Art style and its influences.
How do indie games use art style?
This section is going to look the styles used in
indie games and find out the if art style is important for creating a
successful indie game. Firstly, the as previously stated, because of the
current rise in indie development the marketplace has become over-saturated.
This problem can cause games to be overlooked if they don’t stand out to
consumers. Arguably, this can make developers more creative because they need
to think outside the box of their chosen genre to stand out.
The major way indie games try to stand out from the
rest is to have an art style that look impressive or more importantly unique,
this makes them easily recognizable and eye catching. [ Thomas Hughes 2015] The reason I say that
being unique is more important is because of games like Binding of Isaac or Super
Meat Boy have quite basic flash based art (Which can subjectively less
impressive to look at) but it is created in way that makes it interesting
compared to other games using flash based artwork.
“Its art style is but a (very successful)
reflection of its shocking subject matter.” [Sarinananana 2015] This is in
reference to Binding of Isaac’s artwork.
In contrast to this, there are games which have
very high fidelity in their artwork, creating a very clean and polished look.
Because these games have such a high fidelity look to them they attract
attention because they don’t look indie and because they have a lot of eye
candy to draw consumers in. These games are generally created by developers
that have a lot of experience or larger indie studios who have a lot of talent
to create a wide range of assets. Ori
and the blind forest (Created by Moon Studios) is a perfect example of this. The
studio was founded by a former blizzard character artist in 2010. Their game’s
art is very colourful and polished, this helped it stand out during E3 2014
when it was revealed.
On a side note, this game was published by Microsoft
and was also first shown during their press conference at E3 2014 in a similar
way to no man’s sky. This game however did not suffer the problems, previously mentioned,
that no man’s sky did. Firstly, it had a small price tag and was not built on
false promises, but this could be because of its more established genre of
gameplay (Consumers had a rough idea of what to expect).
Finally, going retro (8,16,32 bit etc) is a very
common approach to art style in indie development. There are a number of successful
games that use this art style but also a large number that go unnoticed on
places like the steam store. I believe this art style is very common because of
two reasons. First it is an easy way to approach the creation of an art style
that stands out, for example a developer could choose between this or
attempting to create a new art style for their game which could be very time
consuming. Secondly, it can cause some nostalgic feelings in consumers who
played games when these art styles were the only way because of hardware limitations.
To stand out with a retro art style a developer has
to have a similar approach to Binding of Isacc’s method. Enter the gungeon is a
very successful game that uses 16-bit graphics but everything in the game
shares one thing in common. Everything is bullet based. All the enemies are
different types of bullets or guns and the bosses use an aspect of the theme as
part of their design (There is a giant snake boss called the Ammoconda and its
body, and arena, are made of up of gun turrets and bullet shells). This sort of
dedication to the theme gives the game a unique look that is immediately identifiable
by players.
The worst thing to do as an indie developer is to
have a non-existent art style. Your game will not stick out in the
oversaturated market and it will not be memorable to players, so why would they
play it? [Dusty 2013]
How did old games do art style effectively?
This section is going to look at how old games stood
out from the crowd and how their influences effect today’s games. Metal Slug is
a game that a lot of people remember because of its art (and also its
difficulty). Back in 1996 when a lot of games developers were moving into using
3D in their games, crash bandicoot for example, the studio behind Metal Slug
(SNK) decided to release a new game that used high fidelity 2D art. I believe
this is one of the reasons it’s one of the games everyone is aware of, the
other being its immense difficulty.
“Filled with outlandish humour and boasting
brilliantly animated graphics” [Retro Gamer Team 2015]
Metal slug was a prime example of what was possible
with 2D graphics and the game is still aesthetically pleasing today. So, Metal
Slugs art had 2 major things going for its art style at the time of its
release, the sheer amount of detail and work that went into creating and
animating the world and the fact it was released at a time where 2D games were
becoming less common compared to the new 3D games. These features helped the
game stand out from the crowd and become the memorable game it is today. [Retro
Gamer Team 2015] [Neo Rasa 2007] [Kurt Kalata 2007]
The use of 2D as a way of standing out in a mostly 3D
market place is still used today. Almost all the triple A titles released in the
last few years have been 3D, so using 2D artwork can help show a title’s indie
creation. This can lead to developers choosing the 2D in their art style or
more commonly retro 2D, because that contrasts the high-fidelity 3D triple A games
to an even greater degree.
Conclusion
There are a few key points to take away from this
research. The main one, in my opinion, is making sure the chosen art style for your
game is unique or interesting in a way that pulls it out of the crowd of indie
games with generic looking art. Secondly, if you decide to stick with an
overall theme then you have to be dedicated to that look. This pulls from the
Enter the gungeon example, that games art works really well because everything
uses the bullet theme. Finally, I think that retro graphics should be avoided
unless you are either creating a solid theme inside that style or want your
game to have a nostalgic look to its assets. The main reason I think that is
because of how common that style has become in the indie market, it would be
hard to get noticed unless you do something new with it.
References
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"Getting To
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2016.
Hughes, Thomas.
"The Importance Of A Unique Art Style". ThomasWrites.
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"Indie Game
Development: An Art Of Its Own | The Artifice". The-artifice.com.
N.p., 2016. Web. 12 Nov. 2016.
IV, Jack.
"This Is The Golden Age Of Indie Game Art". Observer.
N.p., 2016. Web. 12 Nov. 2016.
Navarria,
Giuseppe. "The Importance Of An Art-Style". Gamasutra.com.
N.p., 2016. Web. 12 Nov. 2016.
"Ori And The
Blind Forest". Oriblindforest.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 12 Nov.
2016.
sarinananana,.
"10 Indie Games With Distinctive Art Styles | Gamersdecide.Com". GamersDecide.com.
N.p., 2016. Web. 12 Nov. 2016.
Silverman, David.
"9 Tips For Indie Game Developers I Learned At GDC 2013". Game
Development Envato Tuts+. N.p., 2016. Web. 12 Nov. 2016.
Rasa, Neo and
Kurt Kalata. "Hardcore Gaming 101: Metal Slug". Hardcoregaming101.net.
N.p., 2016. Web. 12 Nov. 2016.
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