Hmmm....I think I disagree with his analysis on why people consider his art "bad". This coming from someone who would rank Dwarf Fortress or Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead among his favorite games of all time. I think he's honing in on the wrong thing here. Hell, look at something like Caves of Qud, a game from 2015 that still receives updates, and which has significantly more retro artwork and yet still manages to look beautiful (to me, anyway): It's retro, but it's stylized. It seems aware of the space its graphics exist in, and try to make something that looks good within those arbitrary limitations. I dunno. He's certainly allowed to make his games look exactly how he wants, I just don't think he really understands why people don't like his artwork. Of the five reasons he provides for keeping his artwork in the same conceptual space, only "You Gotta' Follow Your Muse" and "Some People Like Our Games" really felt valid to me. If he wanted, he could get artwork that is both retro and appealing. This could be cheap, this could be introduced to virtually any product, and this can be humble...But he doesn't want that, and that's fine. He'll continue making the games he wants, and people will continue buying them. Because...I mean, yeah. Do what you want. They're your games, make them exactly what you want and let people decide if they like them.Queen's Wish has a very retro square-tile top-down view, reminiscent of old Ultima games, old Pokemon games, Spiderweb's first games, tabletop D&D, that sort of thing. For some, that old style is really unfamiliar and/or alienating.
Also a DF fan, and I agree. Even his example of a "popular" retro-styled game looks better than his personal examples. The fact that he doesn't note that is telling It's not just the style, there's an element of taste that is totally absent in the samples from his games. Everything is cluttered and hard to look at. Everything has a busy texture going on. 3. All the characters only look in diagonal directions. I made this choice because I once thought all the art would be hand-drawn, and I desperately needed to reduce the number of icons I needed. This was a mistake, and I'll probably try to fix it in Queen's Wish 2. And half the reasons he cites for the reason his games look that way ARE just sloppiness/laziness.
2. Queen's Wish uses art made by a lot of different artists. That means that the style is not quite consistent. We've done our best to make it blend well, but it's a little off.
I want to be a part of this conversation so much, but I don't really feel like I can put together any compelling, coherent thoughts. So I guess I'll just say, Pixel Art is definitely a skill that takes time and practice to develop and the end results often speak for themselves. Additionally, there are some pretty cool tutorials and progress videos floating out on the web. For anyone who's even slightly curious about what's involved, they're totally worth watching.