Ingrid Skåre und Mauricio Maperns - Flexible Videogame Aesthetics

Enhancing experience through gameplay-oriented graphics.

The fundamental goal of this project is to better understand the prospects of a finer dialogue between video games’ rules and visuals. To achieve this we explored the unique rhetoric and aesthetic possibilities of games trough the pre-production of a pilot project. Focusing on the visual development, and working alongside a team of game designers that crafted the game's rules and gameplay, we could deeply correlate the graphic and procedural aspects of the game. This let us built a cohesive aesthetic for the whole experience. Being this such a multi disciplinary project, we should, before approaching it’s visual solutions, first understand the it’s core rules.

The game is a 2D sidescroller platformer, a genre symbolized by Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, 1984), heavily inspired by Metroid (Nintendo, 1986) and Castlevania (Konami, 1986). It’s focused in exploration of a complex world, but with a twist: to start the game the player must pick one of two different characters as the protagonist, either a Wanderer or a Warrior, representing opposing playing styles. The first one focuses in agile movement and stray exploration, at the cost of being nearly unable of defending himself. The Wanderer will be the choice of players that seek contemplation and discovery through the game. On the other end of the spectrum, players inter- ested in conquering and advancing will most probably chose the Warrior. This archetype will knock down everything in his way, although being unable to even spot many different areas of the game. By understanding these two initial options we can see how the game was designed as a dissertation about comfort zones: the player can focus on combat or on exploration and, as experience is acquired, the character’s gameplay abilities will specialize to support the player’s choice. For this reason, staying in the path of your initial option makes the game grow ever easier, while any deviation presents huge challenges. For instance, if the player chooses to start as the Warrior it’ll be easier to favor brute force over mobility. As the game advances the most used skills will grow in effectiveness, while those let aside will diminish, giving the impression the character is evolving even if he is actually regressing in some abilities. Trying to step out of this comfort zone will be difficult not only by demanding the use of abilities the player is not good at (like jumping,if the choice was the Warrior), but also because those that were mastered will worsen in the process (like attacking, in the same example). However, if players take the trouble of going against the natural flow of the game they’ll be able to have a completely different experience. This includes the real ending of the story, which is veiled for those who keep on the comfort path.

The point here is that merely supporting what you’re good at won’t allow real growth; in the context of the game, it won’t permit the holistic vision necessary to truly solve the problem.

As visual developers, our task was to bring all this information to the player while maintaining consistency with the fictional layer of the story. For this the three distinctive playing styles were fused into a single character: as the player digresses from one style to another so the appear- ance of the character will change. What at first were two different characters, Wanderer and Warrior, are just extremes of an adaptive one. The balance between the two is an apparently dull morph we named Normal Dude. To solidify these differences we’ve chosen to use acutely contrasting styles for the extreme morphs, stressing their gameplay features, and extend these styles to the places and creatures that each one encounters. So, the Warrior is awkward, heavy and violent in his appearance and advances through intimidating areas filled with atrocious enemies. In the other hand the Wanderer appears sleek, agile and graceful, traveling by beautiful landscapes inhabited by amiable creatures. As for the balanced morph, as the players keeps on leveling different styles, it’ll become gradually duller, loosing the distinctive traits of the starting form, until it’s a totally neutral character, having no hallmarks or resemblances with either Warrior or Wanderer. At this point the landscapes are mixed, and so are the creatures that occupy them. The player can now discern between enemies and passive creatures, avoiding threats and better choosing the way to go, in a fashion that was previously almost impossible due the unvaried nature of the extremes. If the player is able to keep in the balanced path secret areas will be accessible, telling a completely different story and rewarding the challenge. The character eventu- ally turns into a Heroic morph, much more amus- ing and steadfast than the extremes. By now the game is a much harder one to play, and not only the character but also the player have stepped out their comfort zones. It is our belief that the results achieved allow a great enhancement on the experience of the game, by improving the user's perception of the system while staying true to it’s fictional narra- tive. Using the visuals to communicate both the procedural changes during the play and the narrative that emerges from those changes allows an unique possibility of storytelling. This creates a deeper experience that’s much more likely to motivate the player’s reflections on the questions presented by the game. What, we believe, will bring games one step further into becoming a great medium for expression.