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And my point is that only people on these forum will have the reactions that you have. I've asked many players outside of RM community about their opinion on a well mapped RTP screenshot v.s other pixel art asset packs screenshot, most of the time RTP is not at an disadvantage when they are being compared side by side.Not really, because the art is the first thing people see when they browse for games to buy. And as I've said before, if I see RTP in a commercial game, it's an automatic skip for me.
There are some exceptions, for example Refmap tilesets from 2k3 may have more marketing advantage over RTP because it has high quality. Otherwise RTP isn't at an disadvantage if your target audience isn't in RM community.
So people in RM community. My point stands.Anybody familiar in even the slightest with RTP will very likely skip if your game has RTP;
If your projects goal is to sell the game to people in RM community only, then yeah, don't use RTP. If your target audience is mainly people outside of RM community, they don't care.
Which game, may I ask?There are plenty of free to play projects found on these forums that have unique mechanics.
RM isn't an engine with flexibility, it's more like a framework with mechanics already designed by someone else. It's very very difficult to create mechanics that are too different from defaults RM mechanics, since at that point you may as well use a different engine.
As a result, overwhelmingly majority of RM game are either RPG/adventure/3rd person action(and a crappy one): none of these genre are something that has never been done by someone else.
Retro look doesn't automatically draw in people. Retro look with good art does.This is why indies go with a retro look, like 8-bit graphics. Because it doesn't require mad artist skills or huge time investment to create themselves, while still giving their game a unique look to draw in people.
Ive seen tons of indie game with a retro look that doesn't look appealing in anyway, then I'd just close the store page as fast if not faster than most RTP projects if the game mechanics isn't unique.
When they scroll through a store page, marketing art matters the most, past that point the short description matters more, then it's screenshots, then trailer.You're first going to need to convince people scrolling through a store page to click on your game to check what it's all about.
Before they reach the screenshot phase, all games have equal chance to get none RM community members attention. You aren't going to tell which game uses RTP which doesn't before you click on the title. No need to attack RTP if someone doesn't click on a title.
It's easy to mistakenly think that RM community is the center of the world and the only place to advertise your game, so RTP is the sole culprit if the game doesn't sell. this isn't true if your game has drastically different mechanics from everything else. But then may as well not use RM.
If you use RM your game will likely be 2D RPG or variations of it(like adventure), then you'll have to advertise your game to people that like 2D RPG/adventure games: aka people in RM community. Then they'll likely see RTP somewhere before because this is the type of games that they like. That isn't RTPs fault, it's the issue with limited target audience.
If you use RM to create something like a real time strategy or MOBA game and advertise it to people in RTS or MOBA community, RTP will probably look new and refreshing to them because these kind of game normally aren't done in RM, so they aren't going to see RTP anywhere.
So it's really the mechanics limitations that's stopping RM projects from reaching target audiences outside of RM community. Then why bash RTP? On unity there are just as many overused assets. It's common to use premade assets for indie game development.
Human fall flat is a pure mechanics based game that was successful because of mechanics.They're the 0,00001% of people who happen to be good enough at art, sound, programming etc to deliver the full package,
You game doesn't need to be good at every aspect to be successful. It's kind of unfortunate that game designers tend to forget about that and chase for things like "custom art" endlessly. Gameplay>>>>>all.
And I said that with an artist background. If an artist like me see more values in game design than art, I doubt most players will put art on the higher priority than game design.
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