The re-skinning dilemma

[-AAG-]

I recently had one of my games re-skinned from programmers art to pixel art and would like to have my whole arcade games portfolio done. What I am looking for is some thoughts based on experience with re-skinning games and how you handle them on your portfolio. Is it wise to keep both versions simultaneously? Would it it be better to keep just the new version instead?

[tips4design]

It's not obvious which is the "better design". I personally like both and actually prefer the cleaner one (arrow station).

[chg]

I know you are not looking for feedback on which is better, but I also prefer Arrow Station (though the white on salmon text is a bit hard to read). The colors are more appealing (the color choice in Arrow Mines looks unappealing to me) and the in-game graphics in Arrow Mines seem too "busy" to me.

IMHO Arrow Mines also looks a bit unpolished, with multiline text touching the pixel art border of the rocky text boxes, accentuated pixel grids that are crudely broken by the upper face of the minetrack which then doesn't connect to anything on the sides (I think with this style you need more edges to make the track look raised), and a title font that seems lazily drawn (I wouldn't comment if this seemed part of the overall aesthetic, but the handdrawn style doesn't match with anything else in the game).

[dimumurray]

Clean and minimalist graphics is pretty much synonymous with casual mobile games these days. Pixel art is cool if you're going for a retro vibe but outside of nostalgia you're going to have a tough time. And I agree with the client, the pixel font is illegible, it reads as muddy.

 

I think what you need is art that properly captures that aesthetic. If your artist is good at vector art, have him/her re-skin the game using those techniques (and better font). 

 

Check out this article on the topic:
http://www.dinofarmgames.com/a-pixel-artist-renounces-pixel-art/

[Son of Bryce]

AAG, I think it's easy to think the mine version is better because the art is nice and you probably can't draw as well. But as others have stated, your minimal version actually works better functionally for the gameplay because it's clearer to understand with the simple shapes and colors.

 

It's important to remember that game art isn't just for looks, but it must help the player understand what's going on as well.

 

That said, they're both fine and I think you should just show both versions if you're trying to decide which to show. Certain people will find each version more appealing so why not cater to everybody? You might even be able to sell both versions to the same person if they want to present it as a new game further down the line. Just my thoughts!

[-AAG-]

Thanks for the feedback. I should have mentioned that the fonts for Arrow Mines need to be changed. I think they do work on my version and all of my other games. I did them myself

I really don't think vector art is the way to go for low-res games. It looks horrible when scaled up. I have used it before and I really don't like it.

[Ninjadoodle]

I really don't think vector art is the way to go for low-res games. It looks horrible when scaled up. I have used it before and I really don't like it.

 

 

This is exactly why I think it's important that engines have hires / retina asset support.

 

For example, you provide the engine with ...

 

player.png (32x32)

[email protected] (64x64)

[email protected] (128x128)

 

and the engine chooses which image to load, depending on the device it's running on.

 

This is one of the reasons I use Panda as it handles all of this automatically

 

PS. A lot of popular engines use this approach - CoronaSDK, Cocos2D, V-Play, Gideros and Stencyl (most of the don't export html5 tho).

[-AAG-]

While I appreciate all of the comments I wasn't really looking for advice on art choices and how to handle them. My games are already low-res and they are going to stay low-res so I needed a re-skin that fitted that and that is already done.

 

Of course, it was my fault that everyone got mislead so I went ahead and rectified that modifying my original post. At this point I already made my decision on the matter but if anyone wants to comment on the actual subject then I will still appreciate that.

[totor]

I don't get how vector art looks bad when scaled up? Do you have a picture? From a more general business point now, it's very common to have multiple versions of the same game with different graphics to target different demographics or cultures, look at what hasbro do with the monopoly boardgames for instance. You can make the same game and sell one to Marvel, one to DC comics and another to Disney SW. !that's just common sense.

[-AAG-]

Replacement it is! And then if a client rejects the games strictly because of the graphics then I will show them the other skin hoping they are into simpler styles.

[-AAG-]

I don't get how vector art looks bad when scaled up? Do you have a picture? From a more general business point now, it's very common to have multiple versions of the same game with different graphics to target different demographics or cultures, look at what hasbro do with the monopoly boardgames for instance. You can make the same game and sell one to Marvel, one to DC comics and another to Disney SW. !that's just common sense.

Sorry I didn't see this before. Maybe I didn't worded that correctly making for yet another confusion. Vector art scales well and is relatively easy to learn at least for the basic stuff. But when your making your art using vectors and then save them as png then they are not vectors anymore but just regular images. Since my games are only 320x480 and my scaling method is simply to scale the canvas to fit whatever screen size then what looked beautiful at 320x480 doesn't anymore because of the pixelation from scaling the games up too much. On mobile it isn't such a big deal but on desktop and tablets is another story. Take a look at one of the first 3 or 4 games on my Budget section to see what I mean: gamesaag.com

 

I am sticking to pixel art for now. I think my artist is awesome and I really like what he is doing to my games.