Acceptable 'art'?

ID:1189358
 
Mar 6 2013, 5:19 am
Keywords: art, iron, ironman, man
So I'm attempting to create a simple, fast-paced, immersive multiplayer Ironman game. I know fan-games generally have a bad rap on here, but I'm obsessed with Ironman and after being thoroughly disappointed by the 'games' that the video game industry brought out (let's be honest, they were utter cack) I honestly thought that I could do better.

However, I'm no artist. In fact, I'm -useless- at drawing/painting/pixel-art e.t.c. So, although I'm loathe to show anything before it's to an acceptable standard, I wanted to check now whether or not it was worth investing more time in to this project, or if my 'art skill' was simply unacceptable.

Ironman SS5

This is just a little snapshot of the player dressed in the most basic armour, with an enemy mob in the top-right, and some pillaged/salvaged weaponry lying about a cave. The giant grey things in the middle are meant to be a Forge and an Anvil. Also the guy in the HUD on the right is very red because the player has been shot a couple times.

Also, I know the interface is terrible, I'm struggling with that too and I'd really appreciate some pointers/direction on how to improve it/myself.
Mar 6 2013, 5:24 am
In all honesty, it does not look too bad. If the game and plot is good enough, I bet that many will look past the art. I'm assuming this is your first game (on BYOND, at least?), and being a first, it does not look half bad.
Mar 6 2013, 5:38 am
I've dabbled with some very tiny games (a singleplayer Tamagotchi game, a click-to-destroy-groups-of-blocks game, e.t.c) before, but those were all about 7ish years ago. This is the first time I've had a proper go at making a mature game that I actually expect/hope people might play.

I've made quite some head way with the basic systems for the game mechanics, and I've got a significant (and in my opinion, quite clever) plot lined up, so hopefully they will end up 'good enough'.

Thank you for the kind words and advice though ^_^
Mar 6 2013, 5:50 am
Its good enough for place holders someone might come pass this game and offer to do art for you if the gameplay is decent.
Mar 6 2013, 7:35 am
I like it. Looks better than the majority of byond games tbh...
Mar 6 2013, 4:18 pm
what's up with that "update health" button?
Mar 6 2013, 4:46 pm
In response to Magicsofa
Magicsofa wrote:
what's up with that "update health" button?

I would assume it's for debugging purposes :), but yet that's an assumption.

Anything else than debugging and it would just be silly.
Mar 6 2013, 11:43 pm
Haha, all the buttons are just for temporary debugging, you're correct A.T.H.K. Everything in this game is activated/accessed by macros or clicking on-map objects.

Thank you all for the very kind words, although I do disagree with Magicsofa's comment that it looks better than the majority of BYOND games. The only games on here I consider "BYOND games" are those that regularly get players, and this is nowhere near the quality of the average one of those.

You have all bolstered my confidence in this game, and I will push onward. Thank you!
Mar 8 2013, 5:17 am
Style question.

Ironman SS7

I've made an on-screen text system which uses the boundaries of the HUD (text box) to make sure all the text lies within, and to go to a new line whenever the next letter would exceed the boundaries.

This alone took me more time than I'd like to admit. Is it worth working out a system that will keep whole words together? I suspect it may take literally dozens of hours for me to implement, but something about trailing letters (especially single letters from a long word) bugs me a bit.
Mar 8 2013, 5:25 am
Well, the hack way to avoid having to actually program your hud to avoid splitting words, is to put spaces in manually :)

That may take a lot longer depending on how much text you have
Mar 8 2013, 1:43 pm
No one likes maptext.

On a serious note we don't have to always use maptext I don't know why everyone thinks that..
Mar 8 2013, 1:45 pm
When I use it it tends to go up a few pixels the more text I have.
Mar 9 2013, 12:21 am
Jun 21 2013, 7:48 am
Thanks ProKillah! I have read through all those tutorials a few times now! And many others :P

I was hoping I could get some new/more critique. I've recently been working on the "wilderness" (aka: nature) areas, but I'm a truly awful artist, and to add to it my dirt-cheap monitor (£70 for a 22" a couple years ago!) doesn't display colours great... in fact the bottom of this page is a significantly different hue to the top on my screen...



They're the first trees I've ever drawn with any actual 'detail', and they're supposed to be Oak and Birch... also, is the grass okay? In the finished product this area will be a lot more densely populated with a large variety of fauna.
Jun 21 2013, 10:01 am
I am glad to see you are still working on this! I like it and can't wait to play it :)
Jun 21 2013, 10:08 am
I am indeed ^_^ I'm afraid I took a short 'break' whilst working on my Naval application, but now I'm back on developing this ^_^ I can't tell you how much I appreciate hearing that someone is actually looking forward to playing this ^_^
Jun 21 2013, 10:04 pm
The trees look a bit flat. Perspective's not matching. The white-stemmed ones look okay but the others need to be reworked. Detail doesn't really have to be key. Just think of the tree as spherical and give it three shades from top to bottom with some intersections for depth. That's a lazy way to do it.