Adventure Gamers - Forums

Hi there!

So I’m currently working on the engine for a new adventure game. While i’m certain the engine will be quite versatile, I’m a bit insecure about whether the art will be appealing enough for players to be able to enjoy the story. Since I’m obviously quite biased / subjective, I’m hoping to get some honest (yet gentle) opinions on this.

Following are a couple of screenshots of the first room. I realize it’s not a lot to work with, but it should give a feel of the general style.

Screenshot 1
This screenshot displays the basic room. It’s currently still lacking objects to interact with (except for the pillow).

Screenshot 2
This screenshot displays the interaction menu when right-clicking the pillow / any object. The displayed options can differ per object.

Screenshot 3
This screenshot displays the backpack / inventory filled with some random items.

The reason for me to show this at such an early stage is so that i can tune my expectations and make early stage decisions (such as doing the art myself or getting someone else in, etc, etc :-) ).

UPDATE New chosen art style : NEW TOONEY STYLE

Mike the Wino - 16 January 2017 05:57 PM

The muted colors work well with the artwork, at least to me. Looking forward to seeing more.

The foreground layer is optional, but meant to add a certain level of atmosphere. I didn’t want to overdo it. Glad you like it!

Mike the Wino - 16 January 2017 05:57 PM

Like the actual 3rd screenshot, instead of a duplicate for number 2! 

Whoops. That has now been fixed. Thanks :-)

Hire an artist, but frankly it depends on your main target audience
You can find reviews of games where art and design didnt bother many, take that as benchmark
However if you are setting commercial goal outside of hardcore fanbase then hire some professional
Try messing up with Unity, see if you can get good results, before writing your own engine

I’m probably not the harshest critic, since I really have no problem with games with the more retro look, and I enjoy quite a few visual-novel type games that often don’t have much in the way of graphics at all.

But to me the art is quite appealing.  Definitely wouldn’t be something that would hold me back from trying the game.

Detective Mosely - 16 January 2017 09:04 PM

I’m probably not the harshest critic, since I really have no problem with games with the more retro look, and I enjoy quite a few visual-novel type games that often don’t have much in the way of graphics at all.

But to me the art is quite appealing.  Definitely wouldn’t be something that would hold me back from trying the game.

Thanks! That’s reassuring to me. To me it doesn’t have to be the most visually stunning game (as that’s beyond my reach), but on the other hand i wouldn’t want the graphics to ruin a player’s overall experience.

nomadsoul - 16 January 2017 06:11 PM

Hire an artist, but frankly it depends on your main target audience….However if you are setting commercial goal outside of hardcore fanbase then hire some professional

Yeah this is unfortunately the sketchy bit :-).
Will my game be commercial? I wouldn’t mind making some money with it to fund a next project, but my focus is more to reach many people than to make a profit. I suppose this goes for any amateur game developer(?)
Having said that it will be an indie game. I’m working solo at the moment. Therefore my expectations wouldn’t exceed that of an indie game developer (whatever that means haha).
Of course that doesn’t tell me much about my target audience, though.

Bitano - 16 January 2017 05:45 PM

Hi there!

So I’m currently working on the engine for a new adventure game. While i’m certain the engine will be quite versatile, I’m a bit insecure about whether the art will be appealing enough for players to be able to enjoy the story. Since I’m obviously quite biased / subjective, I’m hoping to get some honest (yet gentle) opinions on this.

Following are a couple of screenshots of the first room. I realize it’s not a lot to work with, but it should give a feel of the general style.

Screenshot 1
This screenshot displays the basic room. It’s currently still lacking objects to interact with (except for the pillow).

Screenshot 2
This screenshot displays the interaction menu when right-clicking the pillow / any object. The displayed options can differ per object.

Screenshot 3
This screenshot displays the backpack / inventory filled with some random items.

The reason for me to show this at such an early stage is so that i can tune my expectations and make early stage decisions (such as doing the art myself or getting someone else in, etc, etc :-) ).

I think it looks reasonably well drawn, albeit a little uninteresting. There’s a child in the picture, is it aimed at children? Because I’d imagine they’d have higher expectations when it comes to graphics quality. Middled aged gamers don’t mind dated graphics. If you can’t have the latest graphics, you can make up for it with engrossing story and maybe unusual or even dark themes.

You might want to tweak the mask so that you can’t walk into the bed like in the second screenshot, but that’s a minor thing - I like the overall style! It’s clear and the style of the inventory objects is nicely consistent.

Supplementman - 17 January 2017 04:53 AM

I think it looks reasonably well drawn, albeit a little uninteresting. There’s a child in the picture, is it aimed at children? Because I’d imagine they’d have higher expectations when it comes to graphics quality. Middled aged gamers don’t mind dated graphics. If you can’t have the latest graphics, you can make up for it with engrossing story and maybe unusual or even dark themes.

Thanks. Could you perhaps elaborate some on the “uninteresting” part? For instance, the room / scenery will get more details. For now i was mainly wondering whether the art style would suffice before going into more detail. However if you mean something else I’d love to hear it and hopefully improve on it.

As for your other question - the game will not be aimed at children. Without spoiling too much I’m experimenting with the thought of the player not being the controlled character, but more an entity helping the character.
The child is in need of help and you’re the entity directly communicating with him. This also allows for some fun dialogue scenarios between you (the entity) and the child

Phlebas - 17 January 2017 05:01 AM

You might want to tweak the mask so that you can’t walk into the bed like in the second screenshot, but that’s a minor thing - I like the overall style! It’s clear and the style of the inventory objects is nicely consistent.

A fair point. The hitbox detection does require a bit more tweaking. Thanks!

Doing your market research here (as you’ve been doing for three threads now) is a terrible, terrible idea. The sample size is tiny (a couple dozen regulars, if that) and not representative of anything. And take it from someone who’s been hanging around here for far too long: you really don’t want this committee to design your game.

Good luck, though.

Kurufinwe - 17 January 2017 05:43 AM

Doing your market research here (as you’ve been doing for three threads now) is a terrible, terrible idea. The sample size is tiny (a couple dozen regulars, if that) and not representative of anything. And take it from someone who’s been hanging around here for far too long: you really don’t want this committee to design your game.

Good luck, though.

The warning’s appreciated :-). I think “market research” is a bit too strong and formal a phrase though. I’m not a company. I’m an individual who loves adventure games and knows how to program. As such I’m loving the idea of creating my own Adventure game and (not so silently) hoping i can get others to enjoy it as well.

Sadly i don’t know many people IRL who share this love for Adventure games. And I fear that those i do know are not objective and will like my work regardless of quality. With this in mind i came to this forum. There are some individuals with strong opinions on this forum who also have a LOT of experience with Adventure games. I realize it can backfire but in my mind it was a good idea for a first reference.

As for game design - That’s not something i’d let someone else do :-). This is about the art only.

You can hang around the adventure game studio forums - they’re a crowd of people who actually make games. I don’t frequent there, myself, so I don’t know how toxic the atmosphere is, but the feedback is likely to be more useful.

Kurufinwe - 17 January 2017 05:43 AM

Doing your market research here (as you’ve been doing for three threads now) is a terrible, terrible idea. The sample size is tiny (a couple dozen regulars, if that) and not representative of anything. And take it from someone who’s been hanging around here for far too long: you really don’t want this committee to design your game.

Good luck, though.

This
Also Greenlight votes
There are plenty of venues to test waters
If i were you i would have made a teaser, best 3 minutes you can put in
Then gauge interest, if those 3 minutes will fail to impress then likely the whole game will too
Earlyaccess and things like that prove that, halfbaked ideas can gain any traction among newly found fans
Trial and error without putting going all out in one wrong direction

nomadsoul - 17 January 2017 11:13 AM

Also Greenlight votes
There are plenty of venues to test waters
If i were you i would have made a teaser, best 3 minutes you can put in
Then gauge interest, if those 3 minutes will fail to impress then likely the whole game will too
Earlyaccess and things like that prove that, halfbaked ideas can gain any traction among newly found fans
Trial and error without putting going all out in one wrong direction

Greenlight is indeed the next step to take, but since it costs $100 to register as a developer, I first wanted to get a pre-pre-alpha-concept-impression from a place like this.
Maybe i’m being too careful. Maybe I’m expecting a degree of certainty I simply cannot get. I don’t know.
Thanks for the advice though.