Let’s start with banalities: game is an experience medium with a visual part that is integral. A developer must then necessarily have certain art direction and art style decisions worked out if he is to produce a satisfactory game.

What constraints influence said decisions?

Skill. If one is not an artist, picking a sophisticated art style is a serious blunder. Existing assets of certain quality lock production out for all those who do not possess sufficient skill to match what is already produced. 1.

Gameplay. Depending on what the game is about, you can get away with more or less sophistication, and need different visual emphasis points. 1.

Efficiency. If a sophisticated, high-skill-requiring art style is picked, it makes production of new assets costlier. Even if skill is not an issue, producing a couple of abstract shapes is faster than doing an oil painting asset.

Let’s define “sophistication” as contextually important term. Development of real-time computer graphics has long been pursuing a goal of photorealism. When I was a kid, playing GTA 3 felt like a blast, the graphics seemed great. Nowadays, when I play Cyberpunk 2077, graphics seem great too. All despite the giant leaps in rendering tech and objective improvements in frame picture quality made since then.

This is because ultimately photorealism, as a art direction trend, seems to me a bit msiguided. For many a people producing as realistic a picture as possible became a goal in itself. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that ultimately visuals are nothing but a vehicle for player immersion and experience. Most vivid illustration of this statement is Dwarf Fortress with its complete lack of any art assets whatsoever.

And this statement can also be illustrated in another way. Let’s return to Cyberpunk 2077: graphics are indeed superb... but as you walk streets of Night City, as you jump and climb to the developer-neglected areas with their chtonic emptiness and placeholder models, as you peer into the cardboard behind of the windows of the skyscaper office building, into doors of which the player is forever forbidden to step foot...

You realize that photorealistic graphics did not manage to achieve the most ultimate goal that many a brilliant game designer like Tynan have pointed out: evoking player experience and immersion. Because you realize you’re still in a cardboard parody of a world.

Contrast this with a Rimworld experience: the graphics are unapologetically cardboard and abstract themselves. They tell you in your face: yes, the art asset depicting human does not have any limbs. What of it?

The gameplay that manages to evoke an experience of the story makes the player’s brain to imagine limbs, parts, and whatever it is necessary to finish the picture.

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I’ve been reading Arthur Machen’s works lately. Here’s a quote from his “Inmost Light”:

“Our common reporter is a dull dog; every story that he has to tell is spoilt in the telling. His idea of horror and of what excites horror is so lamentably deficient. Nothing will content the fellow but blood, vulgar red blood, and when he can get it he lays it on thick, and considers that he has produced a telling article. It’s a poor notion.”

It will be remembered that Machen was in many ways a precursor of Lovecraft himself and the glorious genre of cosmic horror. As Graham Harman wonderfully explained, it is indeed was the Lovecraft’s genius way of writing horror by not writing it itself, omitting the detail, only alluding and hinting at the horror, which in turn employed to the production of horror the creator far greater than what pre-written words of Machen or Lovecraft could ever be - reader’s mind itself.

I find this parallel between the idea of writing horror and creating games by doing and creating less very amusing. Of course, it’s really the Tynan Sylvester who did popularize the idea in his book and GDC talks.

Now, I should hope that the point of superficiality of photorealistic art direction has been made abundantly clear; indeed tis’ plain that the most important goal of visuals is to evoke immersion.

Certainly, there are other quite sophisticated artstyles apart from photorealism - I’m reminded of Crusader Kings 3 loading screen oil paintings, which were, if memory serves, produced by one of the best and costliest in the business. Now imagine if that expert is not available. You’re lucky if there’s other painters with as much skill and willingness to emulate existing style. Were the player experience results of putting such high-class visuals worth the lock-in and cost? For a big studio like Paradox - quite likely.

But I’m not concerned with big studios and AAA, they know what they are doing. What does this situation mean for an indie developer in his practice?

One needs to realize that one can get away with a very, very basic, maybe even abstractionist artstyle. Indeed, instead of “can” the word may very well be “must”. This is because a solo developer is also heavily constrained by time and effort that is possible to expend on any certain game development area. Arguably, gameplay development might often be a more efficient expenditure of time!

However basic the artstyle may be, though, it is of utmost importance it not be shoddy and inconsistent. This should be a given for people with taste - when creator lacks meticulousness and has failed to exercise sufficient attention to detail, the product just stinks. Consumer even subconsciously feels that the product is garbage, that it does not take itself seriously.

We therefore assume that the quality bar is not an issue and everything is executed as best it could be. Question then becomes - how basic should be the visuals that need to be constructed with perfect attention?

Well, I must admit that ASCII visuals of Dwarf Fortress just don’t cut it. They are consistent, and gameplay is great (although not as great as it could be), but there’s just too little to base player’s imaginative efforts on.

When prompted of simplicity in game visuals, people sometimes bring up pixel-art. Now, it might sound counter-intuitive, but good pixel art is also very hard to produce! I very much like Stoneshard, game with exquisite art direction and stellar pixel-art style: it’s a complete visual victory! Yet this style is also locked in behind the skill and personality of their artist - good luck to any modder trying to emulate him!

Time and again I return to Rimworld as a masterpiece of Tynan’s game design - he knew what he was doing with an artstyle. The most curious evidence of that is the story of Oskar Potocki, a Polish kid, who was an illustrator by education and decided to make some mods for Rimworld in 2021. He understood what the artstyle of the game was about, had no difficulty in emulating it - soon his mods became the new art standard and indeed trendsetters, inspiring numerous other mod makers. He went on to be a great name, making his own game, etc.

And on a less laudatory note - before Oskar the artstyle of Rimword’s mods was haphazard mess. Hardly anyone bothered to maintain the humble quality bar needed to match vanilla assets.

Let’s conclude: as solo game devs, we need a basic, consistent, easily emulatable artstyle, that permits quick production and iteration. Less is more; any tendency that is a significant effort sink must be eschewed in favor of streamlined, quick approach.

Specifics and concrete steps that should be taken will, of course, vary from this game to that one; it doesn’t seem reasonable to provide one-size-fits-all guide.

I’m sure there can be advanced a great many objections or corrections to the ideas outlined above. I’d be interested to hear them.