I think your going to get a lot of arguement whatever you do. Usually its all about compromise. I generally let Jeremy take first shot at his game designs, as so far they have all been games that he came up with before. And to some degree I have no choice as he essentially has to build the engine and control side of the game.
Whereas I have control of the visuals most of the time. So like everything theres going to be compromise. It's alot worse for an artist when they don't have control of the visuals, one thing nice about the pipeline extensions is that they give the artist a lot of control of the visual side of blitz basic coding. That helps imansely and takes some of the weight off of the Coder, and the nice part of that, is that its often some of the more mundane stuff that gets taken away.
Usually what happens in Leadfoot, is that we discuss Jeremy's ideas, and then find a middle ground, which can be pretty hard, as we both have almost opposite backgrounds in gaming. When we diagree we are very vocal about it. This was very apparent in Market Value, where a good 2/3 of development time was not really spent developing. But the game would probably not have been completed otherwise so it worked out in the end, and we both got what we wanted to some degree. I actualy think the game came out better for it, as it targets a broader market whislt being different enough that people that play these kinds of games will find it interesting.
I think experience is whats most important. A coder or artist with none is most likely to kill a project. there's a difference between an experienced artist that has some enderstanding of engines pushing a coder to improving themselves and getting better art in the process. And the artist that makes impossible demands and ends up creating useless assets. It all comes down to experience in the end.
Most game artists with experience, usually have done a lot more than just created art assets. In 2 smaller commercial dev teams I have worked with, Artists were responsible for scrpting, level design, some art direction, setting up AI and ended up with a pretty broad range of skills.
Coders that can also do art, usually end up being the best game designers, as they understand both ends of the stick, and often end up developing the path that enables both sides to work towards the same goals, with a flexible and easy to use art path that takes the weight off of the engine coders and artists.
In a larg team, you need leaders, in a small one, you need experience and compromise.
Whereas I have control of the visuals most of the time. So like everything theres going to be compromise. It's alot worse for an artist when they don't have control of the visuals, one thing nice about the pipeline extensions is that they give the artist a lot of control of the visual side of blitz basic coding. That helps imansely and takes some of the weight off of the Coder, and the nice part of that, is that its often some of the more mundane stuff that gets taken away.
Usually what happens in Leadfoot, is that we discuss Jeremy's ideas, and then find a middle ground, which can be pretty hard, as we both have almost opposite backgrounds in gaming. When we diagree we are very vocal about it. This was very apparent in Market Value, where a good 2/3 of development time was not really spent developing. But the game would probably not have been completed otherwise so it worked out in the end, and we both got what we wanted to some degree. I actualy think the game came out better for it, as it targets a broader market whislt being different enough that people that play these kinds of games will find it interesting.
I think experience is whats most important. A coder or artist with none is most likely to kill a project. there's a difference between an experienced artist that has some enderstanding of engines pushing a coder to improving themselves and getting better art in the process. And the artist that makes impossible demands and ends up creating useless assets. It all comes down to experience in the end.
Most game artists with experience, usually have done a lot more than just created art assets. In 2 smaller commercial dev teams I have worked with, Artists were responsible for scrpting, level design, some art direction, setting up AI and ended up with a pretty broad range of skills.
Coders that can also do art, usually end up being the best game designers, as they understand both ends of the stick, and often end up developing the path that enables both sides to work towards the same goals, with a flexible and easy to use art path that takes the weight off of the engine coders and artists.
In a larg team, you need leaders, in a small one, you need experience and compromise.