Officially in need of advice and help (pictures included)

ashrzr · 2024-02-16T23:49:03

Just to be clear, this is NOT a marketing ploy. I won't mention the name of my game or anything more about it than necessary, out of good faith. I've been working on a 2D game in Unity for about 8 months now. My game is essentially throwback to classic horror that doesn't take itself too seriously, with action-packed gunplay and stealth elements and some unique features and a full narrative story. Horror films old and new are my passion, and I haven't quite seen the true spirit of horror captured in modern gaming the way I want to. So, despite being a top-down game, I'm hopeful there is a target audience out there for that. Games like Intravenous, Zero Sievert, and even 2Dark found players within the last few years. The thing about those games is, they look complete and whole, but screenshots of my game feel like they are missing something. I come from a programming background, so I've managed to build/integrate most of the features. However, I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to art, and it probably shows, and I hope it can be rectified. My analytical "programming" brain got me this far on the art, but I feel like I'm starting to run into my limits and I truly need help. I'm struggling to put a bunch of sprites together, and make it look like MORE than just a bunch of sprites stuck together. I can't put my finger on where to go with it. I want it to come off as a whole greater than the sum of its parts, if that makes sense. I've tried everything I can come up with, adding baked-in lighting in addition to real-time and decals and things like that, but I'm stuck now. The game has some fairly advanced particle effects, animations, spatial UI, etc. The environment is pretty reactive with muzzle flashes, ricochets, flickering lights, blood, fire, etc. I'm really, really trying to deliver, if I can just get the environmental art figured out. Truthfully, I'm doing this because I'm terrified about the game not doing well. My career has been impacted by the bloodbath happening in the tech industry right now, and I'm trying as hard as I can to jump into game dev and make it work because of my passion for games and horror and programming. If the game is not going to sell because of the way it looks, I have to know now instead of pouring water into a leaky bucket.