Indie games, highpoly or lowpoly graphics?

[Elias]

When it comes to indie games. What do you think is favorable when developing and selling your games: Having great 3d graphics or lower quality graphics but a great theme. I think that it goes faster to create your lower quality graphics of course, but it can still be great if you have a unique theme. I am considering doing that, maybe even go for orthoview you know? But I'm not sure what will be best. I mean 3d view with higher polycount is nice with great lighting but a great themed lowpoly in orthoview can also be good, especially when it's an indiegame. Hm... Is it easier to develop a good theme in highpoly or lowpoly?

[Cube_]

in order of relevance - from my perspective:

GAMEPLAY - this is the whole point of a game, innit?
AESTHETICS - you can have great graphics but the game'll be mediocre and forgettable, the general aesthetic coherence and aesthetic quality is relevant (you can, indeed, have a game with bad graphics but good aesthetics!)
-everything else, probably in order of sound, graphics, other. Based on the reasoning that your ears are more easily offended than your eyes, it also ties into aesthetics -

and yes, aesthetics is wonderfully vague - if you don't understand the concept you should probably research it, but for a short introduction to it here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oK8UTRgvJU

but for short:
if you can have high poly AND a nice theme (thus lending to a nice aesthetic, if done right) then go for it.
but if you can only have higher fidelity graphics or more theme then go for theme all day long, it contributes to theme a lot.

[Elias]

Yeah I think it will be a faster development process of the models if you create lower poly models because they don't need as much detail. Therefore I think it is a better choice as an indie creator. A lower poly theme is better because it is indie.

[Cube_]

lowpoly isn't necessarily indie.

but here's the problem
big corporations can throw millions of dollars to polish their game to a mirror shine, indies can not. So indies have to rely on alternative methods to get an appealing game out - such as distinctive style, but more importantly great gameplay. Gameplay over all else in every bloody case.
That's what matters, if your gameplay is poop you should fix your gameplay instead of trying to make it better with prettier graphics - it's just that simple.

the rule holds for any game however, aesthetics are vastly superior to graphics. AAA games can have both, indies can also have both if they have the skills required but for an average team of indie devs they don't have the time or resources (or manpower!)

[chronologicaldot]

@Elias -
I'd say it really depends on who you're marketing to. Some people tend to be really picky about how the game mechanics work, esp. if you try to make a game that is meant to fit in a particular genre. See this article:
http://www.lostgarden.com/2005/09/ninte ... ategy.html
And before you charge ahead, read this one:
http://www.lostgarden.com/2015/04/minim ... ccess.html
In fact, read everything on Lost Garden because Daniel Cook (the writer) actually knows what he's talking about, and his advice is probably better than mine.

That said, I do know what I personally like in games. If it's a game I'm supposed to be involved in, I like awesome graphics and a good controller layout (that is, don't put useful keys/buttons/etc. in unintuitive or hard-to-reach locations). I could care less about story. And the gameplay could be more or less generic as long as it's fun. I used to play a game called Torus Trooper. Fun game. Very simple to play. Some friends of mine claimed that watching the game would give them a conniption, but I enjoyed it and probably would have payed money for it if it hadn't been free and I knew how much I'd like it. On the flipside, there are games like Portal that are challenging and almost pure eye-candy. Another great game. The concept isn't something I'd put money down for but the presentation is.

Notably, you can get away with simple graphics if you do other things to make up for it. For instance, if you're more talented as a 2D artist, you might consider side-scrolling games or perhaps use simple 3D models but then do characters in dialog using fancy 2D images (and don't forget to make your menu screens look nice).
A great theme is nice, but again, it's no excuse for poor quality or poor game play. I'd say the theme can certainly draw people, especially if it's unique, but that shouldn't be the only appeal.

tl;dr - It depends on your target market.

[REDDemon]

Good gameplay and nice enough graphics to not driver away users, OR good graphics and gameplay nice enough to not drive away users.

[Elias]

Yes I think because I'm creating an indie game users don't expect AAA nextgen graphics. If you have a themed graphics I think that is better because you can focus on polishing the game sooner. I'm creating an RTS game and I need to start making models for the game. I started to rewrite my engine with ogre from scratch a few years ago, but now I realize that was a stupid mistake because now I haven't even come to the same phase that I have with my irrlicht rts engine so I'm wasting time rewriting it in ogre. I should just focus on completing the game in irrlicht. The only reason i wanted to rewrite it in ogre was to have a better codestructure from the beginning (you always improve and want to rewrite your own code) and have the ogre lighting and animation system. But now I want to just complete a game and polish it for steam or something, therefore I should use my irrlicht rts engine which is even more complete still... So it will be a little lower quality graphics, but it's ok i think because it's my own indie game i create myself.

[Cube_]

That said, I do know what I personally like in games. If it's a game I'm supposed to be involved in, I like awesome graphics and a good controller layout (that is, don't put useful keys/buttons/etc. in unintuitive or hard-to-reach locations). I could care less about story. And the gameplay could be more or less generic as long as it's fun. I used to play a game called Torus Trooper. Fun game. Very simple to play. Some friends of mine claimed that watching the game would give them a conniption, but I enjoyed it and probably would have payed money for it if it hadn't been free and I knew how much I'd like it. On the flipside, there are games like Portal that are challenging and almost pure eye-candy. Another great game. The concept isn't something I'd put money down for but the presentation is.

Oh indeed, the mechanics don't have to be complex. As long as they are well implemented.
What I mean with gameplay first is that the game has to be FUN [to the target demographic], if it isn't FUN you're shooting yourself in the foot at square one.

There are good shooters, shooting itself is a very generic mechanic by now. But there are also bad shooters where the shooting mechanic is implemented in an unpleasant or boring way. (indeed, the original bioshock isn't appealing to me from a gameplay perspective. It has the aesthetics but the gameplay is frustrating and feels clunky, half the time I found that it's just more efficient to not waste my ammo and just grind enemies by free respawns - ditto for health packs (compare a few seconds of walking to a $20 first-aid kit). The fact that ammo is scarce and that you can only carry 30 or so bullets for the pistol doesn't help)

Then aesthetics, aesthetics are presentation in a nutshell - audio is hugely important here. (compare super mario vs. call of duty. the former doesn't have nearly as high fidelity graphics as the latter but it has a ton more aesthetics, it's got a unified style and it's an interesting and visually appealing style)

And then finally all the fluff.

[anything past this point is aimed at everyone]

Really, if we ignore gameplay and just look at the things you can perceive from a trailer then:
Aesthetics
Audio
Graphics

And if we look at gameplay that can be broken down into a few categories:
Mechanics - jumping, shooting, pushing boxes etc.
Controls - self explanatory, pretty much the most important factor. Shitty controls render everything else moot.
Difficulty - depends on target demographic, if done right this enhances gameplay. If done wrong it ruins it.
Variation - Entirely optional, you can have a game with one or two enemies and be successful - on the flip side you can have 400 different enemies and shoot yourself in the foot. Variation is nice but really not necessary by any definition if the other mechanics are implemented right [depending on game style]

For example, we'll use portal as an example.

Presentation:
Aesthetics: It nails this across the board with a unified theme using interesting and complementary color choices and distinct visual styles for the environment (compare turrets to the environments - or the portals to the companion cubes)

Audio: The audio is distinctively recognizable and high quality, it is not unpleasant - in fact, a lot of it (esp. GLaDOS' dialog) is very pleasant.

Graphics: This is just gravy, really. But it has pretty high fidelity graphics as well - this is sort of expected what with it being a AAA company.

Gameplay:
Controls: The controls are responsive, intuitive, and overall good and feel very satisfying to use. (exercise: compare what portal does to a shooter with controls you didn't like)
Mechanics: The game centers around a small core-set of mechanics, portals, physics, and jumping - it unifies these very well and utilizes them in a very clever way. (it's a good example of emergent behaviors, very simple rules form complex behaviors)
Difficulty: Portal does not have a lot of raw difficulty in the common sense, instead it has a slowly progressing difficulty more focused on thinking outside the box [thinking with portals, as they call it] than on mechanical skill, it is however very well balanced starting at easy going towards more challenging levels - this allows a broad audience to grasp, and advance in the game.
Variation: Portal has three enemies, the turrets, the missile launchers, and the boss of the game [spoiler could go here but isn't required], it has two portals and four environmental hazards [acid, energy balls, crushing, fire]. In other words, it does not have variation in this sense.
The environments are, additionally, not very detailed either with two primary environments - sterile testing chambers and the maintenance area the scientists would typically be in to observe the experiments and use to maintain the test chambers.
Similarly it has no variation at all with weapons, it has exactly one weapon. The portal gun.

These factors all mix together into one very interesting game, Portal. [to reiterate, emergent behavior - simple mechanics forming complex behavior]
It has a strong focus on using its mechanics in an interesting way, with solid controls and a coherent aesthetic. (and this is fundamentally why it was successful - then there are plenty of generic shooters that lack any real aesthetic at all and they're mostly forgotten).

As for call of duty: It has an awfully boring aesthetic but it does something very well: It does its mechanics very well, the people looking for a military shooter will find it appealing due to this. [which is why call of duty is a very valuable IP even though it's really just the same game sold over and over with slight tweaks, and no. You cannot compete with it - you don't have the money to do that]