How strongly do people feel about the quality of graphics in a game? Would people happily play an RPG if the characters where represented as coloured blocks? Does an ugly game put you off playing it?

Just interested because I am never satisfied with my graphics! I'm constantly re-doing them and saying "yeah, thats it" then ten minutes later it looks ugly so I start again.

I'm just interested in hearing other peoples opinions on the subject, as I'm sure it will be all of you that will be the first to play my game!

I agree with X-G to a point. Think about it; consider you have two copies of the same game--gameplay wise. There is nothing different about them except for the quality of the graphics. Wouldn't you choose the one that looks better over the one that looks worse, considering everything else but the graphics are exactly the same? I would.

That said, if the game sucked in general I wouldn't play either version. Moreso, I still think I might play a game with crappy graphics if it's generally fun. Would I pay money for game like that? Probably not. If it was free I wouldn't mind giving it a shot, though.

Yes. There was a very simplistic game like this for the Atari where you were a yellow (or green?) block and walked around this blocky map, collected keys, etc. I had a fun time with it. If it were a "modern" style console RPG, I don't think that would really work out. I guess it depends though. I'd have to see a game like that to really give you my honest opinion (after trying it out).

I have to say I completely agree, hence my constant re-doing of graphics. I wouldn't play an ugly looking game, and wouldn't want people o play mine and say "yeah, good game but shame about the graphics".

One thing that often bothers me in amateur games is that parts of the graphics don't "fit together" with eachother

A thing I've seen far too many times is realistic looking element (ripped/ taken from photo) used together with real clumsy ones

I can appreciate Minimalism in games, when it's appropriate..

The really bad things happen when people don't "fit their tummy according to their knapsack" (try for styles they really aren't good enough for)

Currently I am maniacally trying to marshall my limited gfx skills into a tasteful final graphic design for my upcoming game - It feels like the biggest part of the work, and I'm not even doing very detailed stuff; just layout and presentation!

Yeah, matching graphics is a big issue for me too. I was originally using pre-rendered backgrounds (with an isometric view) and hand drawn characters, but it just looked...odd! So now I am painstakingly trying to hand draw loads of backgrounds which could be done in seconds with my 3d scenes.

That's a damn fine point to make Jorram.

I think, getting the gameplay right is the most important thing to start with. When I don't feel like doing gameplay things, I sometimes feel like doing graphics and spend an evening tweaking some sprites. Ok, so they still don't look like much, you get the idea It's easier to tweak graphics after a while than to change the gameplay.
And yes, you can get (offers for) improved graphics. A few weeks ago, I got an email from someone about my Carcassonne game. After emailing back and forth for a bit, he send me some improved tile graphics. Which rminds me, I wanted to polish it up for a new release... sigh so much to do in so little time.

I choose to interpret it as: Low-res graphics are sexy. And in the case of the listed games, that holds true.

From your avatar, I never would've guessed that

As for the original question - it depends on gameplay, if there's bad gfx and good gameplay (this means I get sucked to the game) I would play it (Chaos Funk - maybe bad example because it's remake).

They may be low-res, but they have great graphics. Also low-res is probably caused by Allegro limitations or kind of people using this library (the ones that prefer low-res to hi-res). Look at top 5 on any Direct3D/OpenGL-oriented project depot and you'll find much different results.

Low-res just looks sharper. That's it.

Three words: Spiderweb Software Games
The exile series has some of the ugliest gfx on earth, something like 20 sounds (and music, what is music?) but i find it to be one of the best rpg i've every played...