How To Make Game Graphics When You're Bad At Art - Devlog 2 

Please leave all comments arguing about the best Power Ranger here.

The singular issue I have with the background is that the light beams end. If I were doing it I'd probably make them long enough that the player can never see the end, but eh.

You totally CAN do black; late-game level, drop the searchlights, and either use an atmospheric/ambient track or NO MUSIC at all; boom you've got an atmospheric *contrast* (see what I did there? :P ) to the rest of the game.

I really love how confident you are with your decisions. Many other dev logs give a sense of uncertainty and willingness to change based on viewers opinions but you seem to trust your own judgement and I think that's a great quality. Love the humor and the game seems great.

Great video, love the humour! One thing I would say that also really helped Thomas Was Alone's visuals is it's excellent squash and stretch on the rectangles, the animation I think really elevates it beyond "just rectangles" (not disparaging rectangles here though lol). Also the shadows really helped, some shadow casting on the light beams could be really cool in your game! I'll definitely be following along, best of luck with the game & videos!

I totally liked the black background... It was really stark and contrasting!

Dont know why but the gray background looked better that made the scene really simplistic and clean

I love the concept of this series. Talk about game design concepts using your ongoing project as a template, with some humour thrown in. Hopefully it catches on. :)

Great videos, love the cheeky humor. I’ve never spent a lot of time on my backgrounds and that’s definitely a huge opportunity to make something pop. Thanks!

"But you have to understand, I make games in Clickteam Fusion 2.5, so I'm clearly not interested in using better, more up to date software" is the biggest mood ive ever heard

This background with the player trail looks fantastic! Great job.

Great upgrade from the previous appearances for this project. I like the rectangle light backgrounds. I think that some falling dust mote type particles would look neat in it, too.

Juicy artwork, love the power rangers references and welcome to the doghouse, I'm already a permanent resident 😁👍

Im an artist (and i like to think I'm a pretty good one, especially in regards to lines and color) and you did a phenomenal job! Literally anyone can do art. It doesnt have to be fancy or hyper realistic to be visually appealing and you absolutely nailed the look and feel of your game. Side note: most artists cant draw a straight line including myself. Thats why we use rulers and compasses to make circles. I use digital stabilizing tools and filters and gradients to make my art better. Technology exists for a reason and there's no shame and no loss of creativity in using it to bring your vision to life. If you find anyone saying they cant do art because they can't draw a straight line, please smack them for me ^-^

This video was awsome and i LOVE your style of humor, u just earned urself a sub

I love this! It’s actually very inspiring, because I was genuinely planning on making a Metroid vania only using simple shapes, since I’m so crap at art!

Just found your channel and watched all your videos! Great stuff, obviously im a sub now. The game so far looks really good! I'm curious to see future parts of how to make things look good since I can make good enough art, I just can't animate for shit. Love the humor and sarcasm in these videos and can't wait to see more footage of tasty lava

Wow amazing progress from really simple shapes and technics. One thing i would recommend is making the light beams go through the entire level instead of just being cut before the ceiling.

My vote for time attack speed running game! BTW great video, I like your humor. Keep it going mate, you will have 100k in no time!

I liked the thrusting swim tho

BRILLIANT VIDEO

New look is awesome, the search light effect really brings the level to life. I'd suggest a bit of squash and stretch on the character to take it to the next level.

Top tier advice. Top tier bants. I'm sold

This channel deserves millions of subscribers, his sense of humour and the content of the devlogs are amazing

You mentioned contrast as an important tool to achieve clarity in your game. This applies to more than just the background vs the foreground - you can use contrast to differentiate between different level elements as well. In particular, something which causes your game to look a bit flat right now is that everything in it uses a similar thin outline - This causes elements like walls, platforms and bounce pads to blend in together. Ideally you'd want them to contrast and look as different as possible from each other - for instance have everything solid (like the walls) be 100% white, everything you can fall through (like platforms) have an outline, and everything which impacts you (like bounce pads or spikes) be crosshatched. This could greatly increase the clarity (as well as the visual interest) of your game. As a general rule of thumb, always imagine that someone is playing your game without their glasses on, and they should still know exactly what's going on at a glance.

Really cool video and game ! I love to see more smaller channels make devlogs Nice!

Relatable! 😂 thanks for the great vids

This rlly looks amazing

Great work! For the lighting maybe you can add a central light, like in Thomas was alone. Preferably a soft-light(made by a soft round brush), it gives the game a nice lighting effect, and maybe don't move the shadow's, eye's follow motion! I'll be following along on the series, Best of luck! Make a Discord server for suggestions on the game!

Late to the party, but I just found your channel and it's terrific!

Wow, good stuff man.

This videos are so much fun, I wish I found this channel earlier!

I just found this channel and I am enjoying the story so far. 😂

this is super entertaining ngl

Just found your channel after finding game deves to follow! I love how in-depth your analyses are! Do you have any advice on how to start a devlog? I'm trying to start one, but don't know where to start...

THERE'S MORE! LUV IT!

As a fellow dev with no art bone in my body, I approve this message. 😂 really good tips, thanks! I think the different colours will work well to differentiate between levels!

Of course, Tommy was my favorite. I was alive in 93 when the show aired. "We're not too old for this shit!" and you should have definitely done that segment.

Ideas: new color for every level to make them recognizible. Or even make it birhgter the closer you get to the end goal for that reward response. Also a pause-reset when you die, you can check your movement or quit if you're not feeling it. Old console games also like to color-code their obstacles, red for traps, yellow for moving elements and green for interactable objects etc, you may want to consider it. Though it would be counter-productive for the color-blind represetnation.

I'd like to see chocolate color as background.

That's a good tip about the moving platforms, y o i n k i n g that one

If you wanna know how to make some springs by the way, when you overlap the spring, make the jump strength and maximum y velocity higher. When you hit the ground, change the jump strength to the default. Just a tip!

RIP Jason David Frank

i like the black background as it reminds me of mininalist flash games from when i was a kid however i enjoy the new one as well

This video is amazing and fun. I chocked on my food.

Great video! Liked and subbed!

That parallax is sooooo nice. I might try and use these tips, because I can't draw a fish.

Perfect i learn absolutly nothing . Nah. Seriously amazing work.

imo the solid blocks should be like a black filter or just straight black

Damn that whole power ranger thing just for to lead into the new color 👍

Hey, another platformer!

1993 was an excellent year

Nice vid

nice

I honestly prefer the grey background. Maybe u could make it an option in the settings?

I cannot let the like button of a video with a dude which is a fan of Bob Ross unclicked.

Hue shifting the yellow to orange would make it look nicer

I think it looks really clean and neat and does everything you say, but in all honesty I don’t know if I actually like it yet because I don’t really know much about the game. Once you have a story and character and bit more to it, then the background could potentially relate. Like right now in my mind those spotlights remind me of Hollywood or... an upside down prison escape. I am really enjoying the videos though. Learning lots cause I know nothing about actually creating a game itself.

tell the peeps about the sweet Parallax u got going behind, these dudes will love it

Yellow using black to make darker shades like shown here is indeed yucky, but yellow using red to make things darker is teh hawtness.

Nice video, u have a nice channel, and nice content, so I'm subscribing. That's all.

I’m red and green color blind so I can’t tell what most of the backgrounds are… purple and blue look the same.

You should be able to separately change the color of the background and trail

How can ı do path mark like this game? .(red line )

Subscribed because it's a gamedev channel❌ Subscribed because of the humor ✅

epic

the background color could change with the levels

yellow was the best color ┗|｀O′|┛

The trail should have a different color than the background

9:30 in your list you forgot "use a color palette from some website"

I'm pretty sure your game graphic advice is applicable even if you can draw

Higher points the quicker you complete a level? Would encourage players to improve and replay a level to beat a high score. Or alternatively if you’re competitive to our do each other.

salmon is the best fucking color of all time

this guy is hilarious 😂

What about using free assets?

I happen to know a three-toes sloth who's an AMAZING artist, just saying.

Artists in 18th do be jealous of line tool.

This Man: orange and yellow suck Me: Aaaand Subcribed

1:22 idk why, but i laughed really hard at this

Ya know, I think graphics is really important. And this video is useful for exactly that. Really cool. (Not binge watching)

Are you going to charge money for this on steam for do a free to play game?

Man u are so different from other game devs I ever seen imagine using click team fusion engine and paint .net

Eh, it's looking good.

Billy. Billy is the best power ranger.

you say your not good at graphics .... HAVE YOU SEEN Dwarf Fortress??? yes... something to think about isn't it :D go on, do an ASCII game :D

There is a good way to make graphics look beautiful without being an artist - limit your color palette to 2-5 colors and apply a billion VHS/CRT/Bloom filters

I'm not bad at Art per-say .. I don't wanna spend ages on my own Sprites :( It takes time away from my coding. I am learning as much as I can from Artists like yo'self so it becomes easier and less annoying.. I just don't have the same inclination to draw as I do programming though :(

HEY!!!!! i like yellow

the only thing I can draw is a conclusion

(almost) Everyone: First Me: First Like

a player dying doesn't mean that a level isn't fair, dying is a part of learning the game.

the lights and trail seem like a bad idea

Well, joke on you, I like yellow

I like yellow....

why not black ?😢

You're not too old, Power Rangers is for the young kids.

Funny youtuber 10/10

KEY WORDS: :_( colour theory :_( for those who are NOT artists, who want to make good games: meaning: the point of depression where my brain begins to explode

she forced you to say that (just kidding)