I am curious to find out what everyone thinks is more important. Is game play more important than the artwork of the game or is the artwork more important? If you had a slider and one end is game play and the other end is artwork/visual effects, what percentages would you give each? I personally would do 65% artwork and 35% game play.
I am not including story or plot in my game play percentage.
What about music? I feel like some games have poor artwork because of the music. They kind of blend together. I find myself hating games where I can't turn off the repetitive cheesy slapped together looped music. Anyone else think that poor music can ruin the artwork of the game?
Definetly gameplay. If you have an amazing game with so-so artwork it's fine. If the game has artwork but crappy controls and storyline it'll not be good.
arguably, theyre both very important to a games success. But gameplay is at least 2/3rd's of it. Maybe more, look at Minecraft's success.
As far as art, it's not quantity as much as quality. For this reason I find a lot of flash games that try to run crappy 3D end up missing their mark.
If the graphics are detailed and feel unified, that's good enough. Even if the art is lo-fi or intentionally pixely, as long as it's got good colors and the right details it will do fine with good game mechanics. If the art is all over the place, or the HUD design is cluttered, that's where you loose major points.
A good mix of both is needed (in most cases) for successful games. Minecraft is an exception, pixel-y graphics that most would consider bad, but the gameplay is great (to a lot of people, too). I personally don't play it, but I do play Ace of Spades occasionally. It's like Minecraft, has the same graphics, but the gameplay is a tad different. I'd call it a war game with building elements, you can build things like in Minecraft, but the primary focus is fighting.
Minecraft is an exception, pixel-y graphics that most would consider bad
They are pixely, but they aren't really "bad" either. It's more unique than anything. I mean, seeing that boxy cow move past you with inaccurate leg movements is hilarious, but you still know it's a cow the second you see it.
There's also the option of HD texture packs which increase the resolution on each block from 64x64 to like 256x256 or more. While stuff is still blocky, the individual textures aren't bad.
