Judging Books by Their Covers: Graphics and Themes

People might spend more time arguing about graphics than they do arguing about anything else in video games. Every time anything comes out, approximately 5000% of all forum posts are about the graphics being the best ever, or the worst thing since E.T. for the Atari 2600. Graphics have definitely become more complex over the years, but now that designers can make pretty much whatever they’d like, your style of graphics a more a choice than a limitation.

it's like I'm really there. E.T. for the Atari 2600 is one of the games that lead to the great video game crash of 1983 and the  graphics certainly didn't help.

But what do the different styles of graphics tell about a game, or theming? Why do designers go with certain styles over others?

Cell shaded graphics are definitely a modern style of graphics that’s come about. Cell shading was made famous by Jet Set Radio for the Sega Dreamcast in 2000. The style allows you to create graphics that resemble a cartoon in 3-dimensions. This is a really cool style which ages well due to how stylized they are. This style is really cool for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because it looks like a damn cartoon. I think lots of kids dreamed about being able to interact with their cartoons, and cell shaded games let you do that. Cell shaded games also have certain air of fun about them. They’re usually colorful, fast paced, and cheerful. The Borderlands series does a great job using its cell shaded graphics to bring some irreverence and fun to the depressing-when-you-think-about-it setting.

So colorful and so depressing to actually think about.

There are certain downsides to the style though. I think it’d be very difficult to make a “serious” cell-shaded game. The style looks best with bright pastel colors, and those generally don’t translate very well to serious subject matter. The contrast between the brightness of the colors and the black outlines doesn’t work nearly as well when the colors are dull. I think you could design a good introspective game, but I don’t know about serious. It’s hard to deal with intensive subject matter when you look like you should be on at Saturday at 9AM.

Seriously, this could be a cartoon. I'd watch it. Who doesn't love awesome tunes and roller-skates? 

When people think about improved graphics, they usually think about “modern” graphics. I use quotation marks because technology advances and “modern” changes. After all, Deus Ex looked pretty great in 2000, but nowadays it looks pretty ugly and unrefined. The upside to these graphics is that they’re the height of graphics at the time when they came out. They show how much work designers put into their concepts because you can more accurately recreate the drawings in the game. Older games were basically just pixels on top of each other, so some of the nuances of the original ideas might get lost, but the better the graphics, the more accurate the recreation. Better graphics also allow designers to make more detailed worlds

The Crysis series is renowned for it's realistic and demanding graphics. The games look incredible, but in 10 years, maybe they'll look like mud.

The disadvantage to this kind of graphical style is that it ages very poorly. There might be some charm in looking at what was considered the height of graphics in 2004, but Doom 3 looks pretty gnarly these days. Using a modern style of graphics basically ties your game down to a specific era, and can really limit its life, though there are ways around that. People are still making graphical updates for games like Deus Ex or System Shock 2 to help improve their dated looks, but short of a total redesign, the majority of players will pass these games up.

Doom 3

Deus Ex

Lastly, we should talk about pixels. The art style, not that terrible movie that came out last year. I’m not actually sure if you can make a good video game movie, to be fair. Seems like most of them are pretty terrible. Well, Silent Hill was actually okay. But man, Pixels was awful.

Where were we? Oh right.

 Pixel graphics are what defined classic games, for the most part. There were some other interesting directions that came out at the same time, like vector graphics, but pixels definitely prevailed as the style of the time. Pixel graphics may have started blocky, like in Pong, or most Atari 2600 games, but by the time of Metal Slug pixels became an art form all their own. Detailed pixel art is impressive, not just because it takes forever to make and animate, but because it looks really good. Since pixels dominated for the first 4 generations of gaming consoles, pretty much every kind of game is represented, which means they can be used for any style. Pixels can also be as colorful or as monotone as you’d like them, so they can fit most tones that a game can have. Modern games that use pixel art are usually trying to callback to this classic era of games, and games like Shovel Knight, Axiom Verge, and Titan Souls use their style to great effect this way.

The Metal Slug series is fun, addictive, and beautifully made. The amount of detail in these games is pretty nuts, considering how long it takes to make the art.

There are limitations though. Pixel art is not great for 3D games, with a few exceptions. 3D animation requires sprites to be drawn from a huge number of angles, which is obviously very time consuming and difficult. Pixel art is also not the best for very detailed character faces, without falling on the old JRPG trope of having the characters faces be next to the textbox. It seems like it would be very hard to use pixels as an art style and not bring older games to mind, so if you’re looking for something newer, there are definitely better options.

These sorts of screen really break up the flow of a game and are best left in the past. Star Ocean: Second Evolution has a lot of old fashioned design.

So, we’ve seen how an art style can affect the tone of a game, and the advantages and limitations of a few. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but these are some standouts for sure. When making a game, every piece of it is there for a reason, and trying to figure out why makes the experience so much better. So, next time you’re playing a game, ask yourself why the designers chose the style that they did. What does it add to the game? Was it the best choice? 

Pace Yourself now

Some players think about pace a lot less than game designers do, which is a shame because pace can lie at the root of why players might appreciate their favorite games. Before we start, a quick definition of pace in video games, for those of you that aren’t familiar: Pace is the speed at which you move through a game. Pace can be how fast you move through levels, how fast the game shuttles you through the story, or even the speed of the combat.

But what is good pacing? How does pace improve a game?

You might think that action games need to have a constant ramp up as far as pace goes, and many do. However, some might argue that the best action games understand the importance of a little down time. Quiet moments give you a chance to explore the world that you’re in and understand what the characters are going through. 

Wolfenstein: The New Order did a great job with the little moments. In between bombastic combat sections where you literally fight moon-Nazis, you head back to your home base. Usually, you have a little quest to find some tools, or just explore for a few minutes.

Yes, literal moon nazis. Bet you thought I was joking.

Each time you go back, things change a little. Maybe a room once empty now holds a rescued resistance fighter, or maybe a civilian’s room is now empty. You’re never removed from the harsh realities of a Nazi dominated future. You can talk to the other characters and really get a sense of why you’re fighting, ensuring that the combat never gets too ridiculous or boring because it means something.

Wolfenstein: The New Order focused on environmental storytelling in the quiet moments, to its benefit.

Half Life 2 also understood how much a quiet moment here and there can mean. The opening plays much differently than the rest of the game, adding flavor and context with observation. You walk through a train station in City 17, meeting civilians and civil protection agents. You understand the oppression that the citizens of City 17 labor under, and you can get angry on their behalf. You can see how terrible this world is and how many of the people have lost hope. Most importantly, you’re given time to digest these feelings and the world. When you actually get to fighting, you have a reason beyond “oh hey this is fun.”

"Pick up that can, citizen." That simple line tells you so much about how people are treated in this new world.

Level design also has a huge amount to do with pace. If a level requires you to backtrack 500 times, it feels tiring or annoying. Conversely, if a level is just a straight line, it can feel a little too simple.

Shovel Knight is a game that excels at clever level design. The whole game is a callback to NES era platformers, from the look, to the gameplay, to the sound of the game. Much like those earlier platformers, the game has an overworld where you choose which level you want to play. Each level is uniquely designed with its own set of challenges, enemies, and treasures. Not only that, but each level’s pace plays into the challenges you face. Mole Knight’s stage, for instance, is filled with lava that you can “goo-ify” to bounce on.

Bounce, Shovel Knight. Bounce to your doom.

You spend most of your time in this stage hanging in the air, and the enemies are designed to knock you slightly off course as you fall, or be where you're going to land. The pace of this level is fairly slow compared to some of the other levels, but it never feels tedious.  You feel like you’re really improving as a player because you learn to deal with everything the game throws at you, despite the differing feelings of all of it.

Shovel Knight captures the Super Mario Bros. 3 style, where each level has it's own unique challenge and speed.

Does pace have to change from level to level, or do you need different levels to make an engaging game? Doom, a breakneck ride from start to finish, might have something to say about that. You’re dropped into a space station on mars with a pistol and you carve your way through hellspawn (and that’s all the story you’re getting).

John Carmack, Doom's lead programmer, once said, "Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important."

Doom is a game of reflexes, frantic movement, and keeping a cool head. The pace of Doom never really dips, it just sort of increases as you have the chance to use more intense weapons. Each level has a “par” time, usually under 5 minutes. The fast pace forces you to rely more on instinct rather than planning and the weapons and enemies are designed around this. Most enemies fire slow moving projectiles or need to use melee attacks. Many of your weapons follow similar rules, so you have to move around enemy fire and you strafe, jump, and run around pillars to return fire without eating too many fireballs to the face. A slow space marine is a dead space marine, according to Doom.

Doom is full of traps for the unwary player, but with quick feet and a quick trigger finger, you'll make it out.

So, we’ve seen how pace can be changed up to great effect, how levels can be paced to keep the game feeling fresh, and how a constant pace can tell you how the game is meant to be played. Pace tells us a lot about how the game designers thought about progression, atmosphere, and playstyle. Think about your favorite game. How was it paced? Where was that pace the most obvious? Why did the pace fit?