Cool.
Hope when I get my games completed one of them makes it to a list like this.
But what I have released so far is in the game assets section so no matter how well I did with that material obviously it will never qualify due to being in the wrong category.
- Matt H, matthornb.itch.io
Thanks!
I am doing the same sort of stuff really. Lots of seamless textures, thousands, lots of processing involved. But you made yours free which is super nice of you to do.
I might find use for something here in a game project too and if this occurs I'll credit you. (I do a bit of game dev, not just making asset packs)
Again, thank you.
-Matt H, matthornb.itch.io
Wow, these are a great, very specific but also very useful, texture set.
Thank you for posting these for free!
I may yet use a bit of this in the future, can think of a couple spots where that makes sense and will make it a point to credit you if so.
-Matthew Hornbostel, game dev and asset pack maker, on matthornb.itch.io
Somehow this page that, like mine, includes photo textures and game assets, is - suddenly - sending a ton of people to mine according to itch analytics, beginning in early August 2024, and that was well before this post. In fact, it's how I found this page in the first place. Seeing it as a major traffic source in my itch dashboard. I don't understand how it happened.
But this is a nice photo texture pack. And you posted it for free, which is extremely generous. Just puzzling is all because I do not see any existing link preceding this one that has been directing people to my profile from yours. And yet, somehow, they've been shifting directly from here to my page for weeks via an older link I do not see here.
BTW, I'll make sure to donate a dollar or so to you shortly. I guess that might help. More like... a thank you for letting people know I exist even if it doesn't make sense how, and might have just been a strange glitch.
Extraordinary, you have built a continually improving series, found an audience and built up to the point where you have a real hit on your hands, a $10 game that despite being a paid title is the single most viewed game on itch.io right now and that is jaw dropping given this is a site with over a million games. Congrats! If you want a big collection of generally useful textures or a big pack of 3d models, you can buy some of my stuff on the cheap on my itch page as I have a sale ending fairly soon but still active right now, or maybe reply, comment if you, say, even want a few specific 3d objects custom made specifically for you for a little bit under US minimum wage, say $6/hr, feel free to contact me about it. Might be helpful in dealing with the challenges of whatever you attempt next.
-Matthew Hornbostel, matthornb.itch.io
Agreed with those here, Blender is amazing. Wish it had existed when I started out, but by now it has become an amazingly versatile program well worth learning.
I used to use Lightwave for pretty much everything back around the 2000s which gives you a sense of how old I am now.
Most 3d tools of any kind are, and historically have been, simply really expensive, and Blender isn't.
As for texturing, it is key to realistic 3d models so at some point you are going to want to have a good way to texture your stuff, whether it is an Adobe workflow with Photoshop or Substance Sampler/Painter or doing what many now are looking towards as alternative options to avoid the subscription and other issues people have with Adobe now, Affinity Suite or Gimp which is freeware, or the Corel Paint Shop Pro setup.
Using some sort of texture sourcing that is photography based is super valuable, it is simply reality that procedural textures don't usually look as good as things based off reality. Though procgen now is clearly improving fast when augmented with AI tools. I have a giant sale right now (for Labor Day 2024) with 2000+ texture image files and a bunch of other stuff which is available as a bundle for under $2, but that is just an option and you can build a useful collection of texture materials from a ton of places. Here is my sale.
Having decals, a collection of custom brushes has proven helpful for detailing, just being able to paint on the unwrapped UV map or on an output of the 3d mesh itself directly (that is what Substance Painter is great at!) and there are cheap alternatives that currently are a bit jankier like Armory3d, Blacksmith 3d and so on, apps that can be used to paint onto 3d models for around $10-50.
Ultimately though, it isn't just tools for modelling and texturing that make a model look great. Sometimes it is just an understanding of environment art and art in general as a broader discipline. The aim for 'realism' isn't everything, it has to be well optimized and run well in a game engine, it has to serve its purpose in the world and fit into the setting and the scene as a whole, and stand out visually in a logical way if players need to interact with it and it isn't just set dressing. There are a ton of factors but basically when you realize storytelling and playability are both often a focus in the design of an environment that is helpful. Guiding players through so they don't miss important elements, basically, and so they have a sense of what to do and where to get to next. But doing it subtly, tastefully enough that it doesn't undermine the credibility of the setting.
Game mechanics, narrative and audiovisual aesthetics ideally all support each other in reasonable ways. It can make a game really compelling to immerse yourself in when this works well. There is a lot to learn in making game art and moreover making it fit together in a complete game. Good luck!
-Matthew Hornbostel, matthornb.itch.io
LABOR DAY SALE - SEPT. 2, 2024 - new updates as well during sale timeframe.
TEXTURES: 2000+ texture files, 100+ decals across some texture packs, recent updates now. PBR materials, so some of the image files are bump, normal, spec, opacity maps. Actual total materials count under 700 at this time.
https://matthornb.itch.io/pbr-seamless-textures-pack-2022 - one such pack
3D ASSETS: And in five now active 3d asset packs, various useful 3d assets in .FBX and .OBJ formats. Mostly realistic but low polycount. Some nature packs, some manmade objects. Different categories.
UPCOMING ITEMS: Finally, about 40% of what's included is in progress, as yet unreleased, including several asset packs, and a handful of indie minigames. Included in the sale bundle but not downloadable yet.
SALE INFO: All the released asset files, 3000+ so far, any future updates and additions, future games in development, all that is bundled right now at an unusually strong discount of 96% off. $1.67, for Labor Day 2024. Other holidays too may see comparable sales.
FINAL NOTES: Thank you everyone for all the helpful feedback to date. I am working as hard on this as I can, and there are some freebies there too, so take a look.
Anyway, again, thanks, It's been a joy being a part of the itch.io community.
- Matthew Hornbostel, matthornb.itch.io
SOME BASIC TIPS:
Quality of promotional material and the game itself is #1. The game has to look good enough to persuade buyers to download or buy, and then actually be good.
Graphics are important to a lot of people, and visual interest is crucial to making any sales.
Not that it needs to be photoreal or anything, it can be pixel art or very stylized, but there must be appeal there, and a certain stylistic consistency that is effective in communicating the game's play. Some titles have done will with very simple graphics (eg. Baba is You) because they had a creative concept in game design, and that is important too, but it is the visual look of the game that will offer a first impression, and the gameplay that follows will be the retention factor post purchase that makes the game spread via word of mouth. But to manage the first few purchases, you need to make the players interested in playing, which usually will be an uphill battle if the game doesn't look interesting visually. Pricing is also a challenge - even a single dollar of price is a psychological barrier for many people so as others have stated, demos help in letting people try the thing and see that it runs and is fun, and once they've gotten to the point where they like that demo they are likely to buy the full thing. The less friction is involved in that upgrade the better - it's best if the free demo includes an easy link back to the page where the full version can be bought!
Visibility. That is letting people know your work exists. Social media is one avenue but if you're posting on a single social platform and not multiple that's not great, and you need to engage with communities interested in the type of thing you are doing. [Related gaming fanbases for your genre] and create links back to your game as you do so. Think about visual media as images will grab attention faster than text, and animation even better still. Pinterest, Instagram are social platforms focused on visual media and they can be worth using. Also, as stated earlier, sending info of your game to relevant streamers/YouTubers who play indie games is good but don't expect more than 5-10% best case to respond. It is not enough to message one or two people, you've got to have a whole list of YT people to message and also maybe some game review sites, gaming blogs. This will of course work best if your game's good! Also, a trailer (YouTube video, 90 seconds or so) highlighting the game is a good move. It should show the game's look and play, it should sound good too, and get across the appeal of it without needing to cover absolutely everything that is there. It should have a note on where and when the game is releasing - on the end screen. That leaves interested people with some indication of what to do next. A big link in the description back to the Steam page, game website is best. (You ought to have a webpage and domain for it ideally)
Accessibility. 80% of PC game purchases roughly are on Steam. If you're serious about reaching players and racking up sales on a game you made that actually is of quality, SERIOUSLY consider Steam as a venue. The $100 entry price is a challenge but also may be worth it if you believe the game is not a little personal experiment but an actual potential success that can sell dozens, hundreds, even thousands of copies. That will - again - only happen if it's fairly good.
But if you have one flagship title and can get it onto Steam, its revenue may be enough to pay the fees for all the subsequent stuff made after that. Seeing as in most genres on Steam the median sales value is $1000-7000. That is, if you can be in the middle of the pack in quality and interest, you'll be netting a thousand dollars or more there. My target on many of my projects is be slightly above the average in quality with a specific quirk of aesthetics or structure that sets my game apart from the genre and subgenre it's part of. And if I am there and I make $2000 per game that's about the threshold where it's worth it. As that is about how much I spent on the average game of mine, so at least there I'm not losing money. Some titles with handmade visuals are the most expensive ones of mine. Miniature Minigolf {Minigolf courses all done in mini with stop-motion, etc), Miniature Multiverse (Myst-like first person puzzler set in a mass of fairly large scale miniature environments carefully handcrafted) and sometimes I've hired people to solve specific weak spots - a coder to figure out a particularly difficult code interaction, a couple of musicians who composed music tracks...) A lot of this is funded by revenue from my Etsy shop which is way more successful than anything I've done on itch.io. (I sell original art and print services and papercraft designs on Etsy)
WHY SHOULD ANYONE LISTEN TO ME?:
I actually am taking this seriously and working hard on a handful of indie titles (various game dev projects with varying but appealing art styles from hand drawn to miniature art and painterly, 3d and 2d... ) and I've yet to release a lot of what is in the works but I have netted $200+ in sales on itch all the same simply selling game asset packs. There are 3000+ asset files available across a bunch of different collections on my itch.io profile, likely 5000+ will be there by end of year. The range of stuff all just keeps expanding as I keep going on it. Mostly textures (seamless, photography-based PBR texture packs built from real-world sources and materials I photographed myself) and 3d assets (models efficiently UV mapped, collections of them with low polycount, but reasonable levels of realism and in .FBX, .OBJ formats that are widely used.)
There's no shortcut to success here as with most things. It takes a ton of time and skill and persistence. Indie dev is not a 'quick buck' thing but takes a long time to build to the point where your work is so solid and intriguing and compelling that people actually want to buy it. Most of the hobbyists who try will fail but those who are driven primarily by creative passion and the process and a desire to actually offer value to the gaming and game dev community and not simply rip them off, are the ones who will persevere and work hard and long enough to end up making things that do, ultimately, eventually succeed.
This is a really cool game idea.
And the look really sells it, just super grungy and worn down setting that adds to the unnerving quality of it all.
For anyone (game developers) interested please take a moment to look at the texture packs I've got as they go on sale for under $2 all together during most holidays. Thousands of seamless PBR textures and decals. You might be able to use some of it.
I will be running a sale which includes, along with other stuff, literal thousands of seamless texture files for under $2.
Please take a look. Sale is on August 1
2024. And another on Sept. 2, 2024 (Labor Day)
Thanks.
There is something so weird and artificial about the fast food settings, the plastic benches and all the phony cheapness of it all.
And this little horror game gets that fundamental unease, and manages to be pretty scary.
So good job.
For any indie devs interested I have a shop which is about to have an Aug. 1 sale (texture and 3d asset packs) so maybe worth a look?
Fantastic. Love this. The original game by this clever designer is well worth a look too!
If any game devs are browsing here and interested (including the creator of this game, though I doubt the styles would match) I have a bunch of fairly realistic looking 3d assets and tons of seamless PBR textures about to go on sale that may prove useful along with a few little indie game preorders. That is all for under $2 on August 1, and Labor Day (Sept. 2) as well as a few other holidays later in the year. (Thanks.) Here's the link. :)
The whole tradition of 'corrupted childhood' is a classic horror staple, as seen in movies like The Omen. And this takes that harmless play of children in a playground and makes it dark and creepy, and it works.
Good job.
If you ever want some stuff for future projects check here, I will be adding a horror pack down the road but even now tons of textures, 3d files so any game devs watching may want to give it a look.
Weird little creepy game with a strange twist and worth the 7 mins. to play.
Good job devs!
BTW: if any indie game developers are browsing here, please check my profile as I have a ton of stuff, cheap textures, 3d assets and some freebies. Thanks.
Congrats to the dev on getting this to the top of the most played Itch games. Yes, it is horror. Yes,that is an oversaturated genre that appears everywhere here. Yes, this game has enough merit to stand out in a sea of seemingly similar titles. And the choice of title, 'Egg Fried Rice' is super weird but fortunately it isn't just about that.
It is a short narrative horror and it has some intriguing endings. It is unnerving and succeeds in leaning into a somewhat janky and low end look, making that actually fairly effective. Which is good.
For the devs of this game or any other indie creators stumbling onto this... if you want some more mobile type, PSX sort of low polycount 3d assets, maybe a giant library of textures to work from, note that I have thousands of assets on sale for under $2 right now.
That may prove useful to many of you, and there are a few little freebies there as well. If you miss this sale, also, recognize many US holidays have one day sales attached to them, So the next two, Labor Day and Halloween, for example, will have everything that's there now plus a lot of added updates. Keep an eye out for big new things there in the next few months. Thanks!
Not a new concept (see: movie Apollo 18, or better yet, don't as it isn't that good) but a fun one and in this case executed fairly well with a good scare by the end.
If the developer of this game or any other devs browsing want a TON of game ready textures and 3d models optimized enough for mobile and web games, Consider looking through this set of items. At this moment of posting, they're all on sale in a $2 bundle which is incredible value or literally thousands of texture and 3d assets total. Thank you to anyone who takes the time to browse that.
Cool! Another fun free game from ArtFX.
I still do not get how your group's work is so easily drowned out by mountains of horror minigames that objectively just aren't this well made.
If you could find it useful, note that I am participating in the end of the Summer Sale so all my assets (textures and 3d) are available right now bundled under $2. My itch profile! that ends tonight at 1 am but many holidays over the rest of 2024 will see similar sales of similar 90+% off value like Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas... would appreciate it if anyone would take a look but am grateful for all those who have already done so.
Looks intriguing. Sort of a mix somewhere between Schizm and Venineth feel to the alien terrains which already is evident just from the screenshots. Not a bad thing as it looks genuinely alien. I'll give this one a shot as it looks interesting and ArtFX often does great work here. Surprised actually that your gamedev program and what has emerged from it isn't seen by more people here.
--- Matthew H, matthornb.itch.io
Haven't played yet but am about to give this one a shot.
Looks great and many of the projects from ArtFX are great, hoping this is too.
-- Matthew, matthornb.itch.io
Love this, wish there were a few more beautiful or art games in the mix on itch.io and not just the endless pile of dark horror titles. Not anything wrong with horror as a genre, but variety is valuable. Sometimes other experiences are good to have.
And your work here is fantastic, really appreciating the artistry and skill, all the beautiful detailing involved in this environment. If you could use packs of realistic textures / 3d items btw I have a july 4th sale active now and that allows for thousands of textures and hundreds of 3d assets bundled under $2. And whether you actually decide to go for that or not... I will support you now with $2.50 so... there is that.
Here is my profile: matthornb.itch.io
Fantastic. Great work.
I love point and click puzzlers so this is right up my alley.
I am making some too. Yours are excellent!
Awesome, I love that others are embracing analog old school aesthetics including miniatures. This absolutely reminds me of old LucasArts experiment the Neverhood but with a horror bent.
I am working on several titles with miniature art graphics so you may find that intriguing.
More fantastic and beautifully done work by colorbomb that as usual is drowned out by the numerous itch.io horror games.
Amazing that you made these hidden gems, great little puzzle games freeware.
If you ever can use texture sources for future projects, or just want to take a look at my own point and click game projects,take a look here.
Thanks so much. :)
Beautiful, love what you are doing. Really nice visuals and puzzles, Keep it up!
If you ever can use texture collections for surfacing your 3d models, etc, try looking here. Have some stuff that might be of use. And am working on my own PnC type games as well among other things so that may also be of interest.
Nice! Always good to see more beautiful games like this.
If you ever have need of textures on future projects, check this out.I have some massive texture packs and some games in development too.
And yes, some of those projects draw inspiration from the Myst type of design like yours. :)
You are only 15? Crazy good work for someone so young!
Congrats! (Now if only I can get my own game and game asset pack projects completed...)
What an odd horror game idea - very cool.
BTW if you as a dev ever find any of it useful, I do have a sale going on right now with a ton of game assets. Your work's more stylized so the realistic stuff may not be useful to you but I figured it worth noting all the same:
Maybe in the future you could offer suggestions for useful general asset types and I might be able to create them. I can definitely tell horror as a genre broadly, is huge on itch so that probably needs to be a future priority for me.
Anyway, thanks for reading, hope all goes well for you. I mean, it sure seems to be as you're high up on the list of popular games right now. :)
Take a game type you like. Then give it some odd twist that makes it distinct from others in its category.
Twists can be game mechanics like - adding some aspect of another genre into a genre that normally wouldn't do that. Sometimes that means digging into areas other devs won't dare tread. When the Myst devs at Cyan made a Myst title (Uru) that embraced physics, realtime 3d, multiplayer social interaction, etc... basically challenging their own franchise and its norms in nearly every way, and they failed painfully to find a large enough number of players who embraced that, it killed the idea of multiplayer puzzle games [of any kind] for nearly a full decade afterward. Until, circa 2012, there was Journey. Which made a short but meaningful and emotive puzzle / platformer and didn't actually tell anyone it was multiplayer. They just sort of let players unexpectedly run into each other in the course of playing. This, quite frankly, was rather delightful. The art style was beautiful, the game was short but refreshing, a journey about the course of life and eventual death and trying to make sense of it, and kind of concluding that even if our lives end it's what we leave for the people along with us and who follow after us that matters... condensed into three hours that made 1/3 of players cry and which some described as the closest any game had ever come to being 'profound' or a spiritual experience.
A good example, one of my fave games in recent memory, is Outer Wilds [NOT 'The Outer Worlds', an RPG which came out with a very similar name independently by sheer accident at almost the same time} it is a game that absolutely is hard to categorize. Everyone tries not to spoil it and you really shouldn't go in knowing much of anything, but basically the reason for that is the bit by bit understanding of its world and the internal logic of it is pretty much the entire core of it. You're putting together clues and making sense of a weird mystery in a universe that isn't ours and has some odd physics logic in specific ways that aren't true in our universe. But as you start getting the various secrets and truths of it, that understanding allows more and more progress. Such that the game takes most players almost 20 hrs. to solve without help but if they knew everything they'll realize by the end and chain that understanding together then it'd be possible to hit the ending sequence within just 20 mins. with that endgame understanding. So in theory, it's a puzzle game, even a really clever real time 3d Myst like in some sense, insofar as it has puzzles, exploration and figuring things out as central aspects. But it's also very much a 3d platformer and spaceflight sim at the same time using flight and navigation / jumping around in various gravity levels on the different planets of its bizarre star system. You are an alien astronaut in an alien star system and a fairly fragile one, you can die in Outer Wilds and in fact you definitely will at some point. Every time you do you reset Groundhog day style, and figuring out WHY / HOW your character keeps resetting to the start of the day is one of the various core mysteries here. You need to figure out what is actually going on. And the weight of the realizations and twists that follow by the end are, emotionally and logically impactful in the implications. The game is good not because the graphics are great but because it has imagination and tells an interesting story. The audio design and music carry a lot of it too. But it's also good because it innovates on what a puzzle game can be in terms of the range of mechanics. It's a puzzle platformer that embraces zero-G and spaceflight simulation and the seat-of-the-pants risk-taking feeling of venturing into space and the uncharted and unknown as fully developed elements.
But the fact that they did the unexpected a bit, in a number of aspects... that's a thing indies can and should be doing.
A lot of the big hits in gaming history were doing something weird. When Will Wright was making the OG SimCity, he was talking about zoning and urban planning and had books on urban planning on his desk and everyone he talked to was like, why? How is this a game? It sounds super boring. He was nonetheless certain it could be an engaging premise. It launched Maxis, it sold a million-plus copies. It pretty much was the origin of its branch of the sim genre, and his title SimAnt soon after, while we don't think of it as such often, was arguably an experimental simple design prototype for Command and Conquer, Starcraft, Age of Empires, the entire RTS genre. No, it didn't have all the different unit types those games had but it was nonetheless a war of sorts playing out on a map in realtime between the player and an AI. And that was at the very start of the '90s. His last stroke of genius may have ben the Sims, which was inspired by his daughter and a dollhouse. He intuited the idea of a 'virtual dollhouse' and managing a family and their jobs, relationships and home decor would have a wide appeal. He was right - by 2002 The Sims had sold over 14 million copies. The point: Don't be afraid to hybridize genres, experiment with unexpected elements that aren't normally seen in a category, or take inspiration from outside the existing gaming world entirely. And don't be scared to run with genres that appear dead. The people at Valve knew they had something unique with 'Portal' (2007) but were also nervous as platformers, puzzle games, and the mix of the two, all seemed to be aging, retro categories on their way out. And so they released Portal as an almost... afterthought in the Orange Box. Hoping the combo of other things would sell it and Portal would simply be a nice little bonus. They were shocked when it became the most memed, most discussed part of the entire package. And when Portal went from afterthought to flat-out hit and pop culture phenomenon, it got a sequel and numerous other mind-bendy platformers would follow soon after with various other clever twists on the 'dead' puzzle platformer idea, from Braid to Fez to the likes of more recent titles that messed with players' heads in crazy ways such as Antichamber, Superliminal and last year's Viewfinder.
Point is, if you've got a cool idea and you're like, yeah, but isn't this genre dead? Well, if you come up with a new take on it, go for it anyway. You might be the one who brings a category roaring back into the forefront of pop culture. Like... I'm thinking about 'Star Wars' and how 20th century Fox tried to shut its creation down weeks before it was done. Because it was running over the planned $11 million budget. And they were scared it would lose all that money that they had spent on it and would rather axe it, kill it entirely than allow the 'bloated' movie to cost another million dollars or so. The movie barely made it to completion, simply by rushing like crazy to be 'done' a day before the project was slated to be axed. Which left George Lucas yelling at people until on the final day he completely lost his voice, and his wife completing the final edit of the film down to the last minute filling in VFX shots as they were completed in an epic string of all-nighters. This movie barely made it to theaters, and only managed to get there by sheer force of will by Lucas and his wife, the only two people who really believed it could be good. Star Wars was expected to fail catastrophically at the theaters to a largely now forgotten Burt Reynolds flick that came out the same week. It ended up breaking the all time prior box office record for the science fiction film genre - 2001: A Space Odyssey - by over fourfold.
Point is: Nobody knows what the hell will succeed or not. If people say the idea is dumb and you still believe it has potential, stick with it and nail down why you believe in it and do it anyway. That's the power indies have over the publisher based system. Indies can try things nobody else will dare try. And those things, if they genuinely have merit to enough people, can explode to become huge phenomena.
Don't forget that Minecraft is on of the biggest gaming properties of all time and its first release was very much an experimental little indie thing. Don't forget that the single most wishlisted game on Steam RIGHT NOW is "Manor Lords' - wishlisted by millions of people right now - and it's a solo indie gamedev project by just one talented guy who is absolutely working his ass off on it because he believed in it even before any of the wishlisters knew it was a thing in development.
I may not be pushing for these massively brilliant twists. I'm more of an... aesthetic twist person. I take existing genre types, tried and true ones, and try to do it well, and make it just a little unique via distinctive aesthetics. Because that's a tip you've got to consider too, which is innovate in areas you know you can innovate in. I come from an art background so I lean on that most, the coding side of things is where I sort of struggle and fiddle with things a lot until something works to complete each feature I want, and it's usually not optimally efficient in that side of stuff. I can write and direct video, and do VFX and 3d art, and have a soft spot for analog old school aesthetics sometimes. So when I approach a project like Miniature Multiverse, a 360-degree Mystlike (think Scratches, Schizm, Myst 3/4 interface but with large scale very realistic looking miniature models as the basis of the graphics from start to finish) which is still ongoing, it's basically an idea from 2010 that built to a small prototype test in 2014, just to see if it was even possible to do, and that ended with a failed Kickstarter that got a rare 'Projects we Love' designation from the KS staff but not enough backers to make it. And then circa 2016 I shifted it to Unity and revised my test system a bit and then production began again a little bit at a time in fits and starts. 750+ hours of work and $600+ spent later, I still feel it's only 2/3 there, but then that's one of my failings isn't it? Because I've got so many things to do here and I'm rotating between them all. And if you look at my itch profile, or my Etsy shop, or better yet both, you'll see what I mean.
There are always too many ideas and too many projects for me. It's my biggest problem.
Thanks! There are a lot of additional PBR textures across some of my other asset packs, and more will be added both to those and to this pack in the next week. So that hopefully will be useful to everyone who has been downloading this. Which, it seems, is a lot of people lately.
Am also really happy the Palestine bundle is turning into such a big thing now and making the impact it's making for the people affected by this conflict. About 400k raised there already and that's pretty great. Wish the world weren't stuck in this pattern of violence but maybe we can do something to make it a little less awful.
By the way, for anyone asking:
I will bundle an offline version of 'Crowdsourced Adventure' in with this so that will be two adventure artgames, for the price of one on itch, both of them likely to expand steadily over time. For those curious, the sites of both projects recently saw major updates.
Both of these should now see a first release VERY SOON, as in before Summer 2024. Not that the first releases will include everything I hope to have in these titles, but it will nonetheless mark a starting point.
The games - if bought here or on Steam - will expand faster if people are actually buying for offline play but I won't be surprised if most don't do so.
After all, they'll be playable online too output to an HTML5 WebGL format.
And that version's great in its own way but visuals are slightly more compressed to run in the limited memory of a browser window. Not that it'd be an obvious detail loss, as the fact that it is run in browser often limits the size of the game to under 50% of a total screen area... an in browser window of roughly 720*560 px. with some narrow ads around the edges and browser trim along the top. Graphics are in theory 16x the quality in offline (Windows) form, designed to look good on a 1080p screen. That is, double resolution in width and height, and an equally vast 4-fold diffence in compression, where offline textures are uncompressed and online uses a variant of DXT compression to drop memory use and filesize to 1/4 at the cost of a certain blurriness.
Consider: WebGL on browsers forces a limit of 1gb memory use for both the downloaded files and the running app. It's a tough limit to stay within, long term, and if the explorable areas get big enough the 'download' portion might start to become an issue. It is possible each world might have its own page online as a result, just to allow the games to expand long term.
I mean, each world's core downloadable files would typically be anywhere from 25-120mb when heavily optimized for webgl and 400mb-2gb in full offline quality. Past a handful of such worlds and I start running into problems on the webGL side, as the download takes up more and more of the allocated memory.
Windows offline system requirements?
I would advise a system with 8gb ram, and ideally 50gb free space for both games on your hard drive. Won't take even 1/3 that amount at first but I am optimistically planning on a series of big updates over time on both, so... by 2026 or 2027, the two of them together might have an install footprint that really is that big.
Awesome, thank you so much! That is really generous of you!
Update to this pack was delayed but I think I can get the improved version posted very soon after about another 7-10 hours work on it. (already put over 45 hrs. into this pack alone this year working towards the 2024 update) Should have the update for it finally available some time this upcoming weekend. So for anyone still on the fence, know this collection will be even better quality & value before long.
Other asset packs are about to see updates in a few places as well. So hopefully the value of this stuff on itch.io just gets better and better this year.
I go with handmade styles a lot. Like real world, handcrafted miniature art. It isn't outright unique but it is nonetheless rare, and that means it stands out. I have "miniature multiverse" in development and the initial concept was thinking about games of the Myst/Riven sort and wondering what it might be like if someone physically built entire fantasy worlds with a handcrafted attention to detail.
And so I kind of figured out how to capture 360 degree views inside some sprawling O scale miniature environments and created my own Unity workflow for building a 360 node based puzzle adventure game. Used a 4k action cam and took photos at 15 degree rotation increments for each node, stitched them into 360 Panos, layered animation in and swapped out the sky. Used basic spheres with a double-sided unlit shader. Made heavy use of playmaker.
Then there is a second miniature art project "miniature miniature golf" or "miniatureminigolf" it is a simple isometric mini-golf game but all the graphics, again, assembled in scale miniatures with that particular tactile charming and colorful look.
You can check my profile for more info, I also have game dev asset packs (pbr textures, 3d models) and an etsy shop offering printing services + papercraft kits and such.
Agreed with the other posts here.
2d ui is often more intuitive, more accessible, just easier for many devs, and depending on the genre and game design there may not be a strong reason to make everything 3d from a game play pov.
Besides, some 2d titles actually do still look gorgeous. 2d game engine does not always mean 'low res pixel art.' I've seen beautiful hand drawn 2d work like in indie title 'Gorogoa' and painterly work like 'Braid' or recently 'The Master's Pupil' and then there are my aesthetic niches which vary... can sometimes include handcrafted miniature art, I have an isometric minigolf game and a first person Mystlike puzzler, both of them are in the works and each one of those two done with realistically detailed large scale miniature art.
And then there are the many, many 2d engine games that still make use of 3d rendered art. So many old 90s games did this from Simcity 4, rollercoaster tycoon, The Sims, Starcraft, the original Fallout. Myst, Riven. Less common now as 3d is more attainable than it once was but still a valid dev route especially given the continued presence of lower end systems (mobile gaming) and the fact that it is possible to make a 2d game run and look beautiful on nearly any system. 3d games with that sort of fine, intricate art detailing will typically have higher hardware requirements as the cost of the added freedom of motion.
Now, some game developers on the indie side have done amazing stuff with 3d games.
I know a number of solo indie devs who made 3d games which look graphically amazing. Carlos Coronado, Danny Weinbaum and a number of others come to mind.
It clearly isn't impossible to do 3d art in a 3d engine really well as an indie, it just adds complexity and work. Danny Weinbaum spent over 7 years working on his "cozy, pacifist skyrim knockoff" - an open world game called Eastshade.
He made about 2 million $ in Steam sales from his project, another reminder that though 3d is harder in some ways, if you do it well it can also be worth it.
But it is always also a gamble, to some extent, what if those 7 years had resulted in a total misfire? What if nobody even notices your game after you have been pouring years into it?
There is something to be said for doing a smaller thing, a demo or similar, and throwing it out to the world game jam style as a way of confirming its core conceptual appeal. A way of checking if you are going off track before committing to a huge production. If the small example finds an audience, then it is likely the larger extension of the basic thing will too. And that is exactly what got eastshade moving in the first place, it is why Danny committed 7 years to it. Because he started with a little, modestly successful short project "Leaving Lyndow" and learned from that, that the sort of game world he was making appealed to a lot of people.
I don't have a demo, I am diving straight in (for better or worse) and just gauging odds of success based on whether people respond in any way to early imagery and material relating to my work.
Maybe that is dumb but I know even if my efforts fail I will be okay life wise so... I just realize that even if some of this fails hard it isn't the end. I have game asset collections gaining ground steadily and a successful Etsy print services shop. I have fallback, that is valuable. Don't risk everything on a gamble that could fail horribly. Have a backup plan!
