Braid Artist's Diary
Posted by Derek Yu Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:30:00 GMT
David Hellman, the fantastic artist behind both A Lesson is Learned But the Damage is Irreversible and, of course, Braid, has a new blog wherein he discusses his art.
The latest entry, part II of his “Art of Braid” series, shows the progression from Jon Blow’s programmer art (which is quite fun!) to what you see today. I love this kind of thing! There’s some good exposition on his creative/development process, too.
Part I of the series reveals Braid Art’s abstract beginnings.
Especially between the first and last kind of art there is a huge difference, although that in itself is obvious, it really shows how much graphics actually matter. First impressions or not, I probably would not even have wanted to play the game on the left, where the game on the right looks awesome. Very cool.
Amazing. It’s great to see the process the art has undergone. All the illustrated versions of this one in-game screen are nice; some more, some less. But when you actually get to play the final game, which in comparison looks just the most beautiful in my opinion, you will probably just take its great style for granted after a short while of playing, not caring about how much work it actually took to even create a single texture and how much thinking was involved in developing everything from the general art direction to this one texture. This may not hold true for everyone, but it sure did for me. It’s then games like Aquaria and apparently also Braid which I need to tell me that there’s more to the graphics and also definitely the sound than just “somehow subconciously setting the mood” of the game. Very interesting :)
And on a more general note, Braid really looks like it’s going to be one hell of a worthy purchase, basically no matter the costs. Now here’s hoping this won’t be exclusive to Xbox Live! Arcade. That would be downright cruel!
Clearly graphic counts and a lot in the success of a game.. The next gen console (x360, ps3) do the same games as a psx1 but with amazing graphic..
Talking about the Braid screenshots, the first on the left could work only if it was done with style,i can think of many examples like X-com, cave story, centurion(amiga) where graphic now is terribly outdated but still gorgeous looking thx to the pix art style, pacman too for example with the big eyes ghosts and the waka-waka sound.. i think in the end it’s all about the style.. manga and comics are not only drawn images.. bye.
Honestly, I kinda like the chunkier PS1 graphics more than most fancy bloom overload games today.
@FireSword: True, it’s all about style, but bad graphics don’t have style.
Still if we would have had more toon-shaded games in the past, we definitely would have thought of Team Fortress 2 as ‘outdated’ by now instead of ‘stylish’, so it’s extremely subjective. It’s not the technical aspect that matters, it’s style. So yeah, I’m in total agreement with you there.
Chunky PS1 graphics can be pretty awesome too, that’s why I’ve bought a PSP some time ago. It’s the bomb, but the next-gen games… I don’t care so much about them, because sure they often have good graphics, but damn what ever happened to the gameplay? There seriously are not a lot of next-gen game s with truly good gameplay.
Oops, something didn’t get erased properly, basically just forget what I said about TF2.
I really miss that comic. :(
Thanks for the link, Derek! And to everyone for the comments.
Please let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to try and focus on for a future edition. I’d like it to be an interesting series that speaks to the curiosities of Braid’s potential audience, as well as the indie community in general…
I really think some of this should be in our magazine, but I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what the readers need.
Still, the final art is beautiful. And none was bad.
Great comic, too.
great art.
this art made blow famous. without it, blow’s game is something i wouldn’t be interested in, nor probably something i wouldn’t even have heard of.
Just a puntualization wrote comicS and not comic.. as the american calls for example the x-men ‘graphic novels’
and to punctualize the style thing here ya go..
modern tech - http://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/366/aoe3.jpg
old tech - http://fool.deviantart.com/art/iso-castle-75849130
Both are very nice.. ok sorry for this divagation, i leave the discussion coz it’s about braid.. not graphic-art.. ;)
That is some beautiful art on this game! It seems that the artist want to make space at the same time make full use of all that could be onscreen.
Wow, what is with the random Internet hate?
I think the art for Braid is very good, and it makes the game much better than it would otherwise be.
At the same time, Mr. theartguy, I have to point out that Braid won the IGF design award, and got lots of enthusiastic previews from people who had played the game, all with programmer art.
So I would ask you to wait until you play the actual game, before claiming to know so much about what’s good and what’s bad about it. (As always I would prefer if the game were already done and in your hands right this second. But sadly that’s not how it is!)
Thanks.
P.S. I appreciate all the positive comments, everyone. I don’t know why I let Mr. theartguy rile me up like that. (I would even appreciate negative comments if they were well-thought-out!)
Man I miss ALIL something fierce. Last time I saw Alex, I specifically requested that she yell at Dale about that before she moved to Oz. Clearly she did not yell loud enough.
I’m extremely eager to have a blast on this game also.
ALILBTDII was indeed powered by Alex’s energetic yelling. Since she stopped, the well’s been dry.
I thought Edmund McMillan was doing the art…?
Edmund McMillen was working on character art, but over time the world art I was doing came to define the look of the game, so in the end I re-did the characters in a matching style. They are still based on his designs and animations, though. I think he is credited for “animation protoypes” or something like that.
blow, you made game designer error number 1. you have too many opinions (usuable unfavourable opinions) about other games. there’s no quicker way too make enemies if your a game designer yourself.
the best for a game designer is just too make your game, and not have opinions about other people’s games. the less people know of your opinions, the less it will stand in their way of enjoying your game. your arrogant holier than thou attitude, together with your bashing of other games, not too mention how wonderful you say your game is, and you expect people to like you.
i didnt “claim” your game was bad. i dont know how good it is. the art made a major (“very good” is an understatement, and i would be a little bit disappointed if i were the artist) difference in me taking an interest in the game. just a fact, nothing to do with how good it actually is.
now, your game might be the best in the world, i just don’t think i would ever be interested in playing it, just cause the author with his attitude has made me not want to play it. i might miss out on a wonderful game, but so be it.
Yeah, we should totally all live in fear of offending random people on the Internet and thus never speak our opinions! That will really move things forward!
… I like how ‘game designer error number 1’ has absolutely nothing to do with game design.
theartguy. For feks sake. Good designers usually appreciate constructive criticism about their work. Noone appreciates asinine ranting about their selves.
I know I shouldn’t feed the trolls, but they’re so cute I can’t help it.
theartguy,
Surprise – a lot of people who care deeply and put a lot of thought into their work develop strong opinions about it. If you’re going to carry a grudge, there are better things to be annoyed about. I.M.H.O.
I’m not disappointed, I’m super happy to be working on a game that was awesome before I touched it.
J.B. is a lot more chill than some people think.
So, you know how you’ll read an interview with some high-up game company executive like Kaz Hirai or whoever is president of Activision, and the interview is completely worthless because everything he says is “On Message”, and therefore empty, because if he says anything substantial it might upset someone somewhere?
Or, you know how politicians are completely worthless, in much the same way?
That’s exactly who I don’t want to be. If someone asks me a question, I’ll answer it with what I really think. If I am trying to make a point about game design in a lecture, and there is a game that illustrates that point, then I will use that game as an example.
The goal is not to bash other peoples’ games, but to provide more substance and backing to whatever point I am trying to make about game design. It’s upsetting when people fly off the handle about some mildly negative thing I said about some game, and completely miss the design point that I was making with that example. (I say lots of positive things about games, too, but nobody ever seems to get upset about those, for some reason!)
If we’re not allowed to say negative things about other peoples’ games, ever, then the industry may just slide into a swamp of stagnation and mutual hand-jobbing.
Part of this is that I have a background as a programmer. Programmers work in situations where there is an objective measurement of how well we have done (by whether our program runs, or if it is buggy or not, and how quickly it runs). We are used to criticism, not least because we constantly get criticism from the computer. Therefore, we have a culture of saying stuff straight to each others’ faces about the quality of things. People not used to that can find it harsh or negative, but it’s really not. It’s truth, and truth is good. (If you want evidence of this, look at how tremendously programming / tech has moved forward in the past 30 years, compared to design, which has barely moved at all). Compared to programmers, I wish everyone else in game development would grow a spine, already.
If I say something negative about a game that you don’t like – then hey, just realize that we have different opinions, and disagree. I’m fine with that.
“It’s upsetting when people fly off the handle about some mildly negative thing I said about some game”
I don’t know, it seems you’re the one who has trouble taking negative criticisms here. I hope you’re just being ironic