospect was a pretty bold move but it was a key element in providing a unique look and a very consistent atmosphere.

...

EDIT: To end this on a slightly anticlimatic note, it seems like nowadays he's mainly involved with casino games. Well, it kinda makes sense... doing art is one thing, and earning a living is another, I can very much sympathise with that. I used to know lots of guys from the demoscene who moved on to producing casual mobile games for a living. You can't fault a man for trying to provide for his family. On the other hand, all these kiddie RPGs still seem kinda schizophrenic to me. In these days, why even bother with RPGs in the first place if your main objective is to earn money? I'd personally either do ultra-casual mobile games, or do it properly like Vault Dweller, and fuck everybody.

 

[Hooded Horse]

You speak of Morrowind which had a fairly low budget yet an amazing world due to centrally authored content by 2-3 very talented and educated people

Morrowind was not "fairly low budget" relative to indie games, and it was not a small team.

Since we're talking art, let's just take a look at the artists who worked on Morrowind:

Lead Artist Matthew Carofano
Lead Character Artist Christiane H. K. Meister
World Art & Building Hope Adams, Noah Berry, Mark Bullock, Matthew Carofano, Christine Miller, Gary L. Noonan
Additional World Art & Building Shirin Alkaissi, Bryan Card, Gavin Carter, Brian Chapin, Royal Connell, Kevin Shriner, Frank Ward
Character and Creature Art Tohan Kim, Christiane H. K. Meister, Juan Sanchez
Additional Character and Creature Art Wan Chiu, Chandana Ekanayake, Sean Foyle, Josh Jones, Mark K. Jones, Andrew Rai, Michael D. M. Smith, Ka-Kei Wong
Concept Art Michael Kirkbride

You can find the full credits, including the programing, writing, and other teams here: https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/elder-scrolls-iii-morrowind/credits

With such bum understanding no wonder we are in the age of mediocrity

People are going to differ a great deal in their judgment and taste on art in games, but declaring an "age of mediocrity" seems to be rather melodramatic. There are increasing numbers of exciting, well-developed indie games coming out, and plenty of room to find games that fit one's taste. Though honestly if you calibrate your expectations by taking Morrowind as an example of a low budget, small team you'll probably end up with unrealistic expectations.

 

[luj1]

you said you need millions for quality art, which you do not

you need talent and purity of vision, which this doesnt have

 

[Hooded Horse]

you said you need millions for quality art, which you do not

That's pretty substantially mangling what I said, is it not? Let's grab my actual quote:

I can't speak to other games, but the artistic choices in The Way of Wrath come down to the creative taste of the art director mixed with certain economic realities. On that, while we all love the classic CRPG art style, achieving that is very expensive. Titles like Pillars of Eternity had budgets in the many millions of dollars to achieve their art. There is a ton of content in The Way of Wrath, and that means lots of character models, items, structures in states of building, fortifications, environment, etc.

Content and context are paramount here. 3D or 2.5D isometric open world RPGs with lots of content can be very expensive to produce art for. Your raising of the example of Morrowind is not a counter-example--as noted above, that's a huge team and a project with a budget dwarfing anything achievable by indie games. 2D top-down RPGs with limited animation and lots of duplicate character models are also not a counterexample, the context means completely different art needs and costs.

you need talent and purity of vision, which this doesnt have

Good grief but that's a dramatic take.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

People dont understand art direction. They dont understand color palette. Look at a game like Perihelion which accomplished more with 3 colors than all this modern trash with 100000 colors and effects

Yeah, Perihelion is one of the best looking games (not just RPGs) ever. And it was developed by three guys from the Hungarian demoscene while still attending high-school (!). I remember reading about it in Hungarian computer mags back in the day before it was released; it was a huge deal for a few pre-18 kids to get signed by the legendary Psygnosis.

Everything about this game just screams METAL, I love it!

There's some interesting info about the development on Edvard Toth's webpage who did the gfx (now he lives in Los Angeles). A few quotes:

“This is the best-presented submission we have ever received.” [PSYGNOSIS about the prototype of Perihelion.]

The game was created by only 3 people under pretty challenging conditions (don’t even ask). Taking this project to completion while going to school still remains to be the most difficult but most rewarding thing I have ever done.

One signature element of the game was the shared, common 32-color two-tone palette which in retrospect was a pretty bold move but it was a key element in providing a unique look and a very consistent atmosphere.

...

EDIT: To end this on a slightly anticlimatic note, it seems like nowadays he's mainly involved with casino games. Well, it kinda makes sense... doing art is one thing, and earning a living is another, I can very much sympathise with that. I used to know lots of guys from the demoscene who moved on to producing casual mobile games for a living. You can't fault a man for trying to provide for his family. On the other hand, all these kiddie RPGs still seem kinda schizophrenic for me. In these days, why even bother with RPGs in the first place if your main objective is to earn money? I'd personally either do ultra-casual mobile games, or do it properly like Vault Dweller, and fuck everybody.

I never saw this game on the shelves. It was actually pretty difficult in my area to get amiga games so I subscribed to SMC. But damn this review whets my appetite more:

 

[Galdred]

People dont understand art direction. They dont understand color palette. Look at a game like Perihelion which accomplished more with 3 colors than all this modern trash with 100000 colors and effects

They used 3 tones, but I doubt they didn't use the full 32 color palette of the amiga even if they limited it to 2 tones, with great success (did they blit images on Amiga to double the palette? They did that a lot on Atari), but it had 16 colors instead of 32).

 

[ozymandiusz]

oh nice mobile game

 

[The_Mask]

Good grief but that's a dramatic take.

Don't worry too much about luj. He's so edgy he might as well cut through everything but tension.

You just do you, and be ambitious about it. The Codex is not just luj, and we're watching; don't worry.

 

[Hooded Horse]

You just do you, and be ambitious about it. The Codex is not just luj, and we're watching; don't worry.

Thanks! Honestly this news post was enormously appreciated, and I've been a fan of the Codex ever since I read this Wizardry IV LP some years ago: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/lets-play-wizardry-4.70586/