First i want to apologize for being little to harsh and probably rude in my previous post. I just rly get angry when i see creator complaining about consumers. For me it always sounds bad
Thank you! You've made a lot of good points actually, you're right.. I need to reevaluate my perspective a bit, and be a bit more realistic and less biased. Thanks for that
(btw, this is Raigan still.. hopefully soon I'll have my own account!)
I do have one very specific bone to pick, though.. sorry!
>good graphic increase your chances.
The core of my frustration with this sentiment, which is AFAICT the majority opinion re: N++'s graphics, is that: these *are* good graphics!
I doubt I will convince you, but I want to try just in case it's possible.
I don't just mean that the graphics are good in the context of the game design, etc; I mean that, this style of graphics (broadly speaking, circa-2000s The Designers Republic-style vector graphics) was a major movement in graphic design.
This style was literally the supreme style for about a decade.
In fact, this visual style was so popular and successful that it almost became a cliche. So many people found it so compelling, that they drove it into the ground, and the graphic design world moved on.
Now: if you were arguing that the graphics aren't good because, from a graphic design perspective, they're a bit stale: fair enough. I absolutely agree that, in the world of graphic design, we aren't doing anything new.
However: we thought it was worth pursuing this style because, not only does it work well with the game, but we wanted to inject some style and cultural literacy into games.
We really don't understand gamers that dismiss our graphics as "bad", when for a decade the people who care most about graphics -- graphic designers -- championed this as good.
Maybe this is the same "game designer's game designer" problem you mentioned, but honestly: I think it's sad to consider the majority opinion "correct", experts know better than the uninformed what is truly worthwhile and good. The scientist knows more about science than the layperson.
Now, if the majority thinks that something is bad, yes.. in a very real sense it's bad. (Especially in the context of the marketplace. But that's not a very interesting context IMO.)
But it's also possible that the majority are simply illiterate, or at least have very juvenile taste and sensibilities.
For a long time, it was common knowledge that the Earth was flat! You can't always rely on the group consensus for good information, and I'm hopeful that in the next years more games will try to explore the rich history of 2D graphics in an attempt to break free from the current dogma. (eg Cuphead is very promising in this regard)
We think that trying to design something that's easily digestible for the lowest common denominator will only move you around in the same space everyone else has already explored; you have to push against people's comfort zones to find something a bit novel. I guess I just need a thicker skin when they push back
We wanted to try to steer games towards modern graphic design, because we think that (a) it's beautiful, (b) it's much fresher and more interesting than the typical "retro pixels" or "illustrated cartoon" 2D styles, (c) it is functional and very effective at communicating visually to the player.
We are frustrated because, from our perspective, it's not the graphics that are bad, but some gamers' lack of taste and basic literacy wrt graphic design. It's no different than "my kid could paint this" criticisms of minimal/abstract art.
They only want what they already know/understand, they aren't interested in being open to something different, and to us this is a profoundly sad outlook. Life is too short not to be open to something new and different
We don't want to be the same, we want to take people along with us to someplace more exciting.. but: I absolutely agree that ultimately the failure rests with us, for not being able to convince people that our graphics are in fact "good". We're going to keep trying harder in the future
(A hilarious story: the first designers we worked with didn't want to do vectors because they were so cliche -- instead, they said what was really cutting edge right now in the world of graphic design was.. chunky pixels!! We could never convince them that chunky pixels were not a good fit for the game though, alas.)