yeah, make a bad art, then by doing this bad art, you make a poor art style that's yours, and you will 100% improve your art by doing your art. It's like if you never do it, you will never be good at....
As a solo dev trying to make a game while sucking at art, I can say that the only viable option is outsource. If you try to do it yourself, even if it was a stylized or pixel art direction, it still has to be coherent and readable. Programmers like us just don't have the necessary skills to make that happen. Play to your strengths, don't hold back your game by attempting to do something you're not good at
As a solo dev trying to make a game while sucking at programming, I can say that the programming skill is more valuable. You can make a game with zero art skills, but you can't with zero programming skills. But I'm very much on your side. Find a team and play to your strengths, or be willing to learn the things you're not good at for years. Or take the shortcut with money.
@@FrogKin9 And programming is much easier to ask from ChatGPT because if I as a programmer who sucks at art ask for tectures from AI then everyone will talk trash about me but if you ask code snippets from AI then no one will ever know because code is not directly visible for end users but art is. And honestly, as a programmer, I don't mind if you ask AI - I don't look at your game grumpily say I could have earned thousands if I was hired to code it like art people would about generating textures.
As a noob dev that sucks at art and is barely viable at programing i think that artistic cohesion is actually the king whether or not you do suck at art... My art is sucky but servicable and if everything around it is made in the same style of sucky but recognizable and in turn the sprites kinda bounce of each other to make some kind of a unique style
@@test-rj2vlif you only ever use chatgpt you will never learn how to program yourself. I'm still learning but I've already reached the spot where "ai" just causes more problems then it solves. Programmers spend considerably more time debugging code than writing it and it turns out that stuff like chatgpt is really good at confidently presenting some horrendous code like a first time programmer who believes they have written the best program ever. Additionally the worst kind of code is the kind that looks good but hides some small fundamental error which is hard to pick up on and impossible to find if you've already merged it into your wider codebase with no clue when you did
yoo thank you for this. It was sometimes discouraging to look at all the great artists in the RPGMaker community. Its nice to see someone else with no art skill talk about this
At 2:05, is that Code Monkey's Kitchen Chaos game? Also, 👍for the Equilinox mention. I've been following ThinMatrix for years, and recommend his channel for any game developer.
I completely agree with choosing an art style that's manageable. I wish I had gone more in that direction for the game I'm currently working on. While I'm still proud of what I've created, I can’t help but feel it could look even better if I had chosen a more minimalist style.
yes there are some people who are naturally gifted at art, but with time and practice anyone can learn how to draw or 3d model, its all on you if you are serious and committed to improving, you can do it too.
I am of an opinion that some of the most visually fascinating games were created not in spite of, but because of various limitations that were present. Whether it was technological or artistic skill limitations, people found creative ways to avoid them, and use those limitations to their strengths. So think hard, go hard, give your best, if you are him, you are HIM.
All great tips, and I had to discover all of these the hard way. With regards to shaders, remember that there's the shader graph in Unity and the Amplify Shader asset is solid-gold.
the 3d equivalent of pixel art is voxel art, not low poly. also the terraria footage you showed is really old, it might even be a decade old now, and calling undertale ugly is also a really hot take imo, the character design of undertale is astonishing.
Excellent recommendations! I'm a bit of a generalist myself but UI design is my field of expertise, I'm not a great artist tbh which is why I usually start of with simple designs and stylise them using shaders and post processing effects to achieve cool results in the end.
i thought it was like " make a poor art style as same as poor pixel art ", but it's all on "buy assets" it's like you don't make the game, you could also copy paste code, then make all a typical game without your soul in it. Can't we just have a thing like real answer ? But i think there is none.
How to Make Games when you SUCK at Art? 1. Get your phone and snap photographs. That is, go around your home, neighborhood, job, etc., snap photos, abstract the items that you want out of the photos using photoshop or your favorite paint program. 2. Use A.I. In fact, for my game, I get some of my art from at site called Leonardo a .i. and Mage Space. and it saved a ton of time. This is just my 2 cents and what I do sometimes if I need art assets.
Outsourcing doesn't need to be expensive. Just think outside the box. You just need to find someone who's not on fiverrrrr or whatever. For example, my daughter is a fantastic artist just for fun and can crank out a cute frog character in minutes whereas I'm still there 2 hours later sweating over what looks like a puddle with wrong eyes. There's likely even someone you know who is a good artist and does it for fun outside of their day job (just like you dev'ing) and would be thrilled just to see their art moving and interactive in your game, especially if you offer a reasonable payout later if your game sells. Just think, you're an aspiring game dev. If someone said, 'hey, can you write this (fairly easy for you to code) thing?' I'll give you $xxx if my idea sells.' You'd be like...hmm, a potential $xxx payout later seems worth a few hours working on something new, clearly defined, and a little bit fun to do that will also help this person move ahead with their idea/project. I'd say yes to that. And so would many artists say yes for you who see their art as a hobby.
Solo devs need to chill and get teams that help with the areas you suck at. Lets face it. You are not a solo develepor unless you made your own engine, your own ide, you own scripting language, etc. Let the ego out of the building
Yeah, this take just makes no sense. You wouldn't say that about any other profession that also uses tools, assets, ingredients, etc. to do their job. And I don't understand why people always think this is an ego thing? What if the solo dev just wants to work by themselves? I think there's something alluring to the idea of just having to work for yourself, by yourself. It's not because I need to feel vindicated in saying "I made this by myself!" but more of it just sounds nice not having to deal with others and being responsible for just me. A team is nice, but it has other drawbacks as well if everyone isn't on the same page. Not to mention, if you're the one that has to manage said team that brings a whole new can of worms.
@@daveydawn4179 if you think you have no one to thank about for what you are able to do then its an ego trip. Even the Valley guy got his girlfriend paid for everything for him to work.
Try to make a video without any special effects or engagement pictures and compare which video gets more views. These adhd-images and sounds make me stop watching.
"Q: How to make games when you suck at art?"
"A: Have your wife make the art" :)
Q: How to get a wife?
A: Marry the woman you love!
xD
@@igorthelight
Q: "What is love?"
A: "Baby, don't hurt me..."
@@jackoftraes2122 xD
Fun fact: Vampire Survivors was made mostly by using assets from asset packs, that’s why there are so many enemy types!
Watching both this video and the bad at coding video for the ultimate game dev life hack
Bad art done consistently is just an art style.
“This is my brutal minimalist pixel art. I swear it’s not just garbage”
yeah, make a bad art, then by doing this bad art, you make a poor art style that's yours, and you will 100% improve your art by doing your art. It's like if you never do it, you will never be good at....
oh its big brain time
As a solo dev trying to make a game while sucking at art, I can say that the only viable option is outsource.
If you try to do it yourself, even if it was a stylized or pixel art direction, it still has to be coherent and readable. Programmers like us just don't have the necessary skills to make that happen. Play to your strengths, don't hold back your game by attempting to do something you're not good at
As a solo dev trying to make a game while sucking at programming, I can say that the programming skill is more valuable. You can make a game with zero art skills, but you can't with zero programming skills. But I'm very much on your side. Find a team and play to your strengths, or be willing to learn the things you're not good at for years. Or take the shortcut with money.
@@FrogKin9 well there are actually many game engines that you can use without programming knowledge. RPGMaker, Construct 3 and Gdevelop come to mind.
@@FrogKin9 And programming is much easier to ask from ChatGPT because if I as a programmer who sucks at art ask for tectures from AI then everyone will talk trash about me but if you ask code snippets from AI then no one will ever know because code is not directly visible for end users but art is. And honestly, as a programmer, I don't mind if you ask AI - I don't look at your game grumpily say I could have earned thousands if I was hired to code it like art people would about generating textures.
As a noob dev that sucks at art and is barely viable at programing i think that artistic cohesion is actually the king whether or not you do suck at art...
My art is sucky but servicable and if everything around it is made in the same style of sucky but recognizable and in turn the sprites kinda bounce of each other to make some kind of a unique style
@@test-rj2vlif you only ever use chatgpt you will never learn how to program yourself. I'm still learning but I've already reached the spot where "ai" just causes more problems then it solves. Programmers spend considerably more time debugging code than writing it and it turns out that stuff like chatgpt is really good at confidently presenting some horrendous code like a first time programmer who believes they have written the best program ever. Additionally the worst kind of code is the kind that looks good but hides some small fundamental error which is hard to pick up on and impossible to find if you've already merged it into your wider codebase with no clue when you did
Hey everyone! I’m a pixel artist and I’ll create art for your game if I like it!
yoo thank you for this. It was sometimes discouraging to look at all the great artists in the RPGMaker community. Its nice to see someone else with no art skill talk about this
At 2:05, is that Code Monkey's Kitchen Chaos game? Also, 👍for the Equilinox mention. I've been following ThinMatrix for years, and recommend his channel for any game developer.
I completely agree with choosing an art style that's manageable. I wish I had gone more in that direction for the game I'm currently working on. While I'm still proud of what I've created, I can’t help but feel it could look even better if I had chosen a more minimalist style.
Another very helpful and morale boosting video. Thanks.
Write a text game and don't worry about art! :D
As a student, I always talk to my team members, I am only for scripting ,making character move. The rest of the art, I can't do any more...
Its like this video was tailored for me 🥺 thank you
Thanks for the tips, they make a difference to us.
yes there are some people who are naturally gifted at art, but with time and practice anyone can learn how to draw or 3d model, its all on you if you are serious and committed to improving, you can do it too.
I am of an opinion that some of the most visually fascinating games were created not in spite of, but because of various limitations that were present. Whether it was technological or artistic skill limitations, people found creative ways to avoid them, and use those limitations to their strengths.
So think hard, go hard, give your best, if you are him, you are HIM.
All great tips, and I had to discover all of these the hard way. With regards to shaders, remember that there's the shader graph in Unity and the Amplify Shader asset is solid-gold.
As someone who no longer has an artist, this came at the perfect time
the 3d equivalent of pixel art is voxel art, not low poly.
also the terraria footage you showed is really old, it might even be a decade old now,
and calling undertale ugly is also a really hot take imo, the character design of undertale is astonishing.
Excellent recommendations! I'm a bit of a generalist myself but UI design is my field of expertise, I'm not a great artist tbh which is why I usually start of with simple designs and stylise them using shaders and post processing effects to achieve cool results in the end.
The other option is using Ascii where the great Cthulhu can be represented with a simple 'C'
This video was informative. Thank you!
i thought it was like " make a poor art style as same as poor pixel art ", but it's all on "buy assets" it's like you don't make the game, you could also copy paste code, then make all a typical game without your soul in it.
Can't we just have a thing like real answer ? But i think there is none.
You mean, I have to find myself a wife now!!
Dead Cells look is not a shader btw, the characters are sprites crushed into pixel art from a 3D model
The title oddly resonated with me, had to click.
That ping for the discord server was painful
How to Make Games when you SUCK at Art?
1. Get your phone and snap photographs. That is, go around your home, neighborhood, job, etc., snap photos, abstract the items that you want out of the photos using photoshop or your favorite paint program.
2. Use A.I. In fact, for my game, I get some of my art from at site called Leonardo a .i. and Mage Space. and it saved a ton of time.
This is just my 2 cents and what I do sometimes if I need art assets.
"Q: How to make games when you suck at art?"
"A: Outsource" :)
Outsourcing doesn't need to be expensive. Just think outside the box. You just need to find someone who's not on fiverrrrr or whatever. For example, my daughter is a fantastic artist just for fun and can crank out a cute frog character in minutes whereas I'm still there 2 hours later sweating over what looks like a puddle with wrong eyes.
There's likely even someone you know who is a good artist and does it for fun outside of their day job (just like you dev'ing) and would be thrilled just to see their art moving and interactive in your game, especially if you offer a reasonable payout later if your game sells.
Just think, you're an aspiring game dev. If someone said, 'hey, can you write this (fairly easy for you to code) thing?' I'll give you $xxx if my idea sells.' You'd be like...hmm, a potential $xxx payout later seems worth a few hours working on something new, clearly defined, and a little bit fun to do that will also help this person move ahead with their idea/project. I'd say yes to that. And so would many artists say yes for you who see their art as a hobby.
Style or monochromatic color or easy 3D Or go according strength or mex everything
EQUILINOX MENTIONED!!!!!!
Easy to fix: Just make a game like cruelty squad
I am bad coding, also bad in art, how to start Sir..😢
Frisk in the thumbnail implying undertale's character designs aren't actually amazing even if simplistic
Toby fox had to get an artist to make designs for his characters. His art sucked and needed help.
I won't lie about your chances
but you have my sympathies
:)
their YT channel is doing well after 2 years so the game doesnt have to do super well imo
Wasn’t this video uploaded already?
just realized one of my game was used in this video haha
Great video - would love another Q&A with you guys.
You look a lot like John Lennon
cool
My love❤
Good advice, thanks. God bless. Jesus loves you!
WOO
A.I can help a lot nowdays...
And it's FREE!
If I had this for me 20 years ago....😑
L
Us 😂😂
Solo devs need to chill and get teams that help with the areas you suck at. Lets face it. You are not a solo develepor unless you made your own engine, your own ide, you own scripting language, etc. Let the ego out of the building
Right just like how you aren't an artist unless you make your own pencil and Eraser
Yeah, this take just makes no sense. You wouldn't say that about any other profession that also uses tools, assets, ingredients, etc. to do their job. And I don't understand why people always think this is an ego thing? What if the solo dev just wants to work by themselves? I think there's something alluring to the idea of just having to work for yourself, by yourself. It's not because I need to feel vindicated in saying "I made this by myself!" but more of it just sounds nice not having to deal with others and being responsible for just me. A team is nice, but it has other drawbacks as well if everyone isn't on the same page. Not to mention, if you're the one that has to manage said team that brings a whole new can of worms.
@@StealthyShiroeanGames it is an ego thing when you keep reading stuff like "i'm a one man studio", or "im doing everything by myself".
@@angeltripper8518 not the same
@@daveydawn4179 if you think you have no one to thank about for what you are able to do then its an ego trip. Even the Valley guy got his girlfriend paid for everything for him to work.
First
Try to make a video without any special effects or engagement pictures and compare which video gets more views. These adhd-images and sounds make me stop watching.