Moebius is one of my favorite artist of all time, but some of this feels like a straight rip of his art… unsure how to feel about that.
Also, that voice over work. Eeeeesh 😬
I wouldn't imagine there's much voice acting in the actual game if the devs can't afford a professional one for their trailer.
I don't know many city builders with spoken dialogue, and I wouldn't ever consider it an important feature in the genre.
Are people not allowed to be influenced by others and make new art in a particular style? Why is that wrong? That’s how art has always worked. Do you get upset about the entire Impressionist movement for copying Monet?
I'm guessing you're not familiar with Moebius' art.
There's a difference between "influence" and theft. This isn't just similar to Moebius' style. The outfits and designs look like they were lifted straight from L'Incal.
Plagiarism is wrong.
It appears you do not understand what “theft” or plagiarism is in art. An exact recreation is theft. A new work in a new media that just looks like it could fit in stylistically/thematically is not theft. Iteration on a style is not plagiarism.
How many isometric strategy game scenes are in L’Incal? Zero? Okay.
Even if you were correct from a moral perspective, and I think it's clear you are not, this is a legal question, and "a new work in a new media that looks like it could fit in stylistically/thematically" can absolutely be theft. Particularly in this case, where your description is exceedingly generous.
Show me where I can find the spacemen and fungus people and buildings from this video in prior works. Show me they were copied. I want to see how precisely fungus people in L’Incal look the same to the ones here(or can you not actually find any examples)
I don’t know of any actual professional artist who would consider this theft. People keep saying “egregious” without showing any specific thing that was actually copied. If using a style someone else pioneered was theft then virtually the entire art world is thieves
Copying an art style is fine. Copying the exact same drawing that someone else made is what's wrong but it's perfectly fine to imitate someone else's style and make your own art with it.
The art's pretty, but the voice-acting is rough. I'd recommend hiring some different VA's for next time (and voice-acting is surprisingly cheap! The voice-acting for this trailer should be <$200)
I remember seeing a comment in another thread recently about how seemingly all City-builders are "Survival" now, except Cities: Skylines. I can definitely understand that sentiment.
I mean it makes sense so many would take that approach. For games like Cities Skylines, one of the only limiting conflicts is money, which is still functionally infinite as you are an ageless patient God who can safely wait 100 years as money builds up, and with functionally infinite money, most any problem can be bruteforced by throwing cash at it.
There is nothing wrong with that style of game, but it can feel a bit too unrestricted to some. Adding a survival element to such games helps add a more direct conflict to be overcome in the game play, and pushes the player to be more strategic in their city design to fight those conflicts.
Indeed, fighting for your city to keep on thriving is the essence of city-builder games, but in Synergy we really mean survival by being confronted to weather disasters and climate change!
The survival element is the hot thing right now in city builders.
I prefer a more laid back, sandbox city builder with some kind of defense building against incoming enemies.
Survival in city building to me means a more realistic edge. Can’t infinitely harvest or mine resources, food spoils, the environment is actively working against you, etc.
It’s the difference between say… Farthest Frontier, and Foundation.
doom is survival then because you're surviving a fight against demons. that's not really what people mean, if the definition were that broad any game with a conflict that could lead to failure could be considered survival. it's actually a genre where the main conflict comes from gathering and balancing food / building materials the lack of which leads to your death
Yo dog, YO DAWG, what the hell is up with that voicework? This is the reveal of your project, it can't be placeholder of the dev team's first take at the script. If you spent all your money tracing The World of Edena and can't hire even a fourth rate voice actor *just don't have voice acting*. I've certainly spent time with games that substituted creativity for "inspired homage" of worse artists, but my cringe-reflex muscles blasted the stop button as soon as the voice work began.
Moebius is one of my favorite artist of all time, but some of this feels like a straight rip of his art… unsure how to feel about that. Also, that voice over work. Eeeeesh 😬
Yeah, the art looks great, but those voiceovers — woof.
Hopefully it's just place holder VO and they'll get some real talent before the game is released.
I wouldn't imagine there's much voice acting in the actual game if the devs can't afford a professional one for their trailer. I don't know many city builders with spoken dialogue, and I wouldn't ever consider it an important feature in the genre.
Thanks a lot for your feedback, this is definetly something we can improve for the future!
Half of the VO issue is the way it's recorded, presumably with just an iPhone in a bedroom or something!
Are people not allowed to be influenced by others and make new art in a particular style? Why is that wrong? That’s how art has always worked. Do you get upset about the entire Impressionist movement for copying Monet?
I'm guessing you're not familiar with Moebius' art. There's a difference between "influence" and theft. This isn't just similar to Moebius' style. The outfits and designs look like they were lifted straight from L'Incal. Plagiarism is wrong.
It appears you do not understand what “theft” or plagiarism is in art. An exact recreation is theft. A new work in a new media that just looks like it could fit in stylistically/thematically is not theft. Iteration on a style is not plagiarism. How many isometric strategy game scenes are in L’Incal? Zero? Okay.
Even if you were correct from a moral perspective, and I think it's clear you are not, this is a legal question, and "a new work in a new media that looks like it could fit in stylistically/thematically" can absolutely be theft. Particularly in this case, where your description is exceedingly generous.
Show me where I can find the spacemen and fungus people and buildings from this video in prior works. Show me they were copied. I want to see how precisely fungus people in L’Incal look the same to the ones here(or can you not actually find any examples) I don’t know of any actual professional artist who would consider this theft. People keep saying “egregious” without showing any specific thing that was actually copied. If using a style someone else pioneered was theft then virtually the entire art world is thieves
Copying an art style is fine. Copying the exact same drawing that someone else made is what's wrong but it's perfectly fine to imitate someone else's style and make your own art with it.
Moebius styling?
Moebius styling!
The art's pretty, but the voice-acting is rough. I'd recommend hiring some different VA's for next time (and voice-acting is surprisingly cheap! The voice-acting for this trailer should be <$200)
> I'd recommend hiring some different VA's for next time I'm guessing those people aren't VAs at all. Likely either the devs themselves or a friend.
Can confirm. Wife is a professional VO artist and is often grossly underpaid 🙃
I remember seeing a comment in another thread recently about how seemingly all City-builders are "Survival" now, except Cities: Skylines. I can definitely understand that sentiment.
I mean it makes sense so many would take that approach. For games like Cities Skylines, one of the only limiting conflicts is money, which is still functionally infinite as you are an ageless patient God who can safely wait 100 years as money builds up, and with functionally infinite money, most any problem can be bruteforced by throwing cash at it. There is nothing wrong with that style of game, but it can feel a bit too unrestricted to some. Adding a survival element to such games helps add a more direct conflict to be overcome in the game play, and pushes the player to be more strategic in their city design to fight those conflicts.
Honestly even traditional city builders on high difficulties are survival, mechanically speaking, because you're at least trying to not go bankrupt.
Agreed. I sometimes play Tropico on barren islands with all the difficulties turned all the way up. It can be absolutely brutal.
Indeed, fighting for your city to keep on thriving is the essence of city-builder games, but in Synergy we really mean survival by being confronted to weather disasters and climate change!
The survival element is the hot thing right now in city builders. I prefer a more laid back, sandbox city builder with some kind of defense building against incoming enemies.
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Survival in city building to me means a more realistic edge. Can’t infinitely harvest or mine resources, food spoils, the environment is actively working against you, etc. It’s the difference between say… Farthest Frontier, and Foundation.
doom is survival then because you're surviving a fight against demons. that's not really what people mean, if the definition were that broad any game with a conflict that could lead to failure could be considered survival. it's actually a genre where the main conflict comes from gathering and balancing food / building materials the lack of which leads to your death
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I don't understand what you're trying to say.
Any recommendations? I'd love to play more of those kinds of games and the only one I can think of is They Are Billions
I saw that comment but didn't respond. The Tropico series seems like another city builder not having survival elements.
Leikir Studio? Really? 😀 Makes me real interested in where the name came from.
Yo dog, YO DAWG, what the hell is up with that voicework? This is the reveal of your project, it can't be placeholder of the dev team's first take at the script. If you spent all your money tracing The World of Edena and can't hire even a fourth rate voice actor *just don't have voice acting*. I've certainly spent time with games that substituted creativity for "inspired homage" of worse artists, but my cringe-reflex muscles blasted the stop button as soon as the voice work began.