I'm all for distinct Art Direction, and i loved Papers Please, but this seems too far.

[Sminky]

In the Steam trailer, the graphics seem to be bugging out. The pixels becoming blurey in sections. Overal i found the look to be very distracting and even somwhat headache inducing. Anyone else who thought the same, but has now played it and found it fine it would be great to hear from you.

[The Renderer]

Originally posted by Sminky:

Anyone else who thought the same, but has now played it and found it fine it would be great to hear from you.

That would be me. As I said in another thread, I wouldn't play it like this as action game/shooter, but this is so slow paced that it's fine.

[neohm]

There is a setting you can change to make the pixels sharp and not blurry at all. I'm not sure why this isn't the default setting but the game looks much better with sharper pixels. You can also change the graphics to mimmick other old school monitors (commodore, macintosh, etc.). I personally love two-bit graphics and therefore love the look of this game, but I can see why others might be turned off by it.

[br54jr]

Originally posted by Sminky:

Overal i found the look to be very destracting and even somwhat headache inducing.

Oof if you think the final product was an eyesore take a look at earlier GDC build of this game (On his website, dukope.com, if you really hate your eyesight)

I'm just glad he was able to make it look as good as it does for the final product.

Lucas Pope's dev log of it if you're interested.
https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg1363742#msg1363742

[The Renderer]

Originally posted by neo-medievalism:

There is a setting you can change to make the pixels sharp and not blurry at all. I'm not sure why this isn't the default setting but the game looks much better with sharper pixels. You can also change the graphics to mimmick other old school monitors (commodore, macintosh, etc.). I personally love two-bit graphics and therefore love the look of this game, but I can see why others might be turned off by it.

It's worth mentioning that those settings with sharper pixels shrink the gaming window and introduce a border, which is not that great either.

[Sminky]

Originally posted by The Renderer:

Originally posted by neo-medievalism:

There is a setting you can change to make the pixels sharp and not blurry at all. I'm not sure why this isn't the default setting but the game looks much better with sharper pixels. You can also change the graphics to mimmick other old school monitors (commodore, macintosh, etc.). I personally love two-bit graphics and therefore love the look of this game, but I can see why others might be turned off by it.

It's worth mentioning that those settings with sharper pixels shrink the gaming window and introduce a border, which is not that great either.

So that wasn't just a badly compressed video, do those pixels actually blur? Think that would be near un-playable for me.

[Slow]

It was a badly compressed video. "Smooth" mode is just a badly scaled game to fullscreen instead of 1:1 sharp pixel scaling. Pixels don't blur in game.

[Sinquetica]

yeah don't worry the game looks great on sharp mode.

[CPU Level 2]

I like the art style even though I can't play for more than an hour before getting a headache lol.

Though it is hard to make sense of some scenes, especially trying to figure out things where an explosion is depicted.

[Sminky]

Originally posted by Slow ✡:

It was a badly compressed video. "Smooth" mode is just a badly scaled game to fullscreen instead of 1:1 sharp pixel scaling. Pixels don't blur in game.

good to know, i quite liked the 3D 'Gameboy' look until it started bluring all over the shop.

[stevo]

The main issue with the design is the lack of clarity. I got no issue with retro looks, but having a mere 2 tone colour scheme just seems utterly pointless. My main gripe is that the parts below deck all look the same. It's an utter chore to navigate and there is no distinct way to recongnize and landmark your way around.

It's also really odd in a game where observation could have really been a thing... it kinda just isn't used much, and the art style really would just make such a thing difficult.

[Sinquetica]

Are you getting lost on the decks of the Obra Dinn? It is... not a large place.

[Lim-Dul]

Originally posted by bladechild:

The main issue with the design is the lack of clarity. I got no issue with retro looks, but having a mere 2 tone colour scheme just seems utterly pointless. My main gripe is that the parts below deck all look the same. It's an utter chore to navigate and there is no distinct way to recongnize and landmark your way around.

It's also really odd in a game where observation could have really been a thing... it kinda just isn't used much, and the art style really would just make such a thing difficult.

Funnily enough Lucas STARTED with the art style and built a game around it. :)
If there wasn't this particular art style we wouldn't have the game...

The whole journey of making the game, if you read his longtastic devlog on TIGSource, was about making the whole playable and enjoyable DESPITE the 1-bit style limitations.

I really think he did succeed in this regard. I cannot think of a single instance where the graphics obscure some vital information. (Could you perhaps provide more detail where it was an issue?)

Even the faces - which probably have the most detail and superficially the most relevance for deducing identities - are kind of unimportant after Lucas added the crew sketch since you can identify who is who simply by zooming in on them and noting their location in the picture, which remains constant.

For what it's worth you could probably replace all the characters in the game with cubes and spheres and just keep the crew sketch and it would still work. ;)

The same goes for the locations - the ship map is clearly labeled and there are icons for the events. Your current location is also marked. You could remove all the fluff from the ship and it wouldn't make it any easier or harder to navigate.

As for navigation issues - the ship is realistically sized and thus actually pretty small with only two staircases and open spaces in the middle - where also most of the "action" is taking place.

But alas - everyone has their own experience and mine was superb. :)

[amondae]

I'm actually seeing a significant lowering in quality when playing the game today, I played it on another laptop on thursday and on TV connected to that laptop and it looked fantastic, but today playing it on a different laptop and TV I see a very significant problem, where many elements are way more 'pixelated', making it very difficult to actually see things properly.

Worth noting that this laptop is far more powerful than the one I used before, so I'll try lowering my screen resolution and if anyone has any other ideas please let me know, because from what I can see the game doesn't give many options in this department (The shrink options didn't help much)

[Sminky]

well i guess that's they joy of Steam refunds if the graphics end up being 'unintended jank' on your system.

Seems a shame though that he didn't spend some money on some artists in getting a strong if simple 3D design. Or just stick to 2D. The Dev can really tell an interesting yet subtle story from my experiance of Papers Please. This almost seems the opposiste in having a Style try to fit a subject.

[Lim-Dul]

Originally posted by Sminky:

well i guess that's they joy of Steam refunds if the graphics end up being 'unintended jank' on your system.

Seems a shame though that he didn't spend some money on some artists in getting a strong if simple 3D design. Or just stick to 2D. The Dev can really tell an interesting yet subtle story from my experiance of Papers Please. This almost seems the opposiste in having a Style try to fit a subject.

Uhm. The art style has not been chosen because Lucas cannot do high fidelity graphics or doesn't have experience in working in 3D or doesn't have the money to hire people and this was somehow "babby's furst 3D pruject". He literally chose it because he had fond memories of old Mac games and liked the challenge of recreating the experience in 3D. Sid Meier's Pirates! (the first one, not the remake) came out in 1987, for reference.

Same reason a low-fi style has been selected for Papers, Please - just an artistic choice, not a necessity.

I don't know in what capacity, but Lucas Pope worked at Naughty Dog on Uncharted 1 and 2, made commercial Quake mods and other 3D games before. :)

If you read his devlog it would have probably been much, much easier to go for any other graphics style without the intentional "demaking" to 1-bit.