I’m just kind of curious how people perceive various art styles for indie games.
Say you had three indie games which were otherwise identical in terms of gameplay but one was pixel art, one was hand drawn and one was 3D. Which would you be most inclined to buy? Also, suppose the price started going up for each. Would you feel like any of them would start to feel like a better or worse value at certain price points?
Let’s assume that the art styles are competently done for each and for the sake of simplicity, generally appealing to you. Any other thoughts you might have about this would be interesting to hear too.
Gameplay is king, aesthetics just takes it to another level. Valheim kinda looked like shit to me when I first played it, I wasnt a fan of that PS1 look. But the gameplay was excellent, and deep, and I came around to the visuals to the point of actually loving them.
The beauty of a good game is that it can take you somewhere regardless of how it looks. Imagination fills in the gaps and you can feel like you’re there.
I don’t think this can really be answered until after the fact. Anything that I (and I suspect most) people could say about an artstyle are going to be particular to an instance of that artsyle. If I’d give advice as someone who is neither an artist nor a game designer, what attracts me more than anything is a unique artstyle, which, if I’m gonna give a brutal opinion, starting from a vague category like ‘pixel’, ‘hand drawn’ or ‘3D’ probably won’t get you there.
I feel like I even struggle to answer your question at face value because it doesn’t align well at all with how I conceptualize game art. For example, Cruelty Squad is a game that I don’t think I’d have gotten if not for it’s artsyle. Like, sure, it’s 3D, but it’s a lot more like a PilotRedSun animation than it is a game like TF2. Or take a game like Factorio: most of the assets of that game are pre-rendered 3D sprites, so despite being artisticly unique in a way that interests me it doesn’t fit into the categories you’ve asked about. The best I can say is “I dunno”, and I don’t think anyone else can answer it further than that.
I personally have no preference regarding art style. As long as the style is “competently done” then I don’t think I’d have a problem with a game’s look.
I do think that some art styles can work better with different genres. Pixel art might work better with a retro-inspired game and hand drawn art might go well with something more narrative driven.
For me a game’s art style doesn’t affect my judgement of the game’s value. I think some people perceive pixel art to be “cheap” but when well executed it’s gorgeous and difficult to make.
I really despise that 3D no texture / low poly look. On Reddit when you see those ‘I have a dream, quit my job and now I’m making ………. Game!’ posts, some concepts sound amazing; aaaaaand it’s one of those game.
Settlement Survival is one. Big Banished fan, and Ss’ graphics just look worse to me. Like a cheap mobile game.
Not to say all of these are bad, Deep Rock looks gorgeous and smashes it in the art direction department
2D I don’t mind as there’s a lot of wiggle room to play with stylistically.
