For start I wanted to look into the basics of level design and what makes a platformer easy to read for the player. I came across this video that talks about how you can use art to make the game more enjoyable to play.
Notes
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The art in your game is a means to communicate to your player.
When designing, we should consider Affordance-the properties given to an object that make it clear how and for what should be used.
An example of poor design is a Norman door-has poor affordance and is not clear on how to use.
The door sign tells you to push, but is in contradiction with the door knob which invites you to pull.
Example of confusing design in the game HOA:
Collision wall
No-Collision wall
Tunnel
Look the same
Different Design for different rules
Example of good design form Rayman mini (2019):
Player is lured into the hidden place by placing collectibles at the entrance of the tunnel. This is a non-intrusive way of guiding the player in a direction.
In Celeste, you can die from falling into a pit. However, the player can also explore a path going down. There is a clear distinction between the 2, and there's a light to the paths that lead to somewhere safe.
No light(you die)
Light
In Dustian: an Elysian Tail, the design is still confusing, but the player is guided thorugh text, in the form of dialogue and pop-ups from the guardian character, Fidget.
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Poor affordance can be used if it fits the narrative of the game, but the designer has to be aware of it and try to find alternate solutions.
The player needs to understand which objects are interactable.
In this example, the shape of the ladder invites the player to climb up and down. However, the ladder here is just part of the background and can't be used.
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The objects you can interact with should stand out and their use should be obvious. You can borrow from real life objects.
Levers
Rings
Ropes
Stirring wheel
Spring Platform
Id there is no natural affordance, add particle effects to show that an object can be interacted with.
If you include crumbling platforms or walls, make them obvious by adding cracks or other design elements
Readability of a game is given by both level design and art design. When creating the assets, they should be divided into background assets and platforming assets and there shoul be a clear difference between them.
It's important to avoid ambiguity, as the player can get stuck and lose interest in the game.
A summary of what I learned and what I need to pay attention to:
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Make clear distinction between background assets and platforming assets.
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make obvious wich objects can be interacted with.
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Get inspiration from real life objects to understand affordance.
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If you however need low affordance for you artstyle, help the player by additional text, characters, or by placing objects and collectibles to guide them on the path.
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Use different designs for different rules and keep them consistant.
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Pay attention to the size of the character compared to the platfroms and assets.
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I've also watched this game commentary that provides a deep dive into the world of Hollow Knight, hoping to learn more about level design and world-building.
The video offers a clear classification of the realms of the realms, each having distinctive artstyles, themes and color palettes to them.
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Hollow Nest's layout-the color of each area match the colors on the map
-this helps a lot with navigation and spacial visualisation
Level Design
I picked each levels' color palette using https://coolors.co/image-picker
City of Tears
Cristal Peak
Ancient Basin
The Hive
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The game introduces new areas by placing thematic rooms at the entrance of each area. These rooms that share the aesthetic and elements of the level, act as a teaser for the player and make that place memorable.
Character Design
I have come across another helpful video regarding character design. As I am a visual person and this is easily accesed information, I feel like this is the best approach for me to learn about design.
What I learned:
It is important that the design works best for the game and not as a stand-alone piece of art.
It is best placed at a 45 degree angle to fit the 2D style and make the character look less flat.
Start with simple shapes first. Than add the details of the design. However, in my process I started with a more detailed, anatomically correct design and the started to reduce down, and make it more stylised and cartoony:
It is best to decide what you want from the design:
-Do you want it to be easy to reproduce?
-Cartoony?
-Stilised?
-Cute?
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My process
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I want my character to be expressive, dinamic, strong and stable. From my iteration, I think I will stick to the middle drawing. I don't want my character to be perceived as cute, but as dominant and feminine. The use of lines also indicates both friendliness and stability.
Sadly, I don't have any experience with animation and I might regret this decision later, as I don't know if my design is tricky to animate.
Thumbnails consist of the silhouette of a character and are very important.
This should be easily recognizable. The design can be started from the thumbnail and then details can be added later in order to make the character memorable.
I realised my thumbnail is a bit confusing so I started to break some of the shapes and add some details:
Idle and running animations should look very different from each other. The design should start from a basic shape that we more or less confine to.
The basic shape of my character is a triangle with rounded edges. The triangle suggests a dinamic character, while rounded edges suggest friendliness. The wider side of the triangle sits at the bottom showing stability.
It's also a good idea to flip the character constantly when drawing
Narrative Design
I knew I wanted my game to be narrative orriented but I didn't know so much about narrative, so I started looking into the basic narrative styles and searching for one that fits my vision.
I came across 2 main types of worlbuilding:
Hard Worldbuilding
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Detailed, logical descriptions
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Information regarding economy, races, history, geography, languages and culture, science and phisics regarding that world
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Uses details to create an immersive esperience
Hard Worldbuilding immerses the reader by placing them in a world as believable and grounded as possible
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The story is constructed around the logical aspects of the wirld first. Take the example of J.R.R. Tolkien who first constructed the language and phoentics of the elves, then their history and culture and lastly decided to write The Hobbit.
Immersion through:
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consistency
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concrete rules
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transparency
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realism
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depth
Soft Worldbuilding
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Gives little to no explanation to reader/viewer/player
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Lets the player make connections and assumptions about the world
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Uses mistery as a way to draw in
Soft Worldbuilding is about crafting Atmosphere,
Tone,
Mood.
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The story is constructed around the atmospheric feel the world wants to transmit.
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This is what unites the illogical elements of the game-the core experience or essential experience
Immersion thorugh:
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mistery
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flexible rules
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imaginative involvement (player trying to make connections to compensate)
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Tips
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Worldbuilding is not about making the reader understand. It's about creating an immersive experience
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Both hard and soft world building can be used together to create a fictional world.
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Soft worldbuilding gives you creative freedom
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It also provides a flexible world that you can change to aid the plot(sort of a plot point conveniece), rather than trying to fit the story around the world
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The Pacing of a story is easier to manage in S.W.B. as there is little exposition
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S.W.B. excells at character driven stories
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S.W.B. doesn't include any elements that don't add anything meaningful to the story
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S.W.B. heavily relies on the reader's input
The video includes this quote from Hayao Miyazaki during an interview (famous for his Studio Ghibli films and cerations):
This reminds me that as much as I try to explain my artistic decisions, it is best to follow my intuition and explore the way art makes me feel, even if I don't always have the words to describe it or have a reason behind it.
Advice given in the video:
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Find a character driven story
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Figure out the essential lore
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Create the rest of the world with the essential experience in mind
After this introduction into narrative I have also discovered I would like to use soft worlbuilding for my game. As I have always been inclined to these types of stories, such as Hayao Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky or the eerie silent movie "Angels Egg", I believe it is best to work with this type of worldbuilding.
I am a visual person and my desire is to work as a concept artist. This fits best with soft worldbuilding, as I can design assets and elemnts that contribute to the story and show how the world functions.
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A few photography books I found at the library that I think use viusal storytelling:
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"New York-based artist Charles LeDray has become known for his miniaturized sculptures of hand-stitched clothing, carved human bone, and thimble-sized ceramics. Their intimate scale and materials poignantly evoke allusions to childhood memory, gender and class stereotypes, and wonder in the everyday"
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However, Hard worldbuilding is not off the table as Romanian folklore has a huge source of characters and information and could be used to create a rich world that explores all fantasy aspects of the politics, economy etc. It is also not uncommon in Romanian fairytales that aspects such status, lifestyle, motivations and desires of the evil monsters are actually mentioned in the story, giving me an interesting start to build from.
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I have started to look more into uses of soft worldbuilding.
This video explores it in 4 games: LoveCraft, Hollow Knight, NieR Automata and Dark Souls.
Visual storytelling in Angel's Egg(1985)
The Colony is a five-screen video installation filmed by Vietnamese artist Dinh Q. Lê on the Chincha Islands off the coast of Peru
Sound Design
Scott Roger's Level Up
2nd Edition
