Agreed (because I’ve made one myself).
The thing people fail to realize is that many games developed by small teams are also scaled accordingly. Super Meat Boy was made by like, 2 guys, and they budgeted time and money for art accordingly. A simple art style was part of the original design.
Same thing with Fez, also developed by a team of basically 2 people. The art style for the game is a balance between what looks good and what is feasible for a team of 2 people. Braid is ANOTHER example. A game where 1 guy was smart, and came up with an art style that matches the size of his team.
So now you get Skullgirls, which FROM THE BEGINNING is designed to be a beautifully animated 2d fighter. Want beautiful 2d animation? Guess what? You need a TEAM. You need TIME. You need MONEY. And when the shiny beautiful game comes out, people bitch that “ZOMG WHY DID IT COST SO MUCH?!”.
Comparing projects from smaller teams that CHOOSE to have a simple art style to a game like Skullgirls which has a completely different aesthetic philosophy is retarded. It’s like bitching about why the spaghetti at a fancy restaurant is more expensive than your can of Chef Boyardee.
If the people behind Fez, Braid, or Super Meat Boy ever decided to do Skullgirls-level art, you can bet your ass they’d need huge amounts of money too.
“DERP DERP I MADE A GAME IN RPGMAKER BY MYSELF SO HOW COME SKULLGIRLZ NEEDS TEH MONEH?!” Seriously people.
I agree with Jedpossum about the hitbox thing. I don’t really understand why Skullgirls’ chars require so many hitboxes.
Stuff like this is unnecessary and just complicates a lot of things IMO:
Compare that to SFII (hell, compare it to any other 2D FG:
http://dammit.typepad.com/.a/6a0120a8bc3caf970b0147e2705afd970b-800wi
Still, making an amazing shmup is one of the more difficult things, I imagine.
Way OT already but, scripting interesting bullet patterns is hard. At the same time though, you don’t need to spend much on the actual art assets, which is what I assume eats up alot of a 2D animated FGs budget.
I assume this is mostly because Mike didn’t want anything as derpy as Marvel 3. As well as minimizing the amount of hitbox dissonance in the game.
Though I agree that they did go a bit overboard.
While I don’t know how much it costs (I’m assuming a lot more than a SG character), it takes SNK 16 months to create one character. http://kofaniv.snkplaymore.co.jp/english/info/15th_anniv/2d_dot/creation/index.php
You really have to be not trying in order to get umvc3.
But having no hurt boxes around or in an attack is cutting it close.
Interesting video.
Skip to 2:20 if you don’t want to see Mike wrestling with his anti-virus.
Mike demonstrating beat 'em up and platformer mechanics with his engine, showing how versatile it is. So at least we can see that they pretty much got their money’s worth with the engine.
Here’s hoping that the planned metroidvania game (Vulcan Heel) eventually sees the light of day.
EDIT: Anyone who wants to watch Mike actually working on a character in his engine should watch this, especially since it shows Mike demonstrating how to do hitboxes.
Not every developer sets out to make a Deus Ex. Not every game needs to be a Deus Ex. Thus, not all of these games are compromises for lack of resources or skill, though that may play a part in the quality of the game. But yes, 2D platformers are one of the easiest genres to make, and they’re successful, so people bandwagon. Doesn’t mean their games are successful if they’re just derivative.
bchan put it better, in fewer words.
The simple mode just makes it where it won’t switch colors.
I just realized that this same thing applies to what SNKP did with KoFXII/XIII. They pretty much admitted that they could have saved money if they didn’t do it with old-school looking pixel art, but they decided to do it anyway for the love of the artstyle, even if it almost bankrupted the company.
Maybe a hand drawn FG isnt the way to go for an indie developer?
No use in arguing about it not really being an indie developer if they are taking donations to wrap up the DLC of the game. That means they cant afford the costs.
Wonder why they didnt opt for a cell shaded 2-d effect.
Well didn’t Mike say that they’re characters actually cost less than most major ones? Plus, I’d figure they’d go for 2d since they can at least have style on their side. You go for 3D, then you risk having jaggy looking characters and environments and a lot of people still see graphics > gameplay.
reminds me
im pretty curious to why everyone is quick to jump down some video games companies throat for DLC/prices/etc
but everytime I hear about skullgirls being mentioned from a friend/twitter/whatever… It’s them asking for money from the community
Fighting games are just one of those genres that require a lot of time to produce any content of quality. The simple fact is time = money, and fighting games take many man hours to produce!
“Every time”? They’ve done crowd funding once, ever.
Let’s not forget that the only reason they’re asking for money is because the money that they’re supposed to have is tied up due to Autumn’s legal troubles.
I find it so much more difficult to believe, ESPECIALLY given the quality of FGs today that the amount of time and effort required to create is nothing compared to your AAA flagship action adventure titles. Like hearsay and delusion running wild in here.
I just recall the days of yesteryear when companies like EA and Capcom would contract out artists and photographers to go to destinations around the world just to bring back thousands of pictures ie: brick textures, historic landmarks, clothing of natives etc etc. Even the GT series were recording the actual sounds that different make and models of cars would create etc etc
It just seems like so much more work. I wouldnt compare hand drawn sprites to a 2 week spelunking exploration off the coast of Madagascar to get an accurate portrayal of an underwater barrier reef shootout.