How I made the art and music for my games

Some of you may find this blog entry useful. Please comment if so.

http://greyaliengames.wordpress.com/2006/12/14/how-i-sourced-the-art-and-music-for-my-games/

oops, this thread title should read "sourced" not "made".

Just read it. Not bad..didn't like the love tie in though and where did Mr's Biggins get over a ton of shaved carrots from at 2 O'clock in the morning? You should have thought about that.

Seriously, nice read that. Always interesting to see how it's done. Hope you get your investment back on this game - good luck!

Thanks for that ;)

Hujiklo: You are welcome, sorry about the plot holes.

GfK: No, thank you :-)

Interesting read! Thanks Mr Grey.

I am proud to be overpriced.. LOL. Good read, helpful as always :)

oops sorry Jonathan, wasn't directed at anyone in particular. Actually it should read "overpriced for me and my skinflint budget", but that makes IPete2 sound cheap, whereas what he was was extremely good value and dedicated.

Haha its fine my reply was light hearted. Any chance you would want to divulge the rough price range, maybe it will help me and others to offer more competitive prices. It would be interesting to know how much it cost you (ballpark) in development costs for the entire project.

Even though I can do my own art, I still wonder if it would be good to out source it. Doing programming and art takes soooooooooo long! lol.

Anyways, I think u made the correct decision. It turned out excellent :)

Sorry I shouldn't really divulge the art cost, it wouldn't be very professional. In the new year sometime I may put my sales figures and expenses on GameProducer.net so keep an eye out for that. Yep doing both would have taken far too long on this project, and I'm overjoyed with the result despite what the odd naysayers says about it being not "Christmassy enough" ;-)

The info's got me considering sub-contracting some work... I've always sorta felt that then it's not your baby anymore.

It is dawning on me that I'll never be able to produce the eye candy graphics that are doing the rounds myself.... maybe I should accept the inevitable.

I've reached this point myself. My game is done apart from some graphics stuff. I can either do it myself which might be tricky - I'm ok at drawing but crap with colour, or pay somebody else to do it, which, from what I've got so far, seems like its going to be pretty expensive.

Don't know which way to go, really.

Most of my media was supplied by Bethesda Softworks - virtually to order. It all nicely fits in my RPG world. They kitted it out entirely with music, sound, textures, geometry. Cost me £39.99 - that's a pretty good price for what I got.

Hmmm, it's not easy. Money doesn't grow on trees, but the final polish / tweaks after so much development time are the ones that you need to pay most attention to to ensure a saleable product - I presume......

@puki - you must have posted at the same time as moi, I was replying to gfk's post, 39.99 sounds fantastic value for money.. I'm off to see if Bethesda Softworks has a site. regards,

I think it's going to get harder and harder for people to make competitive casual games unfortunately. Basically 3 years ago Xmas Bonus would have look RAD, but last year it just look OK, and this year it definitely looks dated.

So what if you don't have much art skill or much money? All you can do is make a game that looks like Xmas Bonus OR try to convince someone goodto do the art for royalties (not easy). And if it looks like Xmas Bonus, unless it's radical, got something really new, it won't sell very well (still may not sell even if it is radical!), and then you'll be put off making another one and have no money to reinvest. But at least you'll have another "practice" game under your belt to hopefully attract more royalty-based team members...

It's like a few years ago Indie games were more one man band things, like the old 8-bit days. But now they've gone all sophisticated (well in the graphics/sound/polish department) and require small teams to make so it's harder to compete. Don't want to put people off, but I see it going more that way as the customers and portals now demand polish - it's just a hard fact. So maybe it's best to either a) code games for fun (that's what I started doing originally, hmm) or b) actually get some investment from somewhere and do it properly. Or I guess c) build up with mini-games and get people at low cost or on royalties, but this could take a while... of wait there's d) join an existing team based on your merits or get headhunted/hired (but again this requires some kind of track record). So it all comes down to FINISHING something even if it's not great. And then doing it again, but better and so on...

thanks for these articles

"Even though I can do my own art, I still wonder if it would be good to out source it. "


From many Artists that I've contacted, the average price range is $20-$40 (sometimes more) per hour. Luckily I can do the art myself.

Great articles Grey, and that last post is really true. The one man band barely cuts it unless you have a secondary means of income to tie you over for 6 months to a year dev time.

Just a few of my own thoughts here, I don't know if these will help other developers but here goes...

I have to say that Grey is a real professional - probably because his desire for perfection is mainly what drives him, and the fact he comes from a professional programming background. He has a really keen eye for detail and movement and knows exactly what he wants, and how to express himself accurately.

Now, why do I say these things? Because this makes working with someone like Grey, a far more fruitful experience. The result speaks for itself. Grey provided a fully accurate brief, with some flexibility for change as the game objects developed. We tried a few things, and Sean (the guy who did most of the in game objects) was accommodating enough to ensure the results were stunning. (A foot note: Sean worked on PS2 titles such as WRC and WRC2 - along with other game, television and advertising projects, having been around since he developed the graphics for "Rise of the Robots" - he knows what he is doing!)

Having an accurate brief is very important. If you cannot state what it is you are after, in an accurate and desciptive way then you are going to go around in circles forever. So, it is very important to have a clear vision and an overall understanding of how a game and its contents will function with each other. Development is an iterative process, and this means graphical objects and music, and sound effects and text, and fonts, and colours, and timings and well just about everything. If it does not work as you thought it would, change it, do not suffer it. When you are almost there, make sure you arrive safely. (that's where a good, clear map comes in).

In terms of price, you do 'get what you pay for'. Grey, Sean and myself all do this for a living, it is our sole source of income and we work very, very, very, long hours sometimes - that's a given when you work for yourself. In this case Grey and I discussed how we could BOTH benefit from working together, and in some ways we both took a bit of a risk, but as Grey would say "Speculate to accumulate" - and I don't always mean monetarily here. SmartScreen's graphical work is once again out in the open for people to see now, so I benefit greatly from the publicity behind the publication of a better product. Grey and I found we have a very similar outlook on the whole work ethic and producing a "that'll do" is NOT AN OPTION.

Now the game is on the portals and selling, this adds a really impressive impact on my clients. They can see we are clearly a professional company, doing great work in an extremely and increasingly competitive marketplace. SmartScreen continue to deliver a final, professional result in a short time frame with a triple 'A' service too, and great value for money.

The people who really benefit this process of course are those who purchase and enjoy the game itself.

IPete2.

You make a MUD server? Haha - self deprecation is so fun sometimes. ;)

I'm one of the new kids on the block here. I just wanted to say thanks to Mr. Alien for his contributions (both blogs, insights, bugs discovered, etc) and of course a big congratulations on getting a couple games out the door in such a quick manner. Stories like these help keep me motivated and on track as I tend to be a bit more of a dreamer and idealist that a pragmatist who ever finishes what he started.

In regards to the difficulty of breaking into the casual market, in some respects I think this is a good thing - at least for the casual gamers and/or jaded 'core' gamers. The current key casual gameplay models are already being dominated by the bigger names in the industry and as you said, it'll be extremely difficult to compete with them since they'll have much more money and manpower to throw around. This'll force the casual developers to explore innovative mechanics & invent new genre's if they hope to have a fighting chance.

Of course, I suppose that's a bleak outcome for the indie dev's that are just out to make a buck. I think a lot of indie dev's though really *want* to make something unique and original but are too tempted by the lucrative market of the comparatively 'easy' to develop popular casual games (not saying they are easy by any means -- finishing any game is a monumental task -- but treading down a well trodden path is a bit safer than running full steam ahead into a dark jungle). Once that lucrative market becomes unattainable by the lone or small team indie dev they'll have no excuse not to work on the projects they really want to work on.

I think the Wii is proving that gamers, both core and casual, are ready and willing to embrace change. The Wii could benefit indie dev's as a whole, really, if it manages to bring in a lot of non-gamers. Those converted non-gamers will never be likely to go pick up the latest AAA title, but may very well start to poke around on the internet for interesting/innovative games - and that's a good thing for us indie dev's.

While it might be a bit hasty to say that the current gaming paradigm is ready to implode, I don't doubt that gaming and gamers (especially the converted 'non-gamers') will experience a sort of renaissance in the next couple of years.

Okay, enough of my rambling. I've got to stop posting immediately after waking up. :)

Interesting posts all, thanks a lot.

Yeah IPete2 was top to work with, and Seans stuff was fab too. We interated a lot on some things and other things were correct first time. You can't get "protective" over your stuff, if it's crap is has to go or be improved until you are satisfied. I really hope that this brings lots of extra work for IPete2 as he really deserves it, he's such a hard worked and dedicated to getting it right for me, the customer.

SculptureOfSoul: I see you point about being forced to innovate. That might be me next as I was the "well trodden path" guy. It's a known business model to repeat the success of others but it never gets you ultimate success for that you have to take bigger risks. I didn't want to take big risks straight at the start as if I'd failed I may have been put off for good. So I played it safe (but as you say, it still wasn't easy!) and soon I'll be able to take more risks ... maybe, but I've got this thing called a "family" which means I have to be pretty careful. If I lived on my own in a little flat (like I used to) then I'd be prepared to take bigger risks. So I have to research and choose very carefully right now.

Oh yeah about being forced to innovate: the only thing is, if your innovative titles don't look good, they still won't sell on the portals so you'll have to really find a new market or way to sell where people don't instantly judge you game on it's graphics. And that won't be easy...

Attention to detail always pays dividends, and Grey/Ipete/Sean I'm sure subscribe to this mentality. @Gellyware - can't agree more - I'd be well scuppered without my primary income.

Both ipete2 and Grey have some fantastic points:

I agree with this if you have the benefit/cross to bear of developing in short time frames - but if you are a one man band there is a lot to be said for busting a gut and then sleeping on it for a while. Heck, even taking up a college course on top of your daily grind can give you that much needed break/fresh incentive/new outlook. Please bear in mind this perspective is very much from someone who has a very much diminishing amount of time to do 'personal code' due to work/life/family.... whoops that Should have been family/life/work - need to sort that out!

Gotta go, keep on coding - and as a wiseman used to quote in these parts:-