i know we had alot of threads concerning similar topics, but i still feel that some things are relevant, ESPECIALLY for indies and 3dgs users.

for one, 3dgs users are NEVER able to compete graphically with the best out there. its just not possible. in general, most indies cant compete with a multi million dollar production, simply because development is expensive.

and yet, we see alot of beautiful indie games, mostly due to their art style. but what is the technical side of this?

as i looked through a few games, i always stumble across some nice things. WOW for example is on a technical level from ten years ago. Still, its a beautiful game thanks to the art.
On the DS, there are a few games called ARTStyle. Pretty nifty stuff. A few lines and pixels and thats it. those games embrace an ugly style as style. Its like watching a badly animated flash, or southpark for that matter.

The more "realisitc" games i play, the more i start to hate brown. real life isnt brown and i dont know why some devs dont see that. maybe its brown and grey in texas only? ive never been to texas, so i dont know. but where i live, things are colorful, especially in summer.
so why are most people who want to do realistic games so obsessed with brown and grey? is it harder to make things look real with colors? TV tropes anyone? real and unreal? nevermind...

im currently devloping a game. its an rpg, classic old school with alot of dugneon crawling stuff, level ups and all that shit. as of now, i still use placeholder textures. real textures come in summer when the game is done.
im in beta stage already, so everything is implemented and works. currently filling the levels with details and doing enemy placement - crucial for a game like this. im still not sure how to do the videos but thats for another day.

so i thought: what graphical style do you want to apply to the textures? models and environment are rather realistically shaped, down to earth. but do i want realistic textures?
i came to the conclusion that i should go for something more artistic. not like WOW but in a similar fashion. darker. definately darker but colorfull.
and guess what? a first test with a few really ugly textures showed me that the game looks absolutely gorgeous with this style. so ill go for it i guess.

i completly lost track of what i wanted to say here originally, so i guess it turned into another "dont try to go realistic" topic... oh well...