I almost dismissed this because of the graphics style.

[Rocket]

I find it a very odd choice to choose a graphics style that is almost identical to RPGMaker. there are so many RPG maker games on the steam market place, I generally ignore a game after a cursory glance that shows that particular style. the only reason I'm looking at it now is because my friend put the video on. I can't help but feel like a whole load of people are going to completely bypass your game for the same reasons I almost did.

[Glacier-701]

Crosscode's graphics have zhieght which allows certain graphics to be higher than others like a player being able to go under a roof or something. The graphics have exact placements, so it's not tile by tile. Identifiable x and y values. the graphics that placed are fully confiugrable. RPGMaker's are not. I'm sure how you found the game's graphics like RPGMaker because the game doesn't follow the pattern of how rpg maker uses it graphics.

[Rocket]

I did notice the zheight in the video. that is what made me reconsider because when i saw the characters going behind obstacles that was something I knew rpgmaker cannot do natively.
The screenshots do look like simple tilesets so the exact placement is not apparent to an at-a-glance look.
It's my first instinct when i saw it, I dismissed it as rpgmaker. i did a search of this discussion board and it seems I am not the only one. I will quote from another topic

Originally posted by ䷃䷋䷃䷏䷀ ䷴䷼䷝:

One thing I will be mentioning in my review is that this is definitely NOT a Final Fantasy style RPG, as some of the public that I have asked if they've played or even heard of this game often commented that they had seen and dissmissed it as an RPG maker game. I might even liken RPGMaker to cancer an this title to the cure. We'll see how I feel.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/368340/discussions/0/135511913385541289/#c135511913386435661

[Glacier-701]

the developers publish videos of them developing crosscode on twich and youtube. If you would like to see how the game is developed, I would recommened taking a look.

[Rocket]

Originally posted by ノクティス:

the developers publish videos of them developing crosscode on twich and youtube. If you would like to see how the game is developed, I would recommened taking a look.

I wouldn't. thanks for the offer though.
I'm just saying what I saw.
If they know how people view their game, they can adjust their designs or their marketing accordingly.

[Rocket]

I'm playing the demo and I really do love it. I think it would be a shame if lots of people pass it by.
I've been trying to think what it is. I think it's the repeated textures due to the tiles being the size they are and high contrast/definition. I think because the game is twice the resolution of snes games, I think the tiles might need to be 32x32 as well. a couple of the screenshots of the game are divided into these little sections and I believe that is what makes it look like rpgmaker and why it is likely to get dismissed. there are many parts of the game that are clearly not small tiles, but the areas of grass, shallow water, dirt patches I see in some screenshots are small tiles. that is what made me immediately dismiss it and so it's possible if this were adjusted, it might get more traction?

[Dunan]

There's not much they can do about people's ignorance about sprite based graphics. Personally when I saw it I thought it looked awesome and charming and seeing it motion, even just short little clips instantly told me what sort of game it was and what sort of art standart/animation it'd have.

Now people who don't understand much about stuff like that likely won't be swayed without some heavy influences and that's if they are excepting of them.

The best we can do is to give positive reviews to the quality of the game and perhaps showcase things about it.

People who has a bias against it however won't be swayed most likely.

[Rocket]

Then let me ask you what games you grew up with? I grew up with the nes, snes, megadrive. Zelda, secret of mana, secret of evermore, illusion of time, soleil, story of thor etc. I played those games to death because there was nothing else to play. Those games are ingrained in my mind.
When I look at ittle dew, I see zelda.
When I look at evoland, I see final fantasy.
When I look at anodyne, I see zelda again.
When I look at crystal Kingdom, I see alundra.
When I look at hazelnut bastille, I see soleil.
When I saw this, I thought of rpg maker.

It is a little rude to assume that people are ignorant just because they make an association that you dont agree with.

I am sure anyone who watches the video would be impressed by the animation and effects. The point is, most people likely won't get that far if they look at the screenshot and see what they perceive to be yet another lazy rpgmaker title.
Most people don't have the time or patience to investigate further. Reviews won't help much either because they might assume its just a 'good rpgmaker game' and avoid it because 'good' is a relative term.

[lachsen]

The CrossCode pixelart style is inspired by SNES classics like Chrono Trigger, Terranigma and Seiken Densetsu 3.

RPG-Maker Standard Graphics are admittedly somewhat similar. Especially the style of characters is close to that of those games. If you look closer you will notice, especially in environment graphics, that there is a difference in quality. Especially when it comes to things like cliff tiles we drew heavy Inspiration form Seiken Densetsu 3. RPG-Maker tiles in comparison are way more geometric/simple.

While you might see RPG-Maker in CrossCode, others will see Chrono Trigger/Terranigma/Secret of Mana. This very much depends on your personal experience (and your ability to accurately recognize a graphics style).

Still we never would have done another style because we wanted our game to look like Seiken Densetsu/Chrono Trigger/Terranigma. Changing the style at this point is entirely unrealistic anyway.

Maybe the whole thing simply should be a lesson for you not to judge a book by its cover.

PS: Crystal Kingdom is obviously inspired by SD3 and not Alundra, what the hell?

[Kandarihu]

Oh, freaking heck. I LOVE Seiken Densetsu 3!

[Rocket]

I played seiken densetsu 3 or secret of mana as I knew it, maybe 4 times. I played it over and over and I freaking LOVED that game. I did not see that game in cross code. I never suggested you change the style, just that there are parts in the screenshots which make it look like a rpgmaker. the textures are really strongly defined and the tiling is very obvious.
just look at this screen cap https://gamefabrique.com/storage/screenshots/snes/secret-of-mana-04.png and you can see the grass is more subtle and only defined in specific places, the shallow water is very subtle but more importantly, the screen resolution is lesser and so you don't notice tiling so much. not to mention it was played on a CRT television and had much less clarity.
I was looking at this screenshot of crosscode https://www.gamecrate.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/CrossCode.jpg and it is one of the types of areas that make me think mostly of rpgmaker. the water, the grass and the mud, they are all very defined textures, strongly repeating and look like a tiling pattern.
You're probably going to hate me for doing this, but I tried to play with it in photoshop to see if I could identify what made me see it more as rpgmaker and what would make it look more like seiken densetsu 3. I thought that maybe it would be helpful if I showed you the adjustments i made so you know what some people might see and how it might have a different effect. https://imgur.com/a/eNv7TgQ
I want to make it clear though, I am by no means saying it looks bad. I think the game is pretty awesome from what I played of the demo. I am just thinkig about what first impressions I had and what many people may also have.

Edit: I realised my error , I got the numbers mixed up between SD2 and 3. I see how you are aiming for the SD3 art style more. I never played that because it wasn't available in my country. the thing is though, the screen was smaller so tiling wasn't very apparent, I think the crux of it is, tiling may make many people think of rpgmaker. when I look at the screens of SD3 I don't see tilig. I realise that making less tiling adds more work so I won't suggst you do that... but maybe you could pick screenshots where it isn't so apparent? that might help to get more fans? I'm just trying to be helpful ^_^;

[lachsen]

I can see how you're trying to be helpful but all the things you're saying here are extremely subjective as far as I can tell.

It is impossible for us to update the graphics at this point and "reduce tiling" as you describe.

When it comes to optimizing screenshots it's also very difficult to do that because I honestly don't properly follow your criteria what looks "RPG-Maker" like and what not. Every classic SNES games used tiling and in every game it was fairly obvious at times ( see here: http://retroachievements.org/Images/006100.png ). And if obvious tiling is the problem, then why is something like this ( https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dIJ6y_G1LH4/maxresdefault.jpg ) from Evoland okay?
In fact, one of our first screenshots is this one ( https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/368340/ss_96e153808c63d9e8000aae2ce5e90de40ab007a2.600x338.jpg?t=1526285070 ) and I think it holds up pretty well of not having obvious tiling visible.

We could just make you select screenshots for us but how can we be sure that your opinion is exactly what everyone else would think as well?

Really, I think this is not going to go anywhere.

People will always associate CrossCode with RPG-Maker because 1. it has the same tile size, 2. character sprites are similar 3. Graphical style / level of detail is somewhat similar (e.g. things have outlines, it's more 16 bit than 8 bit etc.). And also people don't look close enough to see the difference and that's understandable.

Sure, you could just make your game look like Zelda (super flat colors), 8-bit like (no outlines, lower resolution) and it's clearly not RPG-Maker then. But you know what? I think it would look worse.

What I'm saying is RPG-Maker style isn't "objectively bad". It's just that your average RPG-Maker game might have a rather low quality so people just "filter out" anything that looks somewhat similar.

But despite all that, let's not ignore the fact, that CrossCode is actually fairly successful. Sure you might not think that, because as an average gamer you always have an extreme positive bias, only really noticing the "big hits", but compared to the average Steam game, CrossCode did surprisingly well, especially considering it's narrative-driven and incomplete / in Early-Access.

Who knows, maybe CrossCode will grow into a more popular game once it's complete and then people will "warm up" again to the RPG-Maker style a bit more again.

Because that might be just my (obviously biased) opinion, but CrossCode has better tile graphics than SD2. Not compared to SD3 though. That game is the king of tile graphics.

[Rocket]

Yeah I understand it is really difficult to please everyone and honestly, I just want the game to be a big success. I'm planning on purchasing it when it is complete because these days I don't tend to replay games after first playthrough.
I also understand that often times, it is difficult to get how people associate your game with other games. people have seemed to associate my game with roblox or unturned and I'm not entirely sure how to change this association.

Originally posted by lachsen:

People will always associate CrossCode with RPG-Maker because 1. it has the same tile size, 2. character sprites are similar 3. Graphical style / level of detail is somewhat similar (e.g. things have outlines, it's more 16 bit than 8 bit etc.). And also people don't look close enough to see the difference and that's understandable.

This makes a lot of sense. I was thinking about teh sprite size but I thought it would be too unrealistic for me to mention that because changing it would be too much hassle. same thing with the actual tile size.

[Mauman]

The style that came to me was a combo of Secret of Mana and Phantasy Star (particuarly 4). Which, along with a dash of .hack, is exactly how I describe the game's setting to my friends.

Considering that SoM and PS 4 have amazing pixel art fot it's time, I consider that to be a very good pedigree to ape off of.

[Horoai]

Originally posted by lachsen:

Maybe the whole thing simply should be a lesson for you not to judge a book by its cover.

I do see OP's point though.
Graphic style definitely does remind people of RPG maker games (which are sometimes low quality but almost always low scope). Not judging a book by it's cover is hard with the sheer amount of 'books' we have to go through on the store page.


Perhaps there is a lesson in here for you as well:

Put more screenshots of the fancy stuff that blows RPG maker out of the water in the front of your store page!
> level 3 combat arts
> detail of a multi height-level jumping puzzle (Basin Keep comes to mind)
> more combat action shots

After all, advertisement often is a first look thing.
In that vein, it's save to say the first screenshot (next to videos) which is automatically shown when you zap over games in your queue generates the most attention. Visual and interface design of the store page further amplify this.

There is probably a more mind-blowing choice for it than a calm blue sky title screen, right?


For the follow-up screenshots, I think it's important to show off distinct features in there right away because people use them to get an idea of what the game offers in broad strokes before doing any serious reading or buffering the videos.
So in your shoes, I would show off the skill tree so people can gauge the scope of your RPG mechanics, the elements (best with status effects applied) to get an idea of combat depth and some funny teaser dialogue.

Finally, it's probably would be a good idea to have some of these in the "About the Game" section as well:
https://www.radicalfishgames.com/wp-content/uploads/lvl3-mix.gif
https://www.radicalfishgames.com/wp-content/uploads/wave-arts.gif

Just to catch the attention of anyone on their way scrolling down to the reviews. Clips like these of which you must have made dozens already display how state of the art your combat gameplay actually is - despite the 2D look.



--
You guys do awesome promontial content for the news alone! It's just that surprisingly little of it is right in the front of your store page.

I know a lot of this is in your videos but personally, I click 'next' on the vast majority of games before I even bother to load them and I bet many people do the same.
Videos are only buy for 'potential buy candidates', your screenshots should get you to this stage in the first place (as well as review score and genre but you've already aced that).
They are better used for second look material.

[Rocket]

Originally posted by Yggdrasil:

In that vein, it's save to say the first screenshot (next to videos) which is automatically shown when you zap over games in your queue generates the most attention. Visual and interface design of the store page further amplify this.

I like how you think. I shall take this advice to heart as well for when I am updating the store page for my own game.