Artistic styles in games

Art Styles In Games

One of the most important part of a game can be its art design. Although falling under certain categories an imaginative and individual style can be a truly effective way to make your game stand out from the rest. A clear example of this can be found in the Indie Games industry with such highly acclaimed games such as Limbo, Braid, and super meatboy with all being a 2D platformer but having very different looks making each easily recognisable. Some of the examples of types of art styles within the game industry are…

Exaggerated

Exaggeration is an art style most commonly found in JRPGs, with the style being used to reflect the popular Medias of manga and anime. As the name would suggest this art style consists of highly exaggerated objects and features with two popular examples being the Devil May Cry and Final Fantasy series with their oversized objects such as swords and their facial features like their eyes being quite sizable when the character is sad. The body types of the characters will follow a similar way with male characters being strong and muscular and female characters often being overly sexualised.

Minimalistic

An art style more recently found gaining popularity within the indie circuit. The minimalistic style like that found in the popular puzzle platformer Limbo, minimalistic is an art style that heavily uses paired down design elements and simpler images to make up the games. This often features heavier emphasis on shadow and colour over things such as textures. The colour palates used will also regularly feature more muted colours to build up a more three dimensional look.

Cel Shaded

An art style based on comic books and how they are designed. The picture to the right is from Telltale’s game The Wolf Among Us, which serves as a prequel to the popular comic book series Fables. Cel shading is used here because of its bold colours and distinguished lines adding to the effect of this game being an interactive comic book and making the most important things in the environment such as characters and items easily detectable by the player.

Photo Realistic

This art style is based around making a game look as close to the real world as possible often using the most powerful engines and tech in the industry to accomplish this. The highly detailed graphics used in these games can often be one of the highest selling points in a game and can be used as a way to bring in the next generation of consoles in an attempt to make people upgrade to the newest model in order to run these new games. With the highly realistic graphics often adding to the player’s immersion it has become highly prominent within the triple A market and can be seen in titles such as the recently released Metal Gear Solid V.