Behind the scenes: The "right" art-style (Patreon)

I thought a lot about the various games performances and the reasons, and I think one of the main reasons is the art style. Of course both story and gameplay overall matters, but let's be honest, art is what catches the eye and also what people see when others share screenshots, etc. So I think without doubts it's the most important thing in a visual novel.

Another issue, is to find out the art style that MOST people prefer. Because while tastes are tastes, we (creators) need to identify which is the style that the majority of people prefer. Of course, sometimes we can just want to try something different (like I did with Vera Blanc or PSCD) but since we indie devs sell games to live, we need to treat games as business!

I thought a lot and compared the various art styles of my past games. I think of course Loren's style was great. 

And a style like the one above (the same that will be used in the Nomads game)? Sure,  thumbs up :)

(I mean beside the obviously hot Leena, this kind of art style is liked by most people).

Instead I have to reconsider PS2 style. I mean, personally I like it, but I think it's not so popular, despite nice CGs like these:

So the hard part is also to understand whenever someone posts "wow great art" etc, if is the vocal minority or not. I'm obviously not accusing anyone, I know that maybe sometimes fans just want to post something enthusiastic, it's normal. Or, as I said, it's about tastes. But if a game sells much more than another (like Cursed Lands vs Planet Stronghold 2) the art surely plays a role in it (and even more in visual novels when there isn't really any gameplay).

I think after all those years I've become better at identifying which kind of art styles are preferred by most people, and while I could do some experiments in future (see the painted style post of a few months ago) in general I'm going to stick to what I think works better!

For example, I got mostly positive comments about Hazel art, but what matters more (beside the feedback) is that the Kickstarter was successful, etc. I need to follow less my gut feeling and analyze more the cold numbers, which usually never lie :)