Roencia Indie Graphics Builder

[Jean Of mArc]

I think that these tilesets are pretty sweet, especially the spaceship ones (they are actually awesome). This is a really cool idea, and a unique way of earning a living. I also really like that you're selling them so that they are royalty free for anyone that uses them! It means that people can pay you once and then not have to worry about the financial balancing of creating a great game.

As far as clashing images is concerned, I can sort of see that in the RPG one. I think it has to do with the outlines? Some of the features (like the path) don't have outlines, the bushes have outlines that are a darker colour of the inner colours (dark green in this case), and the fruits/logs have a dark black outline. This might be the primary feeling of clashing that everyone is talking about.

<rant>
As far as criticism is concerned, I would agree whole-heartedly that it's one of the best ways to improve your craft, though it can be hard to take at times, especially if you're not used to it.

However, I believe it's wrong not to also point out the positive aspects of someone's work. Spriters are human beings, not robots, and as such put a lot of heart and emotion into their work. We are also social, and desire approval and appreciation from others. To ignore this fact could develop a community of great spriters, but with terrible self-esteem and a cynical attitude towards others. Tim Schafer, one of the leader game designers of all time, mentioned in one of his Double Fine Adventure documentary videos that people need to learn that constructive criticism involves pointing out the problems, but also equally important is applauding the successes. He mentioned that he was actually quite hurt by his own fans when he released Full Throttle, and they blasted him for making the game too short instead of for making a great game.

Anyway, that may not be your policy here, but I personally don't think that making people feel like garbage (ie by not complimenting their work as well as criticizing it) is worth time or effort, even if it does improve their craft. There are real people here; it's not just disembodied text and images on a screen.
</rant>

Thanks for sharing your work, Roencia. You've got a good idea going, and with some improvements you could have many sprite sets that could save people a heck of a lot of time and effort, especially if they don't have artistic skills (which a lot of programmers and game designers certainly don't have... like me )

[Roencia]

The Love Falcon...Thanks, I like what you said in your post. The changes I was referring to is in my art images. I don't have the originals up to compare. Thanks too "Jean Of mArc". I like your analogy. I should also change myself to better take advice, cause it can be helpful either way.

[Vipershark]

I'm a bit confused.

Nobody has insulted you here. Nobody has (actively) tried to offend you here.

but oh my god, this post

I don't see any insults either and attack may have been the wrong word to use. As far as criticism, this is negative criticism, "the trees and bushes do not match the style of the houses or well, bridge and fruit basket thingys or flower pots."

This is positive criticism, "I think your spaceships look really detailed and I like the rpg design, but I noticed the trees don't match with the style of the houses or well, bridge and fruit basket thingys or flower pots. Make sure to draw your trees in the same program/style. Otherwise, the images will clash."

One way is helpful with advice, and the other just points out what you are doing wrong.

Those are...
exactly the same thing, man.

Except the only problem is, I don't like the spaceships or the RPG design.
I'm not going to sit here and call everything you're doing flat out awful, but the fact of the matter is I'm not going to falsely compliment you on things that you did wrong just so I can tell you what needs to be changed.

I told you that your graphics clash (which they do) and that that needs to be fixed (which it does). I also told you that while the speaceships were detailed, I don't personally like that graphical style so I'm not really the best person to comment on it.

As far as your RPG tileset went, I saw for a short time when you posted the really big full size image the problems with that too. And honestly, there were a lot. You removed the image though, so I can't comment on them anymore but labelling your stuff as "vector trees" to try to escape criticism for something that's legitimately a problem is also not the way to go about this. I'd ask you to repost the full size image, but at this point I doubt you will.

The main thing I'm trying to say here: Nobody is trying to attack you here. Nobody is trying to insult you here. Every single person that has posted in this thread has posted valid criticism that you need to listen to. We're not going to lick your balls over flawed work and especially not make up nice things to say to you, when in fact, there's actually nothing to compliment. If we see problems, we're going to point them out. Simple as that.
That post you made earlier about "I should delete this topic and start it over" just because someone told you that what you were doing was wrong? No. -Nobody- (not just us!!!) in their right mind is going to take you seriously if you can't stand up to criticism and have to go as far as deleting an entire topic of valid replies to try to get somebody to agree with you.

[Gors]

Just to finish this argument off, I do agree that some compliment is good at times. But in this case here, I don't think that we were being extreme at all. We probably would have complimented once you fixed the props anyway.

I do agree that my words weren't well-chosen in my old post up there, but it's still worth of something.

tSR is not a bunch of robots, like in Jean's analogy; just do your work, and the compliments should come sometime soon. One thing, though: don't work FOR the compliments. Work for the CRITICISMS instead. This means people are actually interested in your project and they care enough to take their time to help you polish what you've got. The compliments are simply a by-product of good work

[Vipershark]

Let me also remind you that people have -given- you over 1000 dollars for objectively low-quality work.
You're getting free money here. From people that actually want to use your product. And on top of that, you're going to be selling it for even more money later on.
Yet you're ignoring/disaggreeing with people that are telling you how to make it better? Seriously? We're giving you free advice here on how to make the best product you can.

I looked at your website and it says that your Platform Builder and RPG Builder 1 are both complete.
If that's the case, could you post some of the completed work (at full size and detail) here for us to look at?
Preferably the Platform Builder, but both would be even better.

[Jean Of mArc]

To defend Roencia's honour I feel the need to clarify the situation here...

I only just learned of this site a few days ago from a friend who is developing a game (completely unrelated to this). I signed up and was doing some searching to see if there were some people interested in helping with the game. I sent PMs to those people, so as to keep it more one-to-one.

Anyway, I saw this guy's Kickstarter project, in which he was creating a sprite set. I thought it was a neat idea, and sent him a message to ask him a question about it, particularly if he had any screen shots of full scenes created with his work as "gallery" to sift through. I'd never met him before.

In his response, he was wondering if I knew anyone to contact that might be interested in his project. I suggested this site, since it was all about sprites (obviously), thinking it would get some interest.

Anyway, I started reading the replies, and was kind of saddened that instead of interest, it turned into conflict, which I had never expected. I felt like I had sent him somewhere that ended up bringing him down, either by what someone wrote, or at least how he interpreted what was written. I felt bad for him and for having essentially setting this whole thing up, and that's why I posted. He never asked me to.

Hope that clarifies things. I'll leave it up to him to decide what he wants to do next.

[triptych]

To defend Roencia's honour

hahahahaha i'm gonna puke my pants
what the literal heck has anyone done to SULLY HIS HONOUR

[DioShiba]

I really don't want to come off as an ass but honestly this post right here made me cringe:

To defend Roencia's honour I feel the need to clarify the situation here...

I only just learned of this site a few days ago from a friend who is developing a game (completely unrelated to this). I signed up and was doing some searching to see if there were some people interested in helping with the game. I sent PMs to those people, so as to keep it more one-to-one.

Anyway, I saw this guy's Kickstarter project, in which he was creating a sprite set. I thought it was a neat idea, and sent him a message to ask him a question about it, particularly if he had any screen shots of full scenes created with his work as "gallery" to sift through. I'd never met him before.

In his response, he was wondering if I knew anyone to contact that might be interested in his project. I suggested this site, since it was all about sprites (obviously), thinking it would get some interest.

Anyway, I started reading the replies, and was kind of saddened that instead of interest, it turned into conflict, which I had never expected. I felt like I had sent him somewhere that ended up bringing him down, either by what someone wrote, or at least how he interpreted what was written. I felt bad for him and for having essentially setting this whole thing up, and that's why I posted. He never asked me to.

Hope that clarifies things. I'll leave it up to him to decide what he wants to do next.

Hate to be hostile but...



First of all about this thing called honor, and we've said it before that no one has been doing any of the following.
a)flame
b)insult
c)has given pointless criticism
d)all of the above

we have given valid criticism. Ether you two guys have completely misunderstood us for the past several posts or you just can't handle criticism.

I really don't know how to go on about your comment on the lack of interest here. I mean, we've been showing that in some way. But when it comes to presentation then we kind of have to criticize that to some line of degree. The OP does not want to listen and in the end he just helped ignite the fire into this debate we are having right now.

And now for something a little geared towards you. You found this site a few days ago you said, and in that time I assume you have lurked this forum to some degree, right? Because if you did you would have caught on to the fact that we highly value criticism. In other words, we do not kiss each others asses for the most part. We want to help each other by giving each other criticism to help push each other to get better. If the said person does not want to improve this isn't the place for that person.

If that point still can't get across there is nothing more we can discuss here.

[Vipershark]

I don't want to push Roencia away as I think that this could be a really good idea and I'd like to help him get better at what he's doing.

But if he won't accept our valid crits, then nothing will get better. :/

[DioShiba]

Admittingly I agree with that point.

Honestly this shows potential and I want to see what comes out of it but the current presentation is what bugs me more than anything. Although the last several posts just makes things very frustrating at the moment.

[Jean Of mArc]

When I said "defend his honour", I was referring to those who made the assumption that Roencia got a friend of his to sign up just to say nice things about him, which was not the case. There was a post that made that assumption, though it was later edited out. That's all I was referring to.

[Afr0Blu3]

You've mispelled alien on the aien warships pack. I disagree that this would be a good investmet for anybody as there is nothing stopping their game having the same assetts as someone else's, meaning they would not have a unique aesthetic.

I think it's great that you're using some initiative to try and bring in some money during an economic downturn, but why not offer your services, freelance style, to create unique resources for individual projects?

[Cobalt Blue]

$79.

what

so your plan is to make indie devs with /low budgets\ invest the amazingly low amount of $79 on a databank of 5k unrelated images to their concept of the game they are developing. even if you aimed to sell this to /emerging indie dev studios who could afford to have a budget that would allow them to invest $79 on a bank of images/, who on its sane mind would choose to buy a pack of aesthetically unapealing images as placeholders when they are suposed to have a proper artist on their group. or even, be able to hire one (if they're going for more than a mario fangame, of course)

lets take a look at the desing of the ships in the sample image you provided: its basically an edit of an edit of an edit of an edit taken from a pool of shapes glued together arranged in a way so they would share some sort of diference. inthe very sample image there are at least three or four ships where you didn't even "try".

and you're suposed to get what, a hundred of those? and that is suposed to be a deal? wouldn't it make it much more efficient(for both you and the client) if you relased said pool of props and a proper editor for someone who would rather prefer to create graphics according to their game desing and not viceversa? kinda like how softwares like Fraxy works. and fraxy is a freeware (go figures).

i can foresee this being "your baby" and you being overly protective with it(somehow i believe you think this could make you rich, or grant you an stable income somehow)(somehow(?)) but you seem to have taken an utterly wrong way to develop this. rather than trying to jam a huge amount of generic tiles, sprites and props for a literally absurd price and force any customer to use the same, exact graphics into their games ala gamemaker/rpgmaker, you could had worked towards creating a platform that would allow people to generate content for their games easily(something way more appealing for someone who could lack artistic skills or budget to hire an artist). mean put yourself in the place of what your target customers can afford and need. and i havent even mentioned how a bank of 5k images is bound to suffer a lack of revenue eventually, unless you can guarantee your customer than you will update said bank with more images -futher decreasing the value of your 30mins of work-.

i mean, you do seem to have the ability to create the graphics, you'd earn way more if you actually devoted yourself to take requests from game devs instead and took that as your job. as a freelancer.

otherwise there is only one thing that comes to my mind right now that tried to follow this formula.

Spoiler

"only $199!, less than $4 per game!"