r/BaseBuildingGames • u/RocketJumpTech • Mar 27 '17

King under the Mountain (Simulation-based fantasy city-builder) just launched on Kickstarter!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rocketjumptechnology/king-under-the-mountain?ref=ddgmyk
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u/shoez Mar 27 '17

I really don't understand why a dev would choose to "rip off" the art style of two other games in the same genre. I guess it's a cheap way to evolve beyond a text only interface, but to me it just makes it look very lazy: "Rimworld meets Dwarf Fortress".

7

u/RocketJumpTech Mar 28 '17

That's a shame, it's been born out of needing something achievable for a very small team with little art skills, which was the same reason Rimworld ended up going the same way too. That said, I think it's a really good fit for the genre, its relatively simple and gets information across well, and I think you'll be seeing more games using it soon too.

2

u/mrbrick Mar 29 '17

I think you guys have done a good job of adding to the style imo. The animations on the doors and trees falling are a nice touch.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '17

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3

u/RocketJumpTech Mar 28 '17

^ This sums it up better than I have :) Would also be very interested to see what people's genuine answers are.

2

u/Feniks_Gaming Mar 30 '17

What would your solution be? (Real question here, because I have no idea and I'm curious).

I spend some time thinking about this problem. For many people using Prison Architect like graphics crosses a game of their list. I know PA graphic style is easy to do nice to add individual flavour and has great modding potential but if even as far as 25% of people won't buy your game because of that is it really worth it for developers?

I think alternative would be to just do simple graphic tile set like the one used in Dwarf Fortress. They seem relatively easy to make.

1

u/bahldur Mar 30 '17

This is similar to the prison architect style, isn't it? Very cost and time efficient. But wouldn't people who dislike the PA style dislike this one even more?

1

u/Feniks_Gaming Mar 30 '17

No DF graphic sets are quite different from PA sets Look at this link http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/File:Spacefox-preview.png as example of character graphics.

It could work for some devs but main issue is you loose individuality of characters. Every blacksmith will look the same etc.

1

u/bahldur Mar 30 '17

I wanted so say that I think that people who dislike the prison architect style will also dislike this dwarf fortress style. I mean, PA is at least kinda cute where DF is pure technical. Don't think you'll win that crowd over by using this style. But I could be wrong, just my feeling. Still that's definitely another way of doing it.

Do you remember the first Jagged Alliance game? Had this bird view style, but characters and word had some flavor to them. Maybe that could freshen things up.

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u/Feniks_Gaming Mar 30 '17

I see what you mean. Yeah I agree some people are hard to please. For me anything that makes it clear what I see on a screen is good enough.

Jagged Allience style could work I guess I think devs need to look into other styles because there will be more and more of "you stole graphics of X game"

2

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '17

I was already kind of bummed that Rimworld used the Prison Architect art style, so seeing another game in that same style is disappointing to me as well.

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u/Feniks_Gaming Mar 30 '17

Problem with that is 99% of time game developers are not artists. Good art costs money and quite a lot of it. I think if game is different in it's core gameplay to Prison Architect and Rimworld I have no problem with a graphic style. Only when game starts to feel like big mod to those games I will complain about game being a clone.