Aesthetics
This page is dedicated to developing overall game aesthetics. The work I do on this page will be for the visual development of enter_universim specifically, but I hope to learn things that will better my skills in this context generally speaking.
I'm going to be referring to four pieces of media to help in this process:
Ally Overton - Critiquing Game Visuals: Common Problems and How to Solve Them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm24XyRPMwg
Plarium - Video Game Aesthetics Are Important, Period. But Why?
https://plarium.com/en/blog/video-game-aesthetic/
Chris Solarski - The Aesthetics of Game Art and Game Design
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/the-aesthetics-of-game-art-and-game-design
Simon Niedenthal - What We Talk About When We Talk About Game Aesthetics
http://www.digra.org/dl/db/09287.17350.pdf
What actually IS an aesthetic?
To me, an aesthetic is defined as an overall sensory experience that a consumer (reader, player, viewer etc) will have when interacting with a form of media. It's less about how something 'looks' or 'sounds' and is more about a generalised 'feeling' or 'experience'.
Simon Niedenthal proposes that 'game aesthetics' have three core meanings:
'Game aesthetics refers to those aspects of digital games that are shared with other art forms'
I am particularly fond of the way Niedenthal summarises game aesthetics as something to be experienced sensorily, because, as a designer, it gets you thinking about a lot more than just how a game looks. For me personally, making an entire game from scratch is a new problem to tackle, so I'm finding it quite easy to tunnel-vision into the aspects of game design that I am strongest at (2d illustrative work with a sprinkling of 3d). This idea of an aesthetic being a experience bound to 'sensory phenomena' is a good thing to keep in mind, as it will make me more considerate of how different game elements fit together on the whole, not just how visual elements fit in.
Aesthetics absolutely do not define the overall experience of a game, however, in my opinion, this argument has lead to aesthetics not being appreciated properly. I feel as though a strong aesthetic direction is incredibly important to an aspect of game design that can make or break a game for me: immersion. A good example of this is Gamefreak's Pokemon Legends: Arceus. PLA has some amazing aesthetic moments, but unfortunately falls way short of the mark due to inconsistencies within the overall aesthetic.
PLA's sky texture is a beautiful watercolour piece with a 'washed' look to it that is heavily inspired by ancient Japanese artwork, but clashes with the playdoughy, smooth character models, as well as the visuals for the level itself, which try to lean more into realism. There is also an unfortunate lack of atmospherics and texture quality within PLA, with the world looking generally flat because of it.
These elements can work just fine when and are far from objectively bad when they're fully realised within an overall aesthetic consistent with each respective element, but when they are put together, they clash too much to make an appealing aesthetic. Chris Solarski writes about contrasts within an article about aesthetics, and speaks about how 'it is only once we see characters in an environment that a narrative emerges'.
When we apply this concept to PLA, there is a sense of unintentionality behind the contrast between character and world, leading to a breakdown in consistency and thus immersion.
A game that I feel is a fantastic example of aesthetic consistency is that of Arkane's Dishonored. Every single minute detail of Dishonored is formulated around a strong set of rules and guidelines that keep its world incredibly consistent and deep. There is an astonishing level of depth to all of Dishonored's levels, which is made even more mind-blowing when we consider that not a single element of Dishonored's overall world feels out of place. Arkane developed a world that feels entirely believable, and fully immerses the player within the grim, dark and oppressive nature of Dishonored.
The world of Dishonored is a massive contributor to how the overall game feels as an experience thanks to how immersive it is. It's not entirely fair to compare two games with totally different directions, target audiences and studio culture, but it is a testament to how effective a strong, consistent aesthetic can be.
Example of Legends Arceus looking great.
Example of Legends Arceus looking poor.
Defining Goals/Creating Briefs
I know from experience that creating a brief is an absolute necessity to the design process in general. It is the first step in building up a foundation from which every single design decision stems - it keeps every person in the development cycle on the same page about the exact specifics they need to use, as well as the liberties they can take. enter_universim will be no different, and I want to carry out a few exercises to establish the baseline expectations I would want (visual) designers to meet if they were working on my game.
Ally Overton's GDC talk about game aesthetics also addresses this concept under the context of 'practical critique', in which she offers four main concepts that designers should aim to consider when setting out goals:
Information - Players need to be able to understand what information is important to them (depending on the game).
Focus - Designers should design in ways that place emphasis on things players should be looking at (e.g dialogue boxes).
Emotion - Players should be easily able to interpret the emotionality of any given scene within a game, whether it be through a character's expression or a general 'feel' of an environment.
Style - Designers need to be considerate of style, as it should be reflective of a variety of things, such as the target audience, the subject matter, or even emotionality of a game.
These concepts are ideally applied AFTER designing something, so these will appear moreso in my processes rather than initial development.
Inspirations - Moodboarding
To actually create briefs, I need to actually detail what I envision enter_universim to be. The initial abstract for the game is:
"enter_universim is a four player free-for-all card game. The ‘Universim’ is a simulated reality in which artificial consciousnesses are continually created and destroyed to test their survival mechanisms, problem solving, and creative thinking. Each player assumes the role of an individual consciousness, and must use their imagination to conjure dream-like entities and develop their abilities as the game progresses.
Players may deploy a variety of characters with a wide range of abilities from offensive to defensive. They may also utilise ‘upgrade’ cards that will give specific buffs to the player using them to bolster their play. Each consciousness has its own HP value that may be attacked directly once their line of defences has been breached, with depleted HP serving as the lose condition."
Using this abstract, I want to now create a variety of resources (mind maps, moodboards, colour palettes, sounds/music etc) that begin to put the generalised aesthetic for the game.
Maalavidaa's work is nebulous, whimiscal and colourful, which I strongly resonated with in terms of the more colourful aspects to the game I envision.
I personally love the combination of dark, inky blacks with pastel rainbows - it gives an air of corruption within the purity and happiness of the rainbow, that there is something somewhat uncanny about it. This ties perfectly into dreams, as they are often tied to imagery of paradise and perfection, when they can often be underpinned by some incredibly dark themes/experiences.
Metalheart is a sub-genre of the Y2K aesthetic that places a heavy emphasis on the combination of dark, dystopian technological elements with biomechanical, liquid shapes and geometry.
I love the overlay of sharp, hard fonts over the dynamic and confusing backgrounds. The use of UI elements really adds to the overall dystopian and technological feel to the aesthetic, and gives strong evocations of the unknown, the uncanny and things beyond ones understanding.
Abstract tech is an aesthetic with a strong focus on UI, technology and futuristic/sci-fi fonts and shapes.
It utilises a lot of blue and green shades that connote the future.
There is a lot of sharp and solid geometry with little texture (excluding the backgrounds, sometimes) which is synonymous with minimalist and 'perfect' futuristic designs.
'Ethereal' aesthetics are defined by dreamy, desaturated landscapes dominated by mystical and natural scenery.
Pictures are typically made to look slightly blurry and radiant; nearing on otherworldly. It connotes dreams and paradise.
I love the almost biblical feeling the aesthetic gives off, it almost feels as though there are powers above our understanding at work within these pieces - they are almost 'too' beautiful.
Pitch Canker makes incredibly stark and bold horror-inspired artwork that often only utilises three primary colours, with very few or even no intermediate shades.
I love how bold his artwork is, and how he makes use of suggestion through large blocks of colour - he does a great job at conveying things without doing a whole lot on a technical level.
I really like this sort of style and I feel as though it would work very well for character art, as it provides good contrast to what is shaping up to be a very dark and grotty aesthetic.
Tron fits right into the abstract-tech aesthetic, but is incredibly recognisable in its own right. It utilises a massive amount of murky dark blues that are contrasted by vivid and bright lights that do an incredible job at conveying a dystopian-futuristic world.
I love how Tron's selective use of colour breaks up the overwhelming darkness of the world, and how it places emphasis on things of importance. These large strips of colour are often used as a compositional element too, often defining points of focus and accentuating the form of objects.
I am really liking the idea of using this 'neon' lighting effect to accentuate my designs and break up the darkness a bit.
Micah Ulrich, just like Pitch Canker, makes exceptional use of very few colours. Ulrich heavily utilises hatching to create the illlusion of shading and to create texture and depth.
I love how Ulrich uses a singular colour to accentuate the points of focus and to really nail in the atmosphere of his pieces. He is particularly selective with his use of colour, and uses it sparingly.
There is something very vintage and occult about his use of thin lines, as they are reminiscent of artwork present within alchemical texts in particular.
My favourite type of occult-inspired art is where black is the canvas colour, and a very limited palette overlays it. Black and white is the ultimate pairing in terms of contrast, and I love how spooky and ominous pieces can be when black is the canvas colour instead.
I can't really explain why I think this sort of style is fitting for my game, but when I imagine the card art, this is the sort of direction I imagine fitting the best; somewhere lying in the middle of this and Pitch Canker's less textural approach.
Medical scans really reflect the occult artwork I looked into, they showcase a limited colour palette with a high level of abstraction over their subject matter.
I really like the glow effect that some of the x-rays in particular show, it elicits a sense of haunting and foreboding which I think ties into the games themes well.
The most fitting part here however is that the use of a limited palette and a glow effect will be a perfect callback to how the game ultimately revolves around the brain, imagination and dreams thematically.
Neurons/Neural Networks
Given the heavy emphasis on the brain and dreams, I felt it important to try and include some sort of imagery reminiscent of neurons within the game.
I'm not entirelly sure how I would go about it, but it's definitely important to consider. The best idea I have so far is in relation to the game's layout - perhaps it could revolve around placing cards in a neural network layout.
Circuitry
Looking at neurons and neural networks got me thinking about the digitised nature of the game, and the translation of biological information to digital information. The logical parallel is that of circuitry, because they too serve as a set of pathways in which eletrical signals are sent down to go about causing specific things to happen.
Circuitry also goes hand-in-hand with the abstract tech aesthetic, so I think this could be heavily influential over the way I go about designing card layouts/graphics specifically.
Circuit Diagrams
After looking at circuits, I thought about the translation of how they look into tangible information that can be read.
I like the rectangular appearance of circuit diagrams and how they're broken up by the iconography of each individual component.
I don't think this will determine anything significant, but I can absolutely envision visual elements of the card designs being formed after circuit diagrams to some extent.
Defining Aesthetic Goals
With a strong set of visual inspiration collected and considered, I'm going to write up how I want the game to look at this stage. One thing I began to think about while doing these moodboards was that I was developing inspiration for different aspects of the game, namely the card design, the character art, and the card layout. Because of this, I want to define rough goals for each aspect so that I don't overlap.
Card Design
Card Layout
Character Art
-
Card designs will combine elements of dark fantasy, ethereal, metalheart and abstract-tech aesthetics.
-
Card designs should feature a 'glitchy' effect to emphasise digitisation and corruption. Viewers should not be able to understand what's going on in the background of the card, it should be representative of the abstract nature of dreams.
-
Card designs should combine the bright colours of psychadelic/rainbow aesthetics with the dark attributes of the metalheart and abstract-tech aesthetics. It should be clear that the beauty of dreams is corrupted by the darkness of nightmares.
-
Card designs should be dense around the borders, as to allude to technology and UI, but should provide plenty of space for the character art to be the focal point.
-
Card layouts should take heavy inspiration from circuitry and the abstract-tech aesthetic.
-
Card layouts should provide a the bright side of the contrast with the overall card design, and should be reminiscent of the bright, neon lines of Tron, while conforming to the geometric and rigid nature of circuitry and the abstract-tech aesthetic.
-
Card layouts should always mirror the secondary colour of the character art, as to create harmony and avoid colour clashes.
-
Card layouts should always place emphasis on the necessary information, such as attack information, character names etc.
-
Card layouts should be representative of the sharp and rigid nature of technology, as well as the fluidity and whimsical nature of dreams. Edges shouldn't always be sharp, for example.
-
Character art should always contain black and white, with black being used for any darker shades, and white being used for lighter areas.
-
Character art should always feature one secondary colour, used to create emphasis and accentuate important elements of the design.
Texture should be used sparingly, only when it is necessary to convey a specific attribute of a character. -
Character art should not feature a large amount of detail within the focal points, as this will clash with the density of the card design and card layout. Large sections of black and white are preferred to smaller sections. Negative space contributes to said sections.
-
Character art serves as a visual representation of information within an individuals imagination, thus character art should have a very mystical and abstract feel to it, the viewers shouldn't be able to fully understand a character visually.
-
Character art should always have an overall feeling of foreboding, as though something is wrong, no matter how wholesome or positive the character itself is.