Developing a visual style for the game
In 2020, realistic graphics are no surprise to anyone. Screenshots from Red Dead Redemption 2, The Last of Us 2 and Star Wars Battlefront can be confused with real photos. But despite the similar visuals, these games can be distinguished from screenshots due to their unique visual style.
We will talk about visual style development: how visual style development goes, what rules it obeys and how visual style affects the profit from the game.
Visual style is the most important part of the game
The visual style integrates everything the player sees: characters, game world, animations, interface elements and menus. All elements should be related to each other so that the player can recognize the game from a piece of the interface or branded fonts.
The visual style complements the story and sets the atmosphere of the game. It helps the player get oriented, gives them hints regarding gameplay and encourages exploration of the game world. The better the visuals – the better the players will experience the game.
Major studios spend many times more resources on visuals than on other elements of the game. For example, 128 graphics specialists and only 32 programmers worked on the latest installment of God of War. It’s a similar situation in other AAA games: the art department is always bigger than any other department.
Working out the visual style starts with the concept of the game
The concept describes gameplay mechanics and setting. The development of the visual is based on the concept, not the other way around. The concept artist’s job is to capture the mood of the game world and display it on the screen.
Usually concept artists work in one of the visual style categories:
- abstraction – there are no objects in the game that resemble anything from the real world. For example, moving patches of color or squares from the game 2048;
- stylization – objects remotely resemble the real world and differ from their prototypes in shape or style. Examples are Crossy Road and Little Big Planet;
- stylized realism – objects are very similar to what is in the real world, but stand out in color and proportions. Examples: Fortnite, Cuphead, Team Fortress 2;
- realism – objects look like in real life, except for any purely game elements. Examples are Resident Evil, Call of Duty.
At the concept stage, artists have complete freedom of action. They generate ideas: they draw sketches of locations, characters, highlights from the script. The most successful ideas become the basis of the visuals within the chosen style.
Examples:
- Blasphemous – The developers have come up with a souls-like game concept with hints of medieval religiosity. The artists traveled to Spain, collected references from local church paintings and combined them with pixel art;
- Portal – one of the developers implemented portals on the Source engine. Concept artists relied on the idea of portals even when designing the protagonist: special devices were attached to her legs that helped her jump and fall without taking damage;
- Super Toss The Turtle – The development studio tried to make an analog of Angry Birds and came up with the “launch an object as far as possible” mechanic. They turned to a well-known animator who loves to draw cartoon stiffness. He came up with the main character and drew the rest of the artwork;
- Flappy Bird – The developer made a simple mechanics: after each tap, the bird flies up a little bit. He then asked the artist to draw “the stupidest and simplest bird in the world that can barely fly.”
Sometimes game development starts with interesting concept art. So the artist at Rovio Studios drew the red bird, and then the game designers came up with a story about thieving pigs and bird-tossing mechanics.
Another example is Devil May Cry. The concept artist was trying to come up with something new for the Resident Evil series and sketched a hero in a red cape with a huge sword. The head designer rejected the concept, but allowed it to be used to develop another product, Devil May Cry.
The best artwork forms the basis of the style
From one successful concept, you can take a drawing style, character proportions, color palette, or general design features. When a full-fledged style can be discerned from the concepts, the artists will be able to transfer it to the rest of the game.
The aesthetic part of the style of play
A unified visual style is needed to make the game feel like a cohesive product. Gamers won’t understand if one of the regular opponents in a black and white game is fully colored. Or if 3D objects will be encountered in a 2D game with pixel graphics. Developers don’t make such gross mistakes, but they can break their style slightly and ruin the experience of the game.
Example: when designing the visual style of Angry Birds, Rovio used simple shapes: circles, triangles and squares. This makes it easier for players to memorize what each bird can do. But in Angry Birds Rio the developers departed from their canons and drew more realistic birds. In the end, Rio wasn’t as successful as Angry Birds 2 or Angry Birds Stella because it broke from the usual Angry Birds style.
Another example: the developers of Devil May Cry 5 put a lot of thought into the design of the first levels. It’s not about levelling design, it’s specifically about the quality of the environment. In the second half of the game, beautiful views of the ruined city are replaced by boring corridors and “meaty” walls. Players didn’t appreciate this move: the last “beautiful” mission was completed by 80% of players, but the next “ugly” mission was completed by 69%. Only 49% of players have fully completed the game, and they criticized the deterioration of the location design. Many single-player games had a similar problem, sagging in visuals by the middle.
Functional part of the style
The design of characters, enemies, items, and locations should speak for themselves. In a game with good visuals, the player will understand without explanation where he needs to go, what can be touched and which of the enemies to be wary of.
Artists have long ago developed simple templates for the functional part of the visual: red vial restores health, blue vial restores mana, green vial restores poison. The big enemy moves slowly and hurts, the small enemy runs fast and shoots. And red objects tend to explode. Similar templates should be used when working out the visuals: this will make it easier for the player to get used to the new game.
The functional part of the style also works for the atmosphere of the game. For example, a villain should look evil and a dangerous path should look dangerous. Characters should stand out from their surroundings, and in-game items should resemble items from the real world. When working out something lopsided, you can even hypertrophy its features to tell the player a story with one appearance.
To endow the style with functionality, artists use such techniques:
- all objects that can be interacted with should be bright and clearly stand out from the background;
- The visual should display the properties and mood of the object;
- high detail is needed only for objects that the player will see up close;
- objects should always be stylized and reduced to a single design;
The functionality of the design can be easily tested with the following test: turn the image of one or more characters into monochromatic silhouettes. If you can recognize them – the design is fine. If the silhouette looks too conventional, however, the design is not functional enough.
How graphics affect a game’s popularity and profits
In 2017, KEO conducted a study and concluded that game sales are most influenced by graphics. Gamers are primarily interested in games with interesting or simply beautiful design, whether it’s a major AAA project or a hyper casual game for phones.
When developing a game in a highly competitive niche, it is imperative to emphasize graphics. This way the developer will attract players who like the mechanics of existing games but don’t like their visual style.
Modern gamers learn about new games through Youtube, Twitch, and similar services. They won’t get a feel for the game mechanics and controls, but they will be able to look at the graphics. If the graphics hook them, they’ll buy or download the game.
Examples of indie games with good visuals:
Darkest Dungeon is a challenging game about managing a team of evil hunters. Based on polls, a third of players bought it just for the cartoonishly dark visual style.
Ori and the Blind Forest is a platformer with very contrasting graphics. The picture is well memorized, the game has been selling steadily for 6 years.
Don’t Starve is a game about survival in the woods. Don’t Starve has a distinctive “paper” style that is reminiscent of Tim Burton’s movies.
Order the development of the visual style of the game in Kreonit studio
Graphics is not just about polygons and shaders, but also character and environment design. It’s much easier to find an audience with good graphics and style than without.
It always takes a lot of people to create graphics for a game. Indie developers hire third-party studios to do this or start their own art department. For example, we have concept artists, character and environment designers, 3D modelers, animators and special effects specialists. Because of this, we do turnkey graphics from concepts to skins for the store.
