Yet another post about the lack of art in video game development
Hello everyone! I know this could be, and most likely is, yet another post from someone stuck in the artistic phase of their video game development. What's different this time around? Maybe the context? Who knows.
After a month of development and ideation, I can say I'm at a good point with my project. The game loop seems to work well, the code is well-written, and basically everything works harmoniously! The problem is that everything seems flat, since 99% of the graphic assets are composed of placeholders (cubes, capsules, etc.) and sound is practically nonexistent, as is an art style.
And this is exactly where the problem lies. Everything related to the artistic side—sound, graphics, styles, etc.—is missing and I'm incapable of realizing it.
The simplest solution I can recommend in these cases is to learn, and that's absolutely essential in the long run, since you'll learn new skills that will ultimately add to your resume in this field. The problem arises when, at least in my case, there's a need to get everything done as quickly as possible. Thankfully, I don't have publishers with whom I have to meet deadlines, but you can understand how discouraging it is to put aside months of work on something that basically already works.
- I don't want to use AI and similar tools, even though I recognize their usefulness as tools. There's a chance that fixing or getting some things working could take twice as long. Moreover, I don't consider it ethical. I'd be just another person launching yet another sloppy AI product onto the market, and I'd be shooting myself in the foot.
- I have no way of commissioning others, since I have no savings and, above all, long waiting times.
- I don't want to use free resources found online, as it would be difficult to maintain a certain artistic consistency.
- Even though I'm reasonably skilled, I don't want to use Blender to rig and animate 3D models for my game; it would be impossible for me to animate them (since I'm not very skilled and I'm doing it alone).
At this point, I was thinking of using drops as characters with blob animations or something simple, but I really have no ideas/solutions. Procedural animations would be effective, but it would be a pain to manage via script, especially if the number of animations tends to grow.
How do you recommend proceeding?
On the graphics side, which approach is more convenient: 2D or 3D, both in terms of simplistic animations (regardless of whether the game world is 3D or 2D)?
What do you recommend for keeping the number of animations low?
What can I do to drastically reduce the time it takes to complete the project without sacrificing quality?
Has anyone else been through this? How did you get through it?