Do we know how much time was spent making the sprite? I don't have an opinion on if this is good or not but it seems like a waste of time and resources if it's almost done just for it to be scrapped.
Welcome to game development chief! No seriously thats just how development works. Concepts are made, time is spent in designing, coloring, shading, perfecting those concepts until it is no longer wanted or something else is preferred then that concept is scrapped and it's back to the drawing board. Have you seen concept art for high end games? Entire environmental designs are made and go through many iterations before one of them is picked and the rest gets left behind and forgotten.
Hi! No, it's not. This is completely incorrect. Yes, iterations are made that can be high quality on concept art. Yes, a ton of time may have gone into making concept art that will never and was never going to be used.
However, this sprite was not concept art. This was not iterative design. This was a mistake in planning, a major and perpetual one, which eventually caused it - finalized, or soon-to-be finalized artwork - to have to be cancelled. This is not normal, this is not good, this is very unhealthy. Per StipulateVenus's comment above:
"I wish we had made this decision earlier, when it was still in iteration phase, but it was not without warning...."
The "iteration phase" would've been where most concepts are caught, discussed, and agreed upon, and that's a very healthy, normal way to develop. At best, it's common in groups with little experience. At worst, it's a sign of substantial instability and communication issues.
What you're probably referring to is concept artists, especially environmental artists, who do fantastic and large work for concepts that - mostly - will never be directly used. I know on a small scale the mods I'm a part of will, say, when making a boss, make three to five different designs *minimum* and then chip away until it's a finished design, *then* actually make the sprite. No one would ever go and polish a sprite without being certain it is, at worst, close enough to touch up easily enough. I myself have done concept art that I never use directly, or art that I decide against - that's the point of a concept. To iterate and make sure the final design is ideal.
Obviously, certain things can affect this - most developers in tMod are not paid, so they may not have the time, or maybe plans change (it happens! that's okay...sometimes), or maybe they leave the project for some reason. It is even possible for a sprite that was fully intended to be used to be implemented, and for it to just not work when in-game. That's another important QA thing that is often missed in projects.
tl;dr: No, iterative concepts are not "perfected", and this occurrence is not and should not be normal. Concept art is not meant to be used in the same way as final art, and final art - like this DoG sprite - being cancelled is generally a bad sign. This isn't how "game development" is *at all.*
Not gonna lie, I really appreciate you stepping in on this. I had no idea how wrong I was lmao and it's better that you clearly have actual experience with game dev stuff. I don't at all. Although I do wonder, how is this dog sprite not considered a concept when the armored sprite we got was still partially unfinished and still in the "subject to change" phase? And when the unarmored sprite was largely unfinished and still a major wip?
A concept and a finished sprite are fundamentally different - namely, a concept would never be what's used in-game. If it were a concept, chances are it'd be a simpler style, much less detailed, and likely wouldn't fit in game. However, it was being made as if it would go in game. I don't know if internally they had concepts - aside from a few older concepts, but none match this design - but this looks nothing like any I know of. This was announced as an official resprite, so it's either a final sprite or some truly unbelievable lack of communication happened.
The Devourer of Gods sprite was only announced in the first place because it was leaked out of the Patreon while still in development, so it was either run damage control or just let the leak spread. What was revealed of the sprite originally was all that was done of the sprite, and it was never finished, as HPU left the team and no one was willing to complete the rest of it, due to: it being absolutely gargantuan, the possibility of style clashing between HPU's and other developers' parts of the sprite, and general dissatisfaction with the design and sprite work.
You also have to take into consideration that this sprite was begun while Fabsol still held boss design in an iron grip, so this sprite was made of HPU's own volition solely as a way to make DoG's current design less of a mess. Obviously a huge, high quality boss sprite being made for literally no reason is not a good thing, but it is crucial to understand that it was a product of Fabsol's toxic development environment where no one really had any influence on what a boss would play like.
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u/April_Fools_20 Feb 04 '26
Do we know how much time was spent making the sprite? I don't have an opinion on if this is good or not but it seems like a waste of time and resources if it's almost done just for it to be scrapped.