What Art Says About A Game
A picture is worth a thousand words. Aside from lame cliches to open an article, a game’s artistic style can speak volumes about what a game is like and how the player is meant to experience it. Well built games can imply more in a single cutscene or character design than entire box blurbs, and better yet, you don’t always notice them.
I’ve picked a few games that are generally opposite each other artistically, and see how much we can infer from the game just from visuals alone. Obviously you’ll have played these games so you know what they are like, but it’s still a fun exercise.
Team Fortress 2 is instantly recognizable among the online shooter community. The game has a very cartoony, over the top feel. Guns are everywhere, in every screenshot and every trailer and video is emphasizing over-the-top violence. Each class in Team Fortress has its own unique look and silhouette. Line up each character by their outline and you can easily name each one. This is the pinnacle of character design, an instantly recognizable character with the least amount of detail.
Team Fortress 2 isn’t very realistic, and it’s shown in the art. Cartoon graphics lead to cartoon physics and ridiculous settings. The premise itself: two teams of builders (RED and BLU) battle in arenas, is off the wall but the game never bothers itself with that and doesn’t mind if you consider it unrealistic. The iconic picture of TF2 is all of the classes lined up brandishing their signature weapons. All of them are on an even plane, indicating the class balancing found when playing. No one class stands out.
Everything comes together to subconsciously tell your brain: this game is wacky fun. Over the top characters, crazy physics and violence, people like that and the game.
From Team Fortress we move onto Bioware’s space opera RPG Mass Effect, where you play the ideallic Commander Shepard out to save the universe. Mass Effect has a pretty traditional story arc: The hero needs to stop the villain. You have supporting characters, other villains, and a realistic world to bind them together.
This is shown right at the start with the box art. We have the villain, Saren, overlooking our main hero, Shepard, and his (or her) companions. This is a look we are used to for the kind of story Mass Effect tells: one of epic adventure spanning the galaxy to save humanity. We see a similar set up among almost all ‘traditional’ stories with heroes and villains.
Mass Effect has an idealized realism feel to it. While there are unpleasant places to visit, the majority of the game has a ‘perfect’ feel to it. The Normandy is spotless, along with the majority of the Citadel and other mission hubs. Characters and companions are visually perfect, with few flaws among them. And while it isn’t a very soft science fiction setting, it’s not the gritty reality we will most likely experience in a few hundred years.
This makes any decrepit people or places stand out from the rest of the world, which isn’t a bad thing. Bioware invested a lot into making the world realistic, but not always at the expense of the story.
My final exhibit is Professor Layton, seeing as how I don’t know a lot about this game I will take a shot at examining it and see what I can come up with. Michael has also kindly added his assessment of Layton, since he has played the game.
The first thing that immediately strikes me about pictures and screens of Layton is the sepia tone to it. The warm colors are calm and give me a sense that the game is slower paced and more controlled. I took a stab at guessing it was a puzzle/novel type game, and Michael kindly confirmed this for me.
Taking a look at the box art (for The Curious Village), the prominence of Luke and Professor Layton easily indicate they are the most important characters in this game. I can see some of the supporting cast in the background, and each one gives the feeling of a unique character to meet in game. Finally, overshadowing all the characters is what appears to be the town itself. If the title didn’t already give it away, its clear everything takes place in the village.
While most of the other characters have a warm or neutral tone to them, Luke is dressed in a vibrant blue. Perhaps he is an outsider? I do not truly know, but he clearly stands out from everyone else. The schoolboy outfit also gives a sense of curiosity, tying into the ‘mystery’ presented by the game.
Michael: The Professor Layton series is another great example of what art says about a game. In these games the art is all hand drawn, and has a hint of sepia tones that provide the game with a strong “Triplets of Belleville” aesthetic.
The art not only matches the locales in the games, but also the music that goes along with it. The music is typically very whimsical and relaxing, allowing the player to focus on solving the puzzles at hand. Overall, the art quickly shows the player that they are going to be playing a more relaxed game that feels oddly European, but also really adds to the atmosphere.
So take a look at your favorite game and see how its design can tell you something you might have previously missed. Feel free to leave a comment below with your observations.
