Art as a differentiator.

[zoombapup]

I've seen a few games now that I've thought "yeah, that looks interesting" and mostly it stems from the art style rather than the gameplay itself.

So what do you guys do in order to differentiate yourselves? I mean, those of you who actually bother.

I've been thinking about that kind of thing for my next experiment. Once we get panzer ace done, I'm going to play with some ideas for original gameplay and original style. But it feels like I really need to do a character based game this time, is it even possible to create a character based game with an original style, given I'm a programmer? :)

Technically, given we're in a new age with shaderific content etc. It feels like it should be possible, but a lot of techniques I've considered really dont work for games (painterly, sketchy or whatever).

Maybe there's something in the style of the whole approach to the game thats more important. I suppose really artistic games simply dont pander to anything else (i.e. the require a certain vision to pull off).

It'd be really nice to show someone my game and have them say "wow, I've never seen that before". You know? I mean just something that really sets the thing apart.

[mooktown]

It'd be really nice to show someone my game and have them say "wow, I've never seen that before". You know? I mean just something that really sets the thing apart.

That's been my exact motivation lately too, which led me to LoM. (http://mooktown.blogspot.com/2007/08/legend-of-monkey-3rd-mock-up.html) So far I'm happy with how its going. :)

[Dan MacDonald]

That's sort of the Idea with Samurai Soul Hunters, though we need to up the "wow" factor even more I think...

http://www.raincitygames.com/images/p_ssh_ingame_0000_large.jpg

[mooktown]

looking nice Dan, does it play like Space Harrier?

[ZeHa]

@ mooktown: Looks very great!
If you don't know it, check out www.nothingandnowhere.com, reminded me a little about this. One of the most beautiful websites on the net, and please enable the background music (because it's even more beautiful) :)

And yes, art can really be a differentiator. Certainly it won't make up too much for poor gameplay, but assumed that gameplay is fine, artistic style is surely one of the most important parts. That doesn't mean it has to have top-notch graphics, it just means it has to look good - and I really like it when the style is something special. It can be unusual drawing style, reduced palette, or some geometric specialties, whatever, it has to have some magic.

[zoombapup]

Nice one Dan, got a bit of a castle crashers vibe to it.

[cliffski]

that game makes me want to try a demo, just to see how cool it looks when animated. I'm very jealous of people like cas who have got a unique game look. I was going to make kudos in black and white, then I chickened out :(

[princec]

We've developed a particular art style which we're going to stick with until perfection. It attracts a certain sort of customer (and repels certain others). Most importantly it's a style no-one else has, not even vaguely.

Cas :)

[zoombapup]

See, thats kind of what I'm talking about. The mere look of something making you want to try it. Defcon was that way for me.

It doesnt have to be "high tech" but it has to be unique.

What I'm not sure about though, is how to garner that unique visual style, given I'm a programmer, it seems quite difficult.

[princec]

As a programmer, you don't need to know, just like your artist doesn't need to know why your class heirarchy looks the way it does :)

Cas :)

[Ratboy]

What I'm not sure about though, is how to garner that unique visual style, given I'm a programmer, it seems quite difficult.
Based on my own experience, there seem to be three ways to do it:
Easy: Have no taste for art and/or give the artist total freedom.
Good: Send the artist a lot of examples and detailed writeups of what you want before he starts working on your job.
Bad: Complain about everything the artist sends you until he stumbles accidentally on the look you want.

I don't recommend the bad way...

[zoombapup]

Ok, well, this pre-supposes you actually HAVE an artist :)

What I'm after I guess, is what the viewpoint of an artist would be if they were trying to come up with something really original?

I mean, how does an artist actually decide on a look for something? Is it all trial and error?

I'm hoping procedural content will help some to be honest. Guess I'm going along with introversion on that score :)

[ZeHa]

Often it's just intuition... when you think about it, you often have certain pictures in your mind, and they can be already in some special style or something... sometimes it's just experimenting on paper or with graphic programs... and sometimes it's inspiration by other stuff ;)

[Dan MacDonald]

looking nice Dan, does it play like Space Harrier?


Yeah it's biggest influences are Space Harrier and the recent Ninja Gaiden. I was watching space harrier clips on youtube and thinking to myself, you know you could probably create a rich world without having to spend a ton of resources on content. The resulting look and feel was a collaboration between me and the artist (who hasn't played either of the games amusingly).


Nice one Dan, got a bit of a castle crashers vibe to it.

Yeah, we're big fans of the Behemoth and castle crashers. In fact I showed them a video of SSH at the recent PAX conference in Seattle. I think castle crashers is exactly the kind of game that I'd like to play on XBLA so naturally SSH is going to reflect that.

I hope people will have the same kind of fun with SSH that the will with Castle Crashers, but I also hope it is a totally different experience. I would love to achieve a fraction of their production quality as well.. they do really really nice sutff :)

Someone described SSH as Space Harrier meets Samurai Jack (for those of you familiar with the cartoon), I like that description of it.

[Nauris]

Yeah, it`s.. hard to pinpoint exactly how the process works. For me it`s doodles, lots of them, until you think you have striken some good vibe. Perhaps for others it`s completely different, maybe someone else will do massive research, write down the goals, and generally be systematic about the whole process, who knows.

[Sysiphus]

For me (am an artist) , ambience, is all. Many artists like me, when playing or producing work for a game, want to provoke the inmersive sensation. I don't think is needed a fight for originality till last pixel: is more about making good work(if you like this stuff, you aim to perfection) and enjoy it as the world you'd like to play in. I don't expect of game graphics to be super original, but to be amazing, and to make me want to play the game, to see that splash again and again, etc, etc.

Of course, not all artists may deeply love every game concept, or evne genre. Seems several of us tend to feel atracted by the ambience, the movie factor, than the actual game... yet tho is really fun to make low res sprites from time to time...but that's also building a world.

BTW, I do a project with a friend, and he leaves me quite freedom...at my job, usually people with more experience, leave me more freedom. While marketting people, even try to decide my designs til last color....crazy...

[Sysiphus]

btw, absolutely, I really love when programmers do a good description of what they want, and give good details (recent nice work for someone of here) , and is terrible when they(only happened to me at design salary jobs) don't even know really what they want (happens often in crappy corporate design jobs...where too many "thinking minds" play the designer game... ;) hehe )

[MiceHead]

Ok, well, this pre-supposes you actually HAVE an artist :)

What I'm after I guess, is what the viewpoint of an artist would be if they were trying to come up with something really original?

I mean, how does an artist actually decide on a look for something? Is it all trial and error?

I'm hoping procedural content will help some to be honest. Guess I'm going along with introversion on that score :)

We're using procedural content bigtime in Galaxy Rage (http://galaxyrage.blogspot.com/), in part to cut down on the artist-hours we need for 3d modelling. But I think that any approach needs a strong art(ist/team) at the helm to help establish the look and feel. Students/recent graduates have helped with some of that development -- as you're associated with a university, do you have that resource available to you?

[voxel]

That's sort of the Idea with Samurai Soul Hunters, though we need to up the "wow" factor even more I think...


SSH looks fantastic by the way - Samurai Jack like... very modern 2D style used in animated series.

[Applewood]

I quite fancy doing a whole game that uses one fancy shader.

As an example, consider the "film" shader in the DX samples where there's basically a fresnel term on object edges.

Pure example above - that'd look shite but there must be a ton of stuff you can do that would give a unique stamp. And no artist involvement to experiment. Get some "normal" art, frig about with shaders for a while, look at the art again to see if it could be redone to exagerate your chosen effect. Rinse and repeat.

Gotta be some mileage in that.

[cliffski]

get really drunk, imagine your game, then try to explain to people how it looked. Thats how I work :D

[lennard]

can you write off your beers then? Since my little heart incident I'm supposed to pace myself but it would be cool to write off a well stocked bar for the house.

[zoombapup]

Paul, actually I thought of exactly that today. There were two things I thought of.

Option 1) The sort of grey look you get from a lot of ambient occlusion renders or brazil renders, you know, the typical mecha artist beauty shot. Take that to its ultimate conclusion and make a grey world where the only scene cue is shading.

Option 2) Pretty similar actually. But instead of grey, I was watching some tutorial video's of zbrush and zbrush seems to have this nice sort of plastic looking shader, almost I dunno, like modelling clay meets red plastic sheen. Very interesting look and I thought to myself "man that would be neet as the basis for a game".

Hell, actually, you could take that basic shader and apply an "entrails" pass to it and have inside-out-man shader :)

You just might have something there though. Shaderworld. Nothing too complex, just one shader applied to pretty much everything, with occasional world accents.

Easy way to prototype it is to play around in max I guess.

[zoombapup]

Micehead: sadly we are only just recruiting our course leader for games art, so we have programmers and designers, but no artists quite yet.

Couple of years time, wont be able to move for em!

[Applewood]

You just might have something there thoughWhen you make your first million, a kick-back wouldn't go amiss :)

Lemme know how you get on?, I'd love to see your experiments

[KingAto]

Just wait till you see our game....

[Greg Squire]

I agree that having a distinctive art style can set you apart and perhaps increase your chances of having your game downloaded and purchased. It could also work against you too if the style is ugly, so be careful.

I think there's lots of traditional art styles out there that haven't been tried or used very much in games. It would be nice to see some other styles put to use in games.

Here's some other games that have a distinctive style too.

http://www.squashysoftware.com/platypus.php
http://www.lesmisgame.com/screenshots.html
http://www.greatgamesexperiment.com/game/gesundheit
http://www.kloonigames.com/blog/games/crayon/

[zoombapup]

You know, for some strange reason, I dont actually want my game to look like an established artform. But I want it to feel new and fresh visually.

I've tried various experiments with painterly rendering and to be honest, they make me want to honk :)

I'll try the redwax single shader idea and see how that works.