When I started working on this game, I wasn't sure how to even create or acquire any of the visual assets I would need to bring the game to life. I figured I would simply start with placeholders and work out the details later. After a while I started adding prettier assets bit by bit, either by buying asset packs from dedicated stores or by commissioning artists.
At first I wanted pixel art. I hoped I would be able to learn how to make acceptable pixel art myself. But after some time I realized that I just didn't have it in me and commissioning good pixel art was expensive. I also couldn't find the kind of assets I would need in asset packs. I love pixel art, but sadly I just didn't have the budget for it.
I eventually found an artist to create illustrations of enemies in my game that I really liked. It didn't really work with the rest of the imagery I cobbled together, but I enjoyed the illustrations and was able to create decent animations for them after taking the time to learn my way around a skeletal animation software. Still, the creatures looked horrifying (in a good way), but the rest of my visuals were leaning more in a direction of sciency/friendly. I took a look at the texts I was writing for the in-game events. They were rather dark - screwing over party members, maybe even sacrificing one of them, using the enemy's tainted power for yourself... maybe it was time to go a little darker in visual style as well. The biggest issue was the UI. It was flat and unobtrusive, but also cheap-looking (I made most of it myself), boring and didn't work with the rest of the game. So I found a UI set online that I could adapt for my game together with a fitting battle background, made some tests with it and... I like it a lot better.
(still a work in progress though - I know the icons on the dice look too cute)
And now I find myself completely re-working the entire UI for what feels like the 100th time.
Anyway, that's what I'm working on for probably the rest of April. It kinda starts to feel like I could release a Steam demo at the end of the year.