It was one of the first 3D mmos, and it had a system where you dropped your loot on the ground open to other people when you died. MMOs were far more harsh back then.

Prior to AC you had The Realm which was 2d, Ultima Online which was 2.5D, and Meridian 59 that predates them all. EQ was released at roughly the same…

I transitioned from "The Realm" by Sierra to AC to EQ. AC was the first mmo I ever made money off. Back then the concept of selling items for Real Life money on ebay was completely foreign and wonderful. Since you could simply loot people's bodies in AC and toss the gear up on Ebay, I payed for a solid bit of my teen…

I agree, I wasn't trying to insinuate that everyone should be at the level of this one dev. Merely that if one dev can make a game of that quality by himself, I would hope that a team of people could make the effort to do something similarly polished in the same amount of time. I'm not saying they need to have his…

So long as you had a sustainable food supply setup and proper security/ammo influx you'll likely have no one dead. There's always a chance for random things to happen of course that aren't directly related to your shelter, so people have the chance of dying. But it's likely not as bad as you may think. Report back if…

"- Side bar discussion not directly relevant to the game or video here-in."

I was trying to avoid the implication that I was referring to this game specifically, and merely trying to start up a conversation regarding the retro fad that's going on. In some of my other replies here I said that I totally agree with your…

"It's targeted marketing."

Ultimately, that's my primary concern. That people are using the retro look not because they really like it, or think it flows with their game, rather that they know indie games are currently synonymous with "retro" and it's easier to churn out and make a buck. I don't mind being pandered to…

You've clearly chosen to read my post without utilizing critical thinking skills or your cognitive reasoning abilities.
If you had, you'd know that I was not talking about this game at all. In fact, my preface states precisely that. If you had bothered to read the comments included within this discussion chain you'd…

I totally agree, with this game it looks completely intentional and well done. That's why I preambled my OP indicating it wasn't directed at this game specifically. I didn't want anyone to think I was harping on Crawl, merely on the commentary that the video was the best trailer so far this year and didn't have…

"I think we need to stop equating 8 and 16 bit graphics as "hipster indie trash". I can't imagine any other reason people can be getting tired of it."

I would imagine some folks simply dislike the art style all together. I don't consider indie games as hipster, or trash. Yet I am getting sick of every indie game having…

The vast majority of people I know who are "indie devs," or videos I've watched on indie devs never sat around only making their game. Most all of them had normal jobs and making their game was a side project; which admittedly took up as much or more time than their real job.

Time is money, I agree. But to insinuate…

I'm totally down with pixel art as well, if as you said it works. Echoing what was in my OP, I don't believe everything needs to be AAA style, but I also don't think it all needs to be pixel art either. There seems to be a school of thought at the moment that indie means retro, when we have some very good examples out…

I think that's a gross generalization. Even though I started the topic regarding my stance of retro-fadism being silly, if the game were fun I'd buy and play the hell out of it regardless of how it looks.

I'm not buying a game because it looks or doesn't look a certain way, if it's entertaining I'm fine with it.

"I bet all these indies experiment with different methodologies and end up using the one that suits the project best.. I don't think they're being lazy or bandwagoning.."

For those developers who end up with a retro style because they played around with design options and it works for them or because they liked it to…

Polished may not be an entirely accurate word to use, but I think for a lot of things in the game it is fitting. From how smoothly smoke comes out of chimneys to the snow cover on random terrain, it's technically far more difficult than pixel or sprite based art. It's definitely still simple in that it's a city…

Well, as you said, it's all about how much time you have available and the finances backing it. Nothing "has" to be cut from a product just to increase the quality of the visuals if you don't want to. Now, I will completely agree that if you don't it'll take far longer to complete.

So I do agree with your comment…

I'm sure there are, and like gaming, the art style of anime has developed drastically over the years. From seeing Akira when it first came out when I was kid to today, anime is extremely more fine tuned in lots of ways. So much so that it can afford to look relaxed, while still presenting an overall quality increase.

I agree with the message of this video; I had seen it previously, my issue I guess you could call it is that I believe many indie developers are using the retro style not to make those "fun and unabashedly joyful games." They're co-oping onto an art style simply for it's fad status because they know it sells.

It's not "different" in the sense that it's definitely similar to other RTS/City Builders I agree. But it IS different in that it's an indie game; made by one person, and the game is only like 130meg in size. One hundred and thirty megs. If we're talking about resources here, the size of banished with it's far more…

Well, and that's the question I pose. Is it really a matter of ease or lack of artistic ability? Or is it that other indie games already have a similar art style that was easy to do and sold well. Setting a a low standard for the following developers who now know they can ride out a fad and still make a buck.

I agree, ease is likely a large part of the choice. But I also believe they're relying on the fact that other indie games look vastly similar and sell well, so they don't try for anything beyond what's already been established as the staple.