IMO Indie devs should spend their time on the gameplay and immediacy of playability - not worry about the graphics so much, as you can never really compete on that. And if you do then you clearly spent too long on the graphics
As has been mentioned on other threads, its quite limiting that DBPro requires the latest and greatest DX version/Graphics cards by users where the "natural audience" for Indie developed games would be the more casual gamer, perhaps wasting an hour at lunch time on their low specced office PC.
It doesn't really matter what Outrun 2006 looks like (to a point) as its got the gameplay...so very few racers these days allow you to race from Point A to Point B, not endless "Laps" around the same old courses. Who cares if they don't render every blade of grass - at the speed you're going, you're not gonna notice it anyway.
Personally, I have this game on PSP and the framerate is quite shockingly bad (when other cars are on screen), but I still really like it because the arcade gameplay is still very much intact.
Or maybe its just me, I wonder who else here preferred the original Daytona on Saturn with its terribly blocky & jerky graphics but with the original arcade handling pretty much intact to the more "visually pleasing" CCE version with its higher res, "smooth" 30 FPS but the cars all handled like boats. No contest.
And someone mentioned that this could be done in DBPro? Or rather
Quote: "the Outrun picture looked like it could easily (comparitively speaking) be done by anyone here"
And that is perhaps true - as a static picture...put car here, pop on some reflection shader, some grass, a bit of water....but to actually code a game as mighty as this....it would take years & years of dedication I reckon, not to mention talent.
Although it looks pretty poopy now, Victory Road took me 18 months (of "spare time") to create in DB classic, and it didn't even have hills!
