02-02-2011, 02:13 PM
I don't think you're being totally fair on the guy, granted they're not exactly the most elaborate graphics in terms of the sprites themselves, but plenty of games have been done in silhouette to amazing effect, if it's done right it can give it a sense of style you just couldn't get even with the most detailed graphics.
The real trick to pulling something like that off is to hint at detail, give people the right basic shapes and movement so they can fill in the blanks themselves.
Only other thing I would say is that if you're trying to go that route, your animations have to be smooth, and I mean REALLY smooth, if it doesn't feel like it flows effortlessly then it will just look like a mess, I've recently been working on something that isn't so different myself, and I can tell you right now it's actually much harder to make things look "right" when you have so few visual cues and points of reference.
The real trick to pulling something like that off is to hint at detail, give people the right basic shapes and movement so they can fill in the blanks themselves.
Only other thing I would say is that if you're trying to go that route, your animations have to be smooth, and I mean REALLY smooth, if it doesn't feel like it flows effortlessly then it will just look like a mess, I've recently been working on something that isn't so different myself, and I can tell you right now it's actually much harder to make things look "right" when you have so few visual cues and points of reference.