Coming up for concepts for innovative game play is hard! Even if you come up with a concept, what position should the camera be in? First person is over done, as is third person. Side scrolling or top down games look pretty flat unless the environment artist uses some creative way to add depth. A great example of this is the Oddworld games. They are side scrolling games that have a foreground and a back ground with camera passes between the two which ads depth by showing the player that there is something between the two, even though there really isn't.
Stylised games can really draw in the player. TF2 is a great example as the silhouettes of all the classes are very different from each other so there is instant differentiation between them. Talking about silhouettes, characters that are portrayed as a silhouette are starting to get used more and more in games today, especially indie games. I think a good way to make your silhouetted character stand out from the rest would be adding a splash of colour to the character two. May be one or two colours maximum. If you wanted to just have the silhouette of your character determine the character then using colour could be used to show emotion in the characters. This would add depth into the story and character itself.
I'm thinking of doing very this for my project for Christmas using flash, and using a water washed background using black detailing for the terrain, characters and enemies. Then using colour to highlight key aspects of game play. To me the sharp contrast makes it easy for the player to see what they are meant to be doing. My studies of the concept of Flow made me realise keeping the goal clear is really important, as if it is hazy then a player can become irritated and stop playing.
There is a few aspects of the project that I need to work out, one of which is how do I reward the player and make them want to continue playing?
No comments:
Post a Comment