I paid an artist to improve my indie game 

You can now wishlist my game on Steam! steampowered.com/app/2967630

Better you come out with a game you are pleased/proud of than to keep staring at something you don't love and end up giving up or being generally unhappy

Awesome video, having a blast doing the art. Although I'm polishing things up, your art is everywhere and I'm just doing little changes here and there. You should be really proud of what you are making :)

I don’t think that having someone work on the art diminishes the channel, game, or you at all! Even a lot of famous “games made by one person” have things like pre made assets, composers that aren’t counted in the number of people making the game for some reason, or hell you could even argue that technically using a game engine is collaborating by using someone else’s engine code! You’ve built up the gameplay, designed the world and implemented it, and you’ve been humble enough to acknowledge that someone else’s input would be beneficial and you were in the fortunate position to act on that - absolutely no shame there. Game looks awesome so far, you should be super proud

I thought that your artwork was perfectly fine for an indy point and click. Many of us would love to create artwork to your standard for our games. Extra polish is always nice but for your first game probably not necessary as it is a learning experience.

I think that your decision to hire a professional to do tasks that are not entirely in your wheelhouse is a very wise move. I’ve heard that it’s common for solopreneurs to try to do it all and often find themselves overworked and overwhelmed, spending disproportionate amounts of their limited time just to make a “good-enough” effort. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is key and you’ve got that. I really enjoy your channel and look forward to more updates. Your videos have shown me that making a game as an indie developer is possible in 2022. I’m inspired to find my own path to make my “yet to be unearthed game” a reality. Keep up the great work! Thanks!

Talking from my own experience. Not from software or game developments, but more from a professional engineer. There is only so much one person can do. Even in a scenario you are really good in all the aspects (which is extremely rare), sooner or later you will hit a wall against the share amount of work it all needs. This is also one of the reasons a lot of start-ups fail. I see these things as a organic grow. I think the most important thing is to ask yourself the question what you want with the end-product (a point n click game in this case). More importantly, what you think what is important about the product, how is the quality, what level of standards etc etc. The idea of doing it all by yourself is very often a bit of a romanticized scenario. In reality extremely difficult. to pull off. Especially for someone with a minimal amount of experience, just see it as a journey with experiences. I agree with others here (and in general for any kind of "product"), that it's better to come up with something you stand behind instead of delivering something you just don't feel right about!

Congrats on taking this special step Ads, the upgrade is looking beautiful. It's very interesting to think about how this video's original script turned out the opposite in the end, each project is really a world on its own! The PSD's are a puzzle on themselves eh? That would be such a fun puzzle for a pnc office game, there is a secret message hidden beneath those murky layers... 🤣

I’ll be honest, the thumbnail did have me feeling a tad betrayed. Watching a one man band has been very inspiring and fueling my own dream of making a point and click adventure game. The title and thumbnail turned me off for a while but I’m glad I finally watched. A very thoughtful video, and honestly, hearing you share your struggles over the decision made me really glad you went the way you did. Your logic is solid and the new artwork still feels very true to what you started, just with a bit of freshening up. I’m a bit embarrassed at my gut reaction. It’s your game. Your actually doing what I sit and dream of, who am I to have that kind of reaction? You make the game you can be proud of from start to finish. That will be more inspiring in the long run than the 100% diy approach.

I really appreciate this video. Many people (including myself) are very stubborn in that they want their first commercial release to be their perfect little baby - built all by oneself from the ground up with no help at all. It's like we want to prove our own competence to ourselves. Having the humility to make decisions like yours is very important. I'd even call it a skill. Much respect, man. \m/

Your only worry should be feeling bad about making David go through layer hell.

Im glad the backdrops werent remade from the ground up because the first time i saw your game i fell in love with the art style. Keep up the great work. Cant wait to play it.

Oh! There I am! I love being able to support your channel. ❤ As an artist, I can empathize with never feeling your art is ready. Better to be done than strive for infinite artistic perfection.

I totally understand your feelings. I'm in the same position for the retopology process of my 3D models and in the end I just gave up and asked someone else to do it.. The art is still mine and everything, but I think in the end the idea of doing everything alone is just a stubborn position if I want to achieve the best results and doing it in a meaningful time...

Best bit is being able to adapt and change to keep the project moving along. In my experience as a 4 year old developer and being a bit past middle age, flexibility for the sake of keeping the project active and forward moving is a good thing. I’m working with 2 3D artists myself. Would love to do it all myself, though, seeing the game through and delegating were I can and can afford is wise IMHO. Thanks for the video, always enjoy them.

Awesome work! It's looking really really good. Of course, you are still an indie game developer. YOU are making your dream game. Over the course of everything that you will have to do to successfully launch the game, it all dwarfs the work that goes into just the art. And we know that you want it to be fully voice acted... so, there were always going to be other names in the credits. It is and always will be an Adam Bunker game. That's what's important. Keep up the good work! Can't wait to play it when it comes out.

your game is looking great! Don't worry about including others in your project, I dont think anybody has all the skills for making a beautiful game by themselves (you'd need talent in programming, art, composition, music, animation, writing, etc) - even if technically someone could do it all themselves it takes a long time and alot of practice to refine your craft! Outsourcing art to get polished up doesn't diminish anything at all! I'd say that its great even, because not only do you get a beautiful product, but you are supporting artists while doing so!

I totally relate to the dilemma surrounding being 'OK' at art but not 'good'. And I do think it's important that you like the look of your own game. I see no problem whatsoever with what you've done here. No person is an island.

Neat - My view is do what you can to get your game done. Thank you for making this video.

An alternative approach may have been to release the game with your original artwork, get some sales and then fund the new artwork and release a Special Edition upgrade dlc in say 6 months time, perhaps giving upgrade keys for free to existing purchases.

I've had this exact argument with myself for my project. I think my art is fine, but it's not exactly what I'm looking for. I guess the biggest issue though would be the cost more than anything. The backgrounds look great though 👍👍

Ads, by using the logic of “I paid someone to help me so therefore I’m less of an artist/this project is somehow lesser”. You may as well say that by using adventure creator it is lessening the project, or unity, or your iPad. These are all things you paid for to help create your game. Also does that mean when you ask for help on how to do something in the discord does that mean it’s making the project “less yours”? Or how about watching a tutorial? What’s great about this dev log is we’re all in it together and that’s what we stick around to watch for! You still designed all the backgrounds and the additional polish is only to highlight your original work. Plus anything that makes you feel better about your game is a good thing.

Looks great, mate. I understand your thoughts, but no one does everything by themselves. Doing so would include making your own game engine, your own custom fonts, building your own storefront, and manufacturing the hardware to ultimately run your game on. 🤷‍♂️

I think it was a great idea because you can learn from what others have done. Great decision.

I started off like you thinking I could do it all. But I realized that sometimes you have to accept your limitations and hire someone who can do it better. Its still your game, your idea, your passion, your money, your time invested and your risk. I say take it as a learning experience and move on. The game looks better for it.

It looks like most of what this artist did for you is adding contrast to make details pop more.

Even if the hire did more than just polish (such as creating genuinely new scenes from scratch), I don't see this as a big deal. Over the next few years as a side project I'll probably make a solo-indie point&click game, yet I am certainly going to hire voice actors.

A bit late with my comment but I think you made a very wise decision! I can totally relate wanting to do everything yourself and it took me a lot of inner work to stop this (dumb) behavior. Also, almost all the games out there who are made by one person (which is not always true) could be much better IMO if they would have not done everything alone (one example is pinstripe, a game I backed on kickstarter). A lot of them use the idea of a single men project more as a marketing phrase. Also, chasing the idea of doing everything yourself (for example to be recognized as a lone genius) can be dangerous, just watch the first talk from "the GDC the 2019 failure workshop". In short, I don’t care if you made it alone or if 10 people made it. I only care if it is a good game 🙂

To be honnest i think that your artstyle is fine . If the game is captivating that's all that matter.

2 Devlogs in almost one week. Score!

Think you are taking yourself too literally. I'm much more practical from a business sense than others. You said you would make a game by yourself; well, you earned the money on your own to pay him right? You didn't rob a bank or anything? I call that no different than solo devs hiring voice actors to fill in skills they need. Plus, since he is actually using your initial files, I'd say you have done more pre-production than many others and there is nothing to feel bad about. Now, as someone who really cannot draw (I never took art as my stick figures didn't really look human), I know I will have to commission art or use prior purchases; that's fine. My goal is to get something built with placeholder art, see how folks receive it, and decide from there how much to spend on hiring someone for higher quality work.

IMO It's still 100% your game as you chose the artist. Same for the odd music track or VO decisions. You're the only one who truly knows whether something fits because it's utterly your creation. Nothing wrong with that...both admirable and practical!

You don't owe viewers of this channel anything or need to apologise - this is your game, your money and it's intended to be a commercial offering so it's entirely up to you to do whatever you think is best for it. Personally I found the video interesting and would actually have liked to have known more about it - particularly how much something like this costs.

What happen to the old background music? :(

You shouldn't need to apologize for hiring people. This is a lot closer to the old days, where even though one person could do everything, frequently it was a couple or few friends. So you'd have a programmer and an artist and then maybe a musician depending on who your friends were, maybe a sound effects guy. Also independent literally means you don't have a boss to behold to, or shareholders, or whatever. You may have an obligation to your fans, but in general, you're pretty much independent of any influence you don't want on your project. I've always said, I can't hire someone to make my game for me, mainly because I don't have the money. At some point though I may get it to a stage where I have to start looking at that. Until then, i'll just work on it like you did, until I can pay someone.

You paid an artist to finetune your existing art the same way a songwriter pays a recording studio to master their music. Nothing to be bothered about the game and its style are your creation having someone aid you in acheiving 'your' vision isnt the same as having someone redraw entire backgrounds or create new assets. Looking good btw just found your channel, big lover of P&C gaming since my childhood...still have the MI dial a pirate codewheel.

Ok, this is a controversial point, but this is how I would have handled it. Get your dream artist guy in as a consultant. They redo a scene or two, they tell you how and why they did it that way, and then you go ahead and use those techniques yourself. You still have a 1person handcrafted game but it is better. There is no shame in asking for help, but asking for someone to do it for you is another thing.

I don't think there is such a thing as one man makes a game. Even if you coded everything in c++ from the ground up, you still didn't create the game engine, programming language, operating system, computer, didn't mine the metals out of the ground yourself etc. No one ever does things by themselves, no doubt you had to learn countless tutorials made by others to make your game as well. If you are really worried about it, you could pay the artist for lessons on how to improve/tweak your art yourself, then share what you learn on you tube with details on how your followers could hire the artist if they wanted.

How much did you pay?

At the end of the day, you paid for AC - so its already not a "one man band" - but that's fine, if you can afford to purchase tools and services to achive your goal, then all's fair, you're still a solo "Developer" who outsorced some art & an in-engine, engine - to make a game by yourself. :)

You're definitely overthinking it.

I do believe you betrayed the one man band ethos idea, and i do believe it is a more inspiring and interesting idea, however it is not the end of the world i guess.