The artstyle is atrocious

[Ramsis]

Well Mittsies its always fun getting input from a moderately well known member of the furry community.

Half of the charm of the game is it's minimalist and simplistic artstyle. Personally I play RimWorld because Dwarf Fortress, despite being a wonderful game, is a headache inducing mess and no matter how many graphical overhauls I apply to it I just keep getting sick looking at the swatches of colors crashing on top of each other.

Now you reference sales and concerns, well SteamSpy as well as the Steam listings, currently list RimWorld as a really healthy seller with minimal problems already. Sure the numbers may be slightly flubbed based on prior buyers getting keys but if Steamspy's numbers are right the game has 203,578 owners, which 203,578 times $30 dollars gives out about a bit over 6 million dollars.. that's for a game that's not even out of alpha yet and is still being worked on heavily. Idk, it personally seems to me that the game is doing stupidly well and if a few people refuse to buy it because of art well then it's their loss or they'll just pirate it anyways...

tl;dr: RimWorld is ugly and the sales are still through the roof.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Codexehow]

  How could a game like this have realistic graphics? The graphics are fine.

[b0rsuk]

How could a game like this have realistic graphics? The graphics are fine.

Maia is very close to Rimworld - also a sci-fi colony management game in realtime - and yet it has very pretty 3D graphics. It's closer to Dungeon Keeper though especially in the way rooms work. BEWARE: as of version 0.57 it's VERY buggy and has various random crashes.

[Franklin]

Yeah the graphics aren't great. It's clear Tynan's more of a coder than an artist, but clearly it hasn't held the game back. Honestly I'm enjoying RimWorld more than most, far prettier games I've currently got going. The current artistic direction doesn't distract one bit.

But it wont be long until we see a bunch of full graphical mods, like we saw with Dwarf Fortress, and people who get hung up on them can have their way, too. I myself wouldn't mind seeing a 16-bit graphical mod, but again, I'm not unhappy with how they are now.

[Goldenpotatoes]

I don't know why, but the fact they don't have visual hands never struck me as off until someone actually mentioned it.

Wow, I can never see my colonists the same again.

[b0rsuk]

Yeah the graphics aren't great. It's clear Tynan's more of a coder than an artist, but clearly it hasn't held the game back.

Better graphics would have held the game back.

[FalconBR]

I never notice the lack of arms!
After this topic, I cannot unseen it!

[Codexehow]

How could a game like this have realistic graphics? The graphics are fine.

Maia is very close to Rimworld - also a sci-fi colony management game in realtime - and yet it has very pretty 3D graphics. It's closer to Dungeon Keeper though especially in the way rooms work. BEWARE: as of version 0.57 it's VERY buggy and has various random crashes.

That game has nowhere near the depth of RW. And that's the trade off, really.

[Grubfist]

I understand that the game is mimicking Prison Architect's style, but it just DOESN'T WORK for RimWorld.

You're assuming it is mimicking Prison Architect's style, when it's been stated that was never the intent.

I actually worked with Rhopunzel (artist) for a while, considering different styles. It's actually a really hard problem, because the art has to fulfil some very tight design constraints.
Super clear what's going on, even when zoomed out.
Easy to understand without training. Not abstract symbols. You'll understand what happens in the first YouTube video you watch.
Very easy to create art. No animation.
Attractive enough not to actively detract form the experience.
Within those constraints, we actually couldn't find a style that wasn't notably inferior to flat-shaded, non-animating, abstracted objects, with thin outlines, that slide around on the grid, with characters missing limbs. In the years since then, I still haven't seen one or thought of one.
It really is a style that the genre "wants". Other games in this genre has gone with various other styles (3d, pixel, isometric, etc), but IMO they detract from gameplay by reducing clarity, and slow down development by adding art burdens.
I'm happy with it. Really, what matters to me is what's actually happening in the story the game is telling. As long as the art communicates that well and is reasonably easy on the eyes it's fulfilling its purpose. It's as important as the typeface of a novel.

This is a direct quote from Tynan's recent AMA on reddit. Found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/4tm6i1/i_am_tynan_sylvester_developer_of_rimworld_ama/

It was in response to this question:

Why is the artstyle almost exactly the same as Prison Architect? Was it a big inspiration? The games end up being vastly different, but I see a lot of similarities at this point.(How stuff is stored, construction, blueprints)
Do you have plans to make it eventually more of your own style? At least in terms of looks.

[ThiIsMe007]

I understand the art might not be everyone's cup of tea, and respect that opinion, but in a sim game, it just doesn't matter as much as the other features that make it an *interesting* sim game (fulfilling & rewarding gameplay).

More complex graphics also mean animations sooner or later, and that is a *huge* investiment time-wise.

More of this means less of that, everyone has to be aware of that too.

I am 100% behind Tynan's decision on that one, and I hope we'll get more gameplay in the future instead of graphics.

[keylocke]

i'm not fond of rimworld artstyle for pawns as well (though i like the art for the storytellers and the main screen).

thankfully it is easily moddable. try out shinzy's apparello and the other mods that adds new hairstyles, or you can make one yourself. i made one with arms some time ago for myself as an experiment (i think the thread is somewhere here if it's not yet deleted)

edit :

things to keep in mind about the hands though is that the weapons tend to move when aiming and shooting (so static graphic for hands won't reflect the motion of the weapons.. awkward).

different weapons are also held at different points of location. (ie : a rifle's held location is different from the location of the pistol or a knife or a spear.) which means that for a static graphic, you're gonna need to place the hand in an approximate location where those points converge, to avoid the look that your weapon is hovering in mid-air.

----

one solution i can see for this is to add the "hand" graphic and add it to the weapons graphic. (this has it's own problem, aside from the fact that you're gonna need to do this for every weapon available) but this doesn't include the "arms".

or figure out a way to edit the weapon animations to at least change their x/y positions so they remain in the hands of your static graphic.. (which i have no idea how to do)

[milon]

Just watch a few Veggie Tales videos and you'll get used to seeing the armless interact with external objects.  Looks totally normal to me!