Legos and Game Artwork
Entry posted by Josh ·
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I recently had a strange interest in looking at Lego sets online and watching reviews. There was something about them that I felt like related to game development and level design. Something very interesting I noticed was that each set would include several extra elements that formed a story line. This added "play potential" to the set. For example, the raft below includes three pirates loaded with weapons, one who is obviously the leader, a treasure map, so the crew has an objective, and a shark, which serves as an adversary or obstacle to overcome. This is a lot more interesting than if they had just made a simple raft and sold it on its own.
Sets of 3D models tend to be sold as a collection of objects. You buy five cars, and hopefully you've got that car problem taken care of for the rest of your life. It's kind of dull and tends to become a chore of "collecting" things that don't add a lot of value to a game.
Based on this idea, I have several DLCs planned that are made up of items that create unique gameplay opportunities. Each pack includes unique scripted items that don't exist anywhere else, and sets up new "play potential" for your games. This could also allow me to distribute the cost of character models across several packs. At $6000 / model I can't quickly recover the cost of production of a pack of AAA characters. If they were distributed in a DLC with environment props I can offset the cost of production and build new content in a sustainable manner. I hope to have some of these available before Christmas.
We're also experimenting with building higher quality content. Game assets are still a huge problem. The fact is that most of the third-party content available on the web just isn't that good, or is very inconsistent. In fact the phrase "unity asset" has become a common derogatory term for "bad artwork", regardless of its origin. If making large collections of high-quality content was profitable, people would be doing it. So it seems to me this is a sales problem.
The modding community tends to have a ton of high-quality original artwork, while the indie game development community tends to have terrible artwork and presentation, as a general thing. This has always confused me. I'm not talking about pre-made game content, I mean the work the community itself produces. Modders always have much better art and presentation. You can even see this in Vectronic, a game that began as a Source Engine mod. Why does indie game artwork have to be instantly recognizable and kind of amateurish? This needs to change.
Fortunately, our DLC sales are quite high, higher than anything else on the web, from what I have heard talking to various artists. We can produce high-quality content and recoup the costs, even making a small profit. This has to be carefully planned though. Contracted work works best when you have a longstanding relationship with the contractor. It can be difficult to get things started initially.
For environment art, I've relied on Ancient Idol Studio for several years. I've talked to Rich about the need to raise our art standards, and he thinks he can produce better output with a bigger budget. We're starting by modeling a new pickup truck as a test.
His instructions are to produce something similar in quality to the vehicles in "SpinTires", with a 6000 poly budget:
Eventually, we're going to revise the entire demo level. I'm starting slowly by focusing on one item so we can learn what we need to, establish our art style, and then ramp up production of more content.
I also have someone working to replace our default pistol vwep. If this works out, I plan to rely on them to produce more weapons.
I'm still looking for a freelancer or shop for character models. It's difficult to find someone with work that isn't overly stylized, is cost-effective, and good with communication. I'm willing to be flexible on costs, but spending more money doesn't necessarily mean you get a better result. This is made more difficult by the fact that most portfolios tends to show off the most outlandish art...which isn't a good representation of what I am looking for.
My goal right now is to get one good environment model, one good vwep, and one good character, with a cost that can be quickly recovered. If we can get one of each, we can keep producing more and DLC sales will cover the costs.
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