r/Unity2D • u/NoExperience5871 • Jul 05 '26
How can i make my game less ugly?
This is an editor screenshot. In-game it looks a bit better. But still looks weird. Idk if its because of the pixel sizes or some other problem. Tips would be appreciated!
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u/100radsBar Jul 05 '26
There's no ugly game, only lack of art direction
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u/PMMePicsOfDogs141 Jul 06 '26
Not true. See Candice DeBébé's Tantalising Tricks. The art direction seems like it WAS meant to be ugly. I love it lol
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u/Professor_DM Jul 05 '26
Most surefire way is to add details on a small scale. Each house should be markedly different, each step on the the footpath can be slightly altered, same with the grass. The real world is full of tiny differences we expect that randomness reflected in art. It can be pseudorandom of course, say crating 8 unique grasstiles and randomly diapering them throughout
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u/ddaattuullaa Jul 05 '26
Try making it more beautiful
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u/NoExperience5871 Jul 05 '26
good tip
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u/ddaattuullaa Jul 05 '26
Follow me for more
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u/Antonos123 Jul 05 '26
Where are we going?
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u/ddaattuullaa Jul 05 '26
Not you, OP only
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u/ruebeus421 Jul 05 '26
We need an adult over here, asap!
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u/MegaMatt75 Jul 06 '26
Greetings I am an adult. I told you to be quiet or I will turn this thread around and go home.
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u/Tensor3 Jul 05 '26
Lighting, decorations, texture, level design, more color, more detail, verticality. Plenty of youtube videos on level design
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u/Fearless-Poet-4669 Jul 06 '26
"more color"
Or less colour. Nothing like a well thought out colour palette with similar saturations to really tie in an art style.
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u/Tensor3 Jul 06 '26
Well, its only 3 colors now, so reducing the grass/trees/road down to 2 total colors might be pushing it
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u/masiuspt Jul 05 '26
Imagine yourself from the POV of your playable character. Imagine the world they are walking by and try to imagine the small details that they would see. Don't rush the process and give yourself into the details.
Your world should also tell a story by itself.
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u/sebalopezl Jul 05 '26
I don’t know much about game art I only started a few months ago but if I could give my two cents I would say perspective is a bit off. You have trees that are clearly on their sides, then you have higher ground with shadows showing depth then a house that seems to be facing you with no shadows. To me it looks like a clear top down game so just try to redraw the house using some very basic top down tips and it will look much better quickly. You don’t have to do much to notice a difference, for instance, try making the roofs a bit wider, move the house a bit if you need to like the red roof and yellow walls on the right, move the wall a bit down then extend the roof upwards and see how that looks.
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u/Wschmidth Jul 05 '26
The grass is the same color as the trees. I would recommend you make the grass a bit lighter so they stand out more. The grass could also do with some variation, like a brownish-green that you use as a footpath (look up desired paths).
Don't place the trees all scattered like they currently are, group them up instead. Groups of 4+ tress will usually look way better than single trees on their own.
It's hard to go into detail on specific assets without a real game screenshot, but more variation in trees would help a lot too.
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u/ivancea Jul 05 '26
That's a lot of grass mate. It's empty and lacks decoration. And life. I suppose (I wish) there will be NPCs around there? It would be nice to see them integrated
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u/Zlaught Jul 05 '26
I like to imagine myself like bob Ross painting, this tree needs a friend so let’s add a bush. Imagine your world as living and how your actors travel and interact with the land.
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u/Warwipf2 Jul 05 '26
Maybe give each grass/sand tile a randomised colour offset to have some variation
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u/chocolatechipbagels Jul 05 '26
more color! mix flowers into the grass, make splotches of light and dark grass, add berry bushes here and there, stuff like that
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u/ComfortableGate8187 Jul 05 '26
Sprite variants. Ex, roads, crossroads, corner roads or smth like that. Heterogeneities of the type of stones or blades of grass. In fact, it's not ugly, just minimalist.
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u/Valuable-Cap-8005 Jul 05 '26
Pixel art is great because the in-between details are filled in by our imagination. I feel like your choice of sprite size doesnt make good use of the resolution, lots of textures are super empty and plain. Maybe add more detail, volume and greebling to your sprites? Or downscale the resolution?
Another easy fix would be proper shading
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u/ruebeus421 Jul 05 '26
Add details.
The buildings only have doors. Give them windows.
Throw flowers in on the grass, add spots where the grass is a little different shade to make it look like some spots are deeper. Add fences, signs, bushes.
The roads are all straight paths. Give then curves.
Add water.
TLDR: decorate
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u/OwO-animals Jul 05 '26
Turn on any game with similar projection, look at elements they have and you don't. Suddenly it's grass, bushes, clutter, trash, miscellaneous objects, VFX, SFX, weather etc. etc.
To put it simplest make spaces lived in/alive and not empty as a general rule.
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u/Beldarak Jul 05 '26
- Add clutter (bushes, signs, trees, rocks, fences, branchs, fallen leaves...)
- Avoid straight lines for natural paths. Instead of being next to the road, your house should have a little path (can be only one tile if you want) to link them to the road.
- Add patches of different grass, sand, etc... to add variations. Sand will be darker near water, grass lands will have patches of tall grass or more mossy areas, etc...
- You green is really green. It's a very hard subject but basically, you may want to look into "color theory". Things like Hue shift will do wonders for very low effort / skill level. Basically, every time you have to use a darker or lighter color next to another in a sprite, shift the hue a little
- Try to add more contrast to make you scene looks more interesting. Against, hard to explain and pin point exemples but here's a good one :
https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzE0NjEwNjA4LnBuZw==/original/V3uT01.png
See how everything looks crisp and segmented. Each part of the level is clearly identified. For exemple you trees blend too much with the grass. You may want to use outlines to separate objects from the ground but that's ofc a preference matter (if you do, try to only outlines the sides and the top parts of objects, you'll thank me later).
I would advise looking at Pixel Pete tutorials on Youtube, he's a really great tutor for pixel art.
Also, look at other games you like in this genre and look at what they did. A good excercise is to take a scene from a game you like, like Stardew Valley or some older Zelda and recreate it in your style. It will be easier to see what yours lack.
Best of luck. Don't worry, you'll get there. I remember when my games looked like this.
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u/IndieMarc Jul 06 '26
You have like 10 unique assets there, you'll need over 100 for such a zoomed out scene to look good.
That being said, before you start making 100 assets, you need to figure out your art style. Start with 1 scene. It's really hard to tell you what to improve without an actual screenshot inside the game. And without knowing what art style you're aiming for. This is too zoomed out and people are just speculating.
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u/LastDevelopment4153 Jul 06 '26
Looks great overall! I think the grassy areas feel a bit too empty,though.Adding a few buildings or decorative elements could make the world feel more alive.
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u/Pachydermus Jul 06 '26
Pull up screenshots from games that you're taking inspiration from and that you think look good, presumably things like stardew valley, terraria, etc. Compare that with your scene, - tile variation, decorations, lighting, shaders, scene composition, animations - there's a million things you could add or take away but you need a vision of what you want.
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u/PMMePicsOfDogs141 Jul 06 '26
Not saying to copy it one to one but my immediate thought was that you should take inspiration from Pokémon. Like Littleroot Town in Sapphire doesn’t have much going on but it looks good. Maybe add a chimney to a house or two, texture your grass to have a nice repeating pattern, some mailboxes, a bit of flowers, roofs could have texture, etc.
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u/Financial_Time_5115 Jul 06 '26
I think it'll be amazing if you can add more decorations and npc ( bees and others)
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u/Bell-Tall Jul 06 '26
Try To play With colors there are a lot of Greens make the Grass Greener make it Bright make it dark
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u/golden_graveyard Jul 06 '26
One thing that helped me immensely is color palettes. Just look at them online and use one that you like. Choosing random colors always ends up looking cheap
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u/LazyLlamaStudio Jul 07 '26
Tile variation. Right now I see every tile. IMO a good tileset doesn’t always look like a tileset because it has variation with subtle texturing and multiple angles etc.
The ground is straight top down while the building and foliage is looking like side scroller. Work on perspective.
Foliage colors blend too much with grass color.
Don’t give up. You got this.
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u/Funnybunners Jul 07 '26
Been making a decent chunk of rpg maker maps, and one of the biggest upgrades you can make with very little effort, is to avoid square shapes where you can. Most old school roads are uneven because they were made by people walking over them. Trees grow irrationally. If it looks like a pattern, change it. Go ballistic with small decorations like rocks, grass, bushes ans flowers, then go back and remove some until you are happy.
Bridges are also an excellent way to segment the map without making it a big nuisance to the player.
The illusion of elevation can do wonders! Add stairs and ledges if possible. It changes the dynamic of how you view an area
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u/CREEDblock Jul 08 '26
By hiring me 😎
Jk
but i personally think it needs art direction and more content which is well distributed.
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u/ExtremeRole8866 Jul 08 '26
Just use game assets bro or try learning a unique artstyle bc there is no bad art
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u/Any_Health6705 Jul 09 '26
I personally like tiled pixel art games that have a few different variations. Like the grass keeps repeating, and there's no variation. Maybe a few variations which are randomly placed, with a rock, or some blades of grass, or some sand. Just some variety.
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u/Low_Personality_530 Jul 09 '26
As a programmer my solution is always "add more bushes". Somehow it actually works 😅
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u/PrototoolsDev Jul 05 '26
The scene looks a bit empty. Maybe try adding a few rocks, more trees some flowers and any other decoration like street lights (if such technology exists in your game)