I don't know if this is quite the right place to ask this, but... I'm hoping there's a site out there somewhere one of you might know of that would sell a graphics package. I'm wanting a full game's worth of RPG graphics. Character sets, tiles, animations, items, icons, etc etc. I'm only looking for 2D stuff at the moment, but I want to make sure that it's a legit site containing non-ripped art. I'm hoping for a lot of variety (8 directional movement for example). Is there such a thing that I am just having a horrible time finding? Would I be much better off hiring an artist? This is just intended to be a hobby project, one that I'll most likely not finish even.. so to pull someone else into it seems kinda rude of me. Thanks, Mythics

Gonna be difficult finding an entire game's worth of graphics that you can buy and use for your own games. Not to mention you're going to have problems of needing certain graphics that aren't provided, no matter how "complete" a graphics package might be, it can't have everything you want.

I would suggest hiring an artist or finding someone who would be willing to help for free. At least this way you get the art that you specifically want for your game. Though I wouldn't mention that you most likely won't even finish the game.

If it's just a hobby game that probably won't get finished, you could just attempt the art yourself... I mean if it's not going to get finished then who cares right?

Maybe there would be a site to purchase individual sets? I've seen one or two for 3D graphics, but not much in the 2D line.


Say I just wanted a couple character sets to get me started?
Outside of characters, some decent outdoor tile sets would be about all I'd truly need.

I was just hoping there might be a place I could buy a whole graphics package. My roommate is a graphics designer and would love to do anything static for me, but she can't do animations very well at all (constraining her to very small image sizes also destroys her capabilities).

It's fascinating to me to see that there is interest in this kind of thing.

From the various jobs I've done for small game developers I've noticed certain commonalities in assets and have considered doing some general graphics packs (eg. 32x32 terrain tiles like out of early Final Fantasy games, 100x100 or 50x50 spell/action icons in the vein of WoW icons) then licensing them out at a very reasonable price. -- I just haven't been sure that it would be worth my effort. Perhaps it would.

So I don't have anything new to recommend except the stickied sprite thread that you've probably seen already, but then that's all for free stuff.

For the benefit of myself, possibly, and other content-makers, I'd be interested in hearing what sort of specs people are looking for in purchasable content -- like what size of graphics, what exact sort of things they want. Though upon some thought, perhaps the particular specs don't matter so much as long as there is a consistent and broad enough series of sets to use as the building blocks for games.
There's opportunity here; hmm.

Thanks for the comment, dbaumgart.


If you did something like that, I'd be happy to be your first customer :P. Honestly, I'd get by easily with a couple tiles, some high detail characters (4 or 8 directions), and some nice spell animations and the like.

If you started with a very limited basic package, and threw together some advanced ones to go with it later on.. I can't help but think with some proper advertising you'd get a decent amount of business.

Quote: Original post by dbaumgart
From the various jobs I've done for small game developers I've noticed certain commonalities in assets and have considered doing some general graphics packs (eg. 32x32 terrain tiles like out of early Final Fantasy games, 100x100 or 50x50 spell/action icons in the vein of WoW icons) then licensing them out at a very reasonable price. -- I just haven't been sure that it would be worth my effort. Perhaps it would.

I think there would be quite a bit of interest; if there was a variety of graphics and the quality was good, even if they were sold in smaller packages.

Quote: Original post by dbaumgartFor the benefit of myself, possibly, and other content-makers, I'd be interested in hearing what sort of specs people are looking for in purchasable content -- like what size of graphics, what exact sort of things they want. Though upon some thought, perhaps the particular specs don't matter so much as long as there is a consistent and broad enough series of sets to use as the building blocks for games.
There's opportunity here; hmm.

Speaking as someone who comes from the Blitz3D/BlitzMax community, I see people asking for this sort of thing all the time. The style you mentioned, the top down 2D tile-based Final Fantasy stuff is usually the style they want. I think possibly 64x64 tiles would be preferable these days. People who are happy with 640x480 screens and 32x32 tiles are probably already using RPG Maker VX, which comes with a lot of tiles you can use freely. (The tiles are even free to use in non-RPG Maker games if you buy a license from Enterbrain.) People who are using programming languages and various game engines are probably looking for something more detailed and 64x64 strikes me as the best balance.

For an idea of what sort of content they would want, I would think that a look through the RTP set which comes with the RPG Maker VX would be good inspiration, but I would a couple of different sets of town tiles, a forest set, a desert set, an ice cavern set, a lava cavern set, a couple of miscellaneous dungeon sets, a castle set and a harbour set. That's probably what people are going to be looking for. Something you could use to make a cookie-cutter Final Fantasy V/VI clone of your own, only at a higher resolution. And obviously would then want character sets, I guess half a dozen player characters and whatever monsters you fancy. Character sets would probably also require some side-on graphics for the battle scenes.

If you then sold them all individually, people can grab one fairly cheaply, and not feel like they're investing a lot of money to try them out. The advantage for you - or any artist - would be that you've then got them on the hook. They can't make a game with one set of your tiles and a few of their own or someone else's because they won't match. Sooner or later, they're going to be coming back for another set and another set. Which is why you probably also want to sell bundles. Encourage them to buy all six player character sets for the price of 4 or 5. Same sort of thing with the map packs.

So long as you presented yourself to all the different gamemaking communities (I'm thinking very much of TheGameCreators(Dark Basic) Blitz Research(Blitz3D/BlitzMax), YoYo Games(GameMaker) and ClickTeam(MultiMedia Fusion)) as well as here obviously, then I think you'd be surprised how many you would sell.