cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/49343322
Widelands is a free, open source real-time strategy game with singleplayer campaigns and a multiplayer mode. The game was inspired by Settlers II™ (© Bluebyte) but has significantly more variety and depth to it.
Source - Website
I care. And I’m not alone.
Graphics actually means a lot for many people, and that’s what they notice before everything else.
With all respect to people spending their spare time developing this and what they are actually able to pull off, this is also commonly what makes a difference between a hobby project and a viable game.
Massive kudos to whoever shares their passion game project. But saying “graphics is not important” would not be fair.
Right, so you’re not in the intended audience for the game. That’s fine! Not every game is made for every gamer. Many are made for very specific niche audiences! The RTS genre is already like this, and these graphics are pretty much exactly in line with what the audience for classic RTS games expect. It’s very similar to Age of Empires II.
Absolutely!
My only take is that disregarding graphics as something not important and not influencing anything or anyone is not right.
Plenty of people, me included, care for the high-quality assets in the game, and that’s a big factor. Honestly, as I see it, there are two reasons open-source games don’t commonly gain massive traction: they don’t have the budget for massive marketing, and they don’t look on par with AAA games which still attract most gamers with visuals.
The niche audiences can be served, just not your everyday gamer.
I love and prefer Stylised Graphics: Like Pixel Art, Cell Shaded and other over Real Life like graphics.
And that’s great, you do you! Amazing when the game finds a dedicated audience.
Just saying that graphics is important for many others, and it shouldn’t be discarded. After all, this is exactly why AAA projects look the way they do - there is demand.
So, This game doesn’t target who only like realistic graphics. Also Unrelated, If I ever make any game I will not care about people who like Realistic Graphics. Why? Because they lack artistic or creative vision. I don’t care if only 5 - 10 players played my game and I only want them to enjoy and underatand visuals and gameplay.
I am not saying all realistic graphics or AAA game are bad some are good and I have played like Elden Ring, Sekiro, Ghost of Tsushima, DOOM Eternal and some other too.
Not having your specific style preferences does not equal not having an artistic vision.
Plenty of artists work on realistic graphics, and there’s a lot in terms of creativity going on there.
Again, nothing bad if you make a game you would like to see as a hobby. But claiming other people don’t understand it because they just don’t understand art in general is a step too far.
I know I am being harsh I told my friend about Stardew Valley and Terraria. He literally said “This games look trash and old. Who TF even play this? I bet It doesn’t even have good story or gameplay”. Then, I suggested Blasphemous and Nine Sols because he like souls-like. He never even tried just see the trailer said “Both look bad I will never play with that Ugly graphics”. Yea, He said beautiful Pixel Art cutscene ugly.
And he’s very wrong too!
Plenty of people love pixel art, and that’s cool; it’s just not applicable to everyone.
Personally, I struggle playing platformers/isometric games and don’t like pixel art, so neither of the games you listed fit me in any capacity (seriously, they cause me pain on a near-physical level), and I would struggle playing them even if I liked the genre overall (and I do like sandboxes, for example; just make it fully 3-dimensional and add some decently detailed textures, at least!).
So, the point I’m trying to make is that, graphics is important, not necessarily in terms of realism, but in terms of catering to the respective audience. People do care about how the game looks, and while you’d prefer pixel art (and it too can be good AND bad), I’d strongly prefer realism, and as good as the game can be, I’m not gonna play it if it’s retro-oriented.
You would have told me earlier xD. Even though I love playing Boomer Shooters and Movement FPS but sometime they give me motion sickness because of View Bobbing or Motion Blur. So, I can feel you.
Oh yeah, boomer shooters are certainly not a good fit for everyone :D
Quite a niche genre, actually, just that followers are very vocal
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Not necessarily. I know it might be tempting to put an air of connoisseur, but really, AAA gaming is popular because those works actually received a lot of developers’ attention and plenty of artists, game designers, level engineers, and yes - programmers have put their best effort to make the game look, feel and play just right.
There is a charm, a “soul” to small indie projects, but seriously claiming that AAA gaming is nothing but empty shell for philistines would be disingenuous. After all, the undying classics, be it The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, RDR, GTA, Stalker, The Witcher etc. are all AAA projects, with a notable exception of Minecraft that went mainstream against common AAA model.
Me, too. But that’s why I prefer to say that realistic graphics in particular are not important. Because it’s heartbreaking when breathtaking pixel-art, that took a lot of hard work, is treated like an afterthought or even a weakness T_T
That game is clearly not a “hobby project”