Comment by diggan
3 days ago
> Difficult to stay motivated when the early drafts look like crap and you’re coding against stickman art.
I think learning to see past this and be able to evaluate "Is this fun?" regardless of it looking like shit is a skill to learn like any other.
A great way to train this is to start playing random games people publish on low-stake platforms like Itch.io. Most of them lack in the art department, but even some of those have really addicting gameplay hooks, or otherwise novel gameplay elements you can notice shines through the awful art.
Hopefully after a while you'll be able to discern more between "Is this not fun because it doesn't look fun, or because it doesn't feel fun?"
In a way, I feel like you'd get better games if rudimentary placeholders were used for the whole game, and the gameplay and story were focused on, before adding the polish.
I say this because it means you're forced to focus on the gameplay and story. If they aren't compelling, graphics (usually) won't save you anyway.
At least on the surface, thats what I see. Wireframes go a long way.