Whirling Chair Games is getting ready to release our first title, Vault Vex, within the next month or so, but the recent thread regarding the importance of graphics and screenshots got me a little worried. Therefore, I'd like to ask any of you that have a moment to please look at some screens from Vault Vex and let me know what you think (either publicly, via PM or email: paul-at-whirlingchair-dot-com). I'm not looking for pats on the back; I'm looking for brutal honesty, so don't hold back (though constructive criticism is preferred). Basically, I'd like to know if the screenshots would be interesting/professional/pleasing enough to make you want to learn more about the game--not necessarily buy it, but at least download the trial version. Thanks in advance!

Vault Vex Screenshots (http://www.whirlingchair.com/vv/)

Hey Paul,

The graphics look professional enough (at least for that kind of game, I'm not a big puzzle game fan), but they dont really look very enviting.

The menu bar looks fine, even the vault itself is ok, but the gem/peices look a bit dull, and the whole overall look is a bit.. hmm.. sterile?

I'm a programmer so I'm not 100% sure how I'd improve it, but to me you either want to go either:

1) VERY mechanical, using steel peices with gems set in them
2) Ease off on the chrome reflections and stuff a bit, make the gems stand out more (black outlines?)
3) Make the theme a little softer in some way (less industrial?).

Overall though, certainly looks as good as it needs to for a puzzle game.

I still wouldnt expect to get many sales though, maybe some day I'll knock some puzzle games together to see how they sell online :)

.Z.

I think your graphics look pretty polished and professional. The only thing that I tought you might want to consider doing something with would be the plain black background. It kind of feels like a bit of a dead area. Or unfinished. Other then that, I think it looks quite nice.

As for whether it would make me want to download the demo is hard to say since I'm not really a big fan of puzzle games.

_____________
Damon Du Bois
www.wizardslab.com

My first reaction was 'yeah.. looks nice' not a 'wow.. looks slick' though. However, I could establish the point of the game from looking at the screenshots and could easily see what I was supposed to do (well I am certain of my assumption.. though it may not be entirely accurate of the game itself)

After looking at the screenshots for some time, there are a couple of things I thought I might mention.

I'm assuming that your purpose is to line up all the coloured blocks to match their neighbours so you can unlock the vault door.

The menu screen:

Whilst the door and hinges etc are nicely drawn, I'm a little unsure why you have a 'verry symmetrical' and rounded/embossed rips on the cover of the door. With the text and the dial revealed through this 'ripped' effect. Perhaps you did it becasue it looked a bit plain without, but it doesnt quite sit right with me. If the layers of the vault can be 'ripped through' why go through the hassle of completing the puzzle to get into it?
Personally, I think it would look better without those wrinkles (whatever you want to call them) and with the front plate being the same shiny metallic colour as the 4 corners with the rivets.

The game screens:

Does that submenu (rotate left, rotate right, wild) appear every time you click on a piece? I have a feeling that would annoy the hell out of me. I would probably expect left click, right click, or both buttons to performs those three actions.

I dont like the black border within the safe. It makes the safe look more like a frame and loses the effect of you trying to open it. Its almost as if its already been opened and you are looking at the contents. The inner black square breaks the continuity of the screen and separates the safe from the game, making it almost irrelevant and simply taking up space.

I'm also a little concerned that the 'time' and 'wild cards used' are a little indistinct. The text matches all the explanitory text (which the user will skim over and dismiss) In fact that whole right hand panel seems to be more like just an 'help pane' and main menu rolled into one and not actually used in the game. It looks like all the pieces you need are already in the centre area waiting to be moved around. Nothing would draw my eye to the 'time' of 'wilds left'. Maybe just making them bigger than the instructions, or coloured slightly differently or something.

Do you have some kind of graphical reward or animation of opening the safe? That would give a sense of closure to the purpose of the game.

Lastly, and back on the right hand panel again.. I'm not sure that those outer rivets work too well.. they almost 'confuse' the area and take a bit too much emphasis away from the rest of that panel.

There are lots of parts that doo look great though. The hinges on the safe, and the brackets, rod and round thing on the right hand info panel etc look beautiful, and really work well with the 'vault' concept.

-Z-

I think there are a few issues. Right away, I know I've seen older games with much better looking gems. Secondly, gems seem to be too common a choice for puzzle games. Third, even if you did make better gem graphics, the view you have won't feature them very nicely. I think an isometric view or some kind of variation of that would offer more viewing pizzaz. Finally, I think that the interface for the gems doesn't look like anything intriguing or magical enough.

What should it look like? I don't know, but try thinking of some games where you had to put a gem or special item in something technological or fantastical. It usually looks very interesting. That's why you need an artist. Independent developers vastly underestimate the value of an artist and I'm glad. It gives me an instant advantage for the game I'm developing. Screenshots are an important part of your advertising.

Yeah, I totally agree, graphics are NOT an area to skimp on at all.

I'll post some of my graphics up at some point (they arent final graphics, just a mockup of the game the designer created).

I'm lucky in that I work with professional artists most of the time, so Ive got some resources available (and i can happily afford to pay for work to be done).

But even a puzzle game is worth it i think, just get a GOOD artist to make up some stuff (gems etc) and it'll sell enough extra copies to more than pay for it.

Lets face it, no-one likes to play a game that looks hard on the eye, even if its only a minor niggle.

.Z.

Erhm, you're making me feel bad about the gfx of my game... :-}

Actually they are mostly simple textures taken from 3Dcafe.

Here's some ideas, not regarding your game graphics, but instead on their presentation:

On your final website, don't do straight thumbnails of all your screenshots ... crop the images down to the interesting parts for the thumbnail. This means that when looking at the thumbnails all lined up, instead of seeing a bunch of images that all look only slightly different, you instead get a series of very different thumbnails with much higher details. When the user clicks on the image they'll see the full screenshot. This is what I did here on my screenshots page:

http://www.monolux.com/games/rocknorsbadday/screenshots.htm

you can see that some are zoomed in, and some are zoomed out, and the level of detail for the thumbs are much greater than they otherwise would be.

Also, sometimes graphics on a game like yours can mean you can do animated gifs without their file sizes being outragous. We all know that still screenshots don't do justice to games with animation. Well, you may be able to do some animated gifs that are still small in size to show simple animation. Games with large areas of solid colors compress better for gifs, making this possible. You may be able to do it.

Hope this helps you look at some options, from a different angle.


~Hanford

Phew! A lot of good suggestions and comments! Thanks for all the feedback, folks. Some of the points raised here are issues I knew were problems but I've been deluding myself into believing otherwise, so thanks for keeping me honest. :o

@zoombapup: Yeah, I agree about it looking too sterile. Needs to have more eye candy, less cold chrome etc.

@damon: Agreed: the dead black areas probably *could* use something.

@Zoggles: Wow, you said a mouthful! Lots of good stuff to pass along to our artist. A few notes: the rotate/wild card menu only pops up when you right-click on a tile and the vault does open when you solve the puzzle. Didn't include a screen of the open vault because I *know* that needs work. :)

@Hydroaxe: Yeah, the gem thing is pretty overworked. We may have to reconsider that choice of game pieces.

@hanford: Great ideas! The game has several animations, which, as you pointed out, don't show up in a static screenshot. I'll certainly put them to use, regardless of whether the game ends up using gems, magical symbols or rubber chickens!


Again, thanks for all the great input!