cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/49343322
Widelands is a free, open source real-time strategy game with singleplayer campaigns and a multiplayer mode. The game was inspired by Settlers II™ (© Bluebyte) but has significantly more variety and depth to it.
Source - Website
I care. And I'm not alone.
Graphics actually means a lot for many people, and that's what they notice before everything else.
With all respect to people spending their spare time developing this and what they are actually able to pull off, this is also commonly what makes a difference between a hobby project and a viable game.
Massive kudos to whoever shares their passion game project. But saying "graphics is not important" would not be fair.
I love and prefer Stylised Graphics: Like Pixel Art, Cell Shaded and other over Real Life like graphics.
And that's great, you do you! Amazing when the game finds a dedicated audience.
Just saying that graphics is important for many others, and it shouldn't be discarded. After all, this is exactly why AAA projects look the way they do - there is demand.
Not necessarily. I know it might be tempting to put an air of connoisseur, but really, AAA gaming is popular because those works actually received a lot of developers' attention and plenty of artists, game designers, level engineers, and yes - programmers have put their best effort to make the game look, feel and play just right.
There is a charm, a "soul" to small indie projects, but seriously claiming that AAA gaming is nothing but empty shell for philistines would be disingenuous. After all, the undying classics, be it The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, RDR, GTA, Stalker, The Witcher etc. are all AAA projects, with a notable exception of Minecraft that went mainstream against common AAA model.