To be blunt and to the point, I think the potential games that can be made on this site are held back by the lack of game resources available (images, sprites, models, etc.). The only way to get good art in your game is to be talented enough to make it yourself, or have the funds to commission an artist. Not everyone has this. So, what if this site encouraged artists to make standalone resources for the entire community to use?
One way I think we could do this, is making a Sub-Competition in the Gain Jam specifically for game development resources. The process would be simple enough, give out a prompt or criteria to work with, a set of reference images to make into images or models with a consistent style; a base body to design outfits around; model a certain body type or a series of body types; etc., then have the artists post them here on the forums, and reward the most popular, most unique, or most talented among them.
Of course, this would require finding the funds for an additional set of rewards, in addition to the normal gain jam awards, so I would not be against waiting until a threshold is reached on the site’s patreon.
That’s a bit of a double-edged sword, as it would reduce the incentive for people to make their own original content and just use the premade stuff.
That said, I think the better approach is probably to have a subforum here dedicated for people to drop stuff in there that they’d like to consider public domain, no strings attached.
Plus I’m not sure having people make all that content on a time limit would really guarantee it’d be any good; if I was to model a character on a time limit, I guarantee I’d be massively unsatisfied a short while later, since most model problems don’t show up right away, especially involving shape keys.
I personally don’t think the lack of art is holding people back but rather the thought of “I don’t how to x now, so I can’t x ever”. we never put it like that obviously, but we find ways to not even try to make something.
I personally thought that there was no point for me to learn how to code before I had made some models that I could use first. but since I didn’t know what they would be used for I struggled to stay motivated to finish them. it also escalated where I “needed” more models and they “needed” to be of final quality. but then I needed to practice more to get that quality and so on.
I finally got out of that mindset when I was told from 3 different sources that you should do the gameplay part first (where the graphics are as bare bones as possible) then when you are basically finished with that then you can do the art.
I have also seen people say “I would make x but I don’t know how to code”. I don’t know for sure but I doubt that they have tried to learn. it’s a lot easier than people think (you don’t need to learn C++) and there are also engines that don’t require coding (and they would probably know that if they looked).
that being said
I do think an art resource would be good to have. part of it would be so people wouldn’t have as much of an excuse to not try, but also for the people that can’t learn to make art for themselves (either because they find it to dull or just don’t “have what it takes” to do art).
it would probably need more time since art is the thing that takes most time in game development and since they would be a bit more general there would probably be more of it to make. I also think you underestimate how much time it takes to make a 3d model. for a professional it takes a week to a month depending on complexity (and since fat is pretty complex to make I would say it would lean more to a month). I’m pretty sure most people here don’t have time to work on it full time as well.
I don’t think that we would have a glut of unoriginal stuff or anything like that. if we had sprite sheets for platformers (that people know about) we might get something other than jrpgs or textadventures. there’s also enough of an incentive to make your own art (or at least modify existing stuff) I think. take EXPAndroid for example, I don’t think that the art needed for that game would be made for a generic sprite sheets.
While that incentive stuff may be a problem, just being able to grab something to spice up all the tens of text-only-games would be awesome. Especially stuff like sounds would be awesome, as way too much stuff is missing sounds.
The admin team is certainly interested in this proposal. We’re mulling it over with due consideration to practicality and finances. We’ll let you all know what we come up with, thanks.
I severely doubt more game resources would prevent people from making their own if they can, but it would allow others that currently can’t make their own resources make some of the games they want to, but feel unable to.
I’m kind of comparing this community to other non-fetish game-dev communities, which have access to huge libraries of models and textures on sites like OpenGameArt. Sites like that don’t impede creativity.
Also, another issue here is time. I’m not saying I could never make my own assets. I could start drawing on my own, but it would take probably at least a year of consistent and dedicated work to get my artistic skills to a mediocre point. That’s a lot of time to invest in developing a brand new skill, when I could be using the skills I already have right now.
I think it could work, artists coming up with an universal base (body) and then everybody being able to contribute clothing, facial features, hair, etc. And maybe turn it into a character generator.