VISUAL DESIGN
I'm increasingly interested in what you might call "Visual concept design". This isn't the same as game design which is more like "a game where you run a country and change things by selecting these options". The visual concept design is more like "The game is represented by a map filled with icons" or "the game is represented by a large group of people with differing opinions".
this is a really tough area, and one that I think most people take for granted.
Take most RTS games. The game design is basically "manage resources to build up an empire and wage war against your enemies"
But the visual design is a separate decision:
"A top down tactical view showing individual soldiers and individual factories and farms where you carry out your strategy by clicking on animated people and on target facilities or units"
This is by no means the only way to do an RTS. Take a game like Pax Solaris.
This is also an RTS (of sorts) but it uses a different 'paradigm' (awfull buzzword). And I think it does very well out of its visual design.
Now take the game 'Elite' or 'Eve online' 'Freelancer' etc etc
You could easly do these games in a totally different visual style.
Elite gives you the view out of your starship window. You dont see your crew, and you get a 3D visualisation of space. But thats just become the accepted visual concept, not neccesarily the best.
I dont think many big games companies have the guts to challenge the established visual concepts for each genre. Maybe its the publishers fault? This is where the little guy comes in.
I'm still throwing ideas around in my head (and with a concept artists) for Democracy.
I know how the game plays, I've even coded a basic chunk of it.
But I haven't settled on my visual concept yet. I want to be 100% right I've picked the most exciting, different, usable design I can.
Eventually I will separate them dramatically in code, maybe go way beyond the shallow skinning of most 'moddable games' and create something where the simulation is truly indepedent from the representation on the monitor...
Its talk like this that frightens publishers.
Thank god for bedroom coding.
I'm increasingly interested in what you might call "Visual concept design". This isn't the same as game design which is more like "a game where you run a country and change things by selecting these options". The visual concept design is more like "The game is represented by a map filled with icons" or "the game is represented by a large group of people with differing opinions".
this is a really tough area, and one that I think most people take for granted.
Take most RTS games. The game design is basically "manage resources to build up an empire and wage war against your enemies"
But the visual design is a separate decision:
"A top down tactical view showing individual soldiers and individual factories and farms where you carry out your strategy by clicking on animated people and on target facilities or units"
This is by no means the only way to do an RTS. Take a game like Pax Solaris.
This is also an RTS (of sorts) but it uses a different 'paradigm' (awfull buzzword). And I think it does very well out of its visual design.
Now take the game 'Elite' or 'Eve online' 'Freelancer' etc etc
You could easly do these games in a totally different visual style.
Elite gives you the view out of your starship window. You dont see your crew, and you get a 3D visualisation of space. But thats just become the accepted visual concept, not neccesarily the best.
I dont think many big games companies have the guts to challenge the established visual concepts for each genre. Maybe its the publishers fault? This is where the little guy comes in.
I'm still throwing ideas around in my head (and with a concept artists) for Democracy.
I know how the game plays, I've even coded a basic chunk of it.
But I haven't settled on my visual concept yet. I want to be 100% right I've picked the most exciting, different, usable design I can.
Eventually I will separate them dramatically in code, maybe go way beyond the shallow skinning of most 'moddable games' and create something where the simulation is truly indepedent from the representation on the monitor...
Its talk like this that frightens publishers.
Thank god for bedroom coding.
posted by cliff at
9:48 PM
