Flamers welcome, here. What is up with PC games, they all seem to be dark, dreary and depressing. It is enough to bring about S.A.D. Why are there no colourful fantasy worlds like Zelda or Final Fantasy, no multimillion dollar character-charm games like Pokemon. Is it a sign of a lack of maturity in the games industry, or a fear that PC gamers are too "mature" to have anything but copies of H.R.Giger's biomech ships... As long as Sega/ Nintendo has a monopoly on such games, this could show an unhealthy market. People want simple-to-use attractive games, this is shown by the sales figures of games like Age of Empires 1-2, which was designed to be an attractive digital terrarium with gazelle and crocodiles AND a very good strategy game... or Sim City... even the Everquest screenshots are full of colour. ********************** A highly recommended book to Game Designers, Game Writers and Game Artists alike ... is "Disney: the Illusion of Life", check on Amazon to find the authors, and your library may have a copy. ********************** Disagree, agree? Edited by - Ketchaval on 9/17/00 7:23:06 AM

It all depends very much from the game. As you said, Sim City, AoE and Everquest have colourful graphics. Incoming, Serious Sam, Quake3, UT, Forsaken and many many other titles are full of colour. On the other hand Starcraft and Fallout would look stupid if they were bright or colourful.

I don't think that PC games are that dull-looking at all. Maybe this is a stupid answer but I really think that PC games are already colourful enough.

(i hope you were just talking about the gfx, not the colourness of a plot or a world or something like that)

-Hans {home page} {e-mail}

Edited by - Hans on September 17, 2000 9:43:15 AM

I am not sure what you are trying to say here ... are you saying that there are not enough sugary disney like colorful games around ???
I am not sure there are so many dark games than that. I mean, of course Quake, Doom, Halflife, Planescape or Baldur''s gate are kinda dark, but do you really think it would work better with fancy sugary graphics a la mario ?

you point to Disney as a reference, but then you should know that the colors are here to serve the atmosphere the designers are trying to create.
A good example of how important, colors are would be to look at the different Alien movies. The third is probably the most achieved, with its quakelike colors But look at the last episode, and with still the same range of colors, I think it''s much more colorful. I am not really sure I prefered it, BTW.

Difference for the sake of difference is pointless.

As well, I am not sure there are that many "dark" games...
I mean, what scope are you talking about here ?
I would say that most console games are not dark at all...
And I don''t think there are that many dark games on the PC neither. FPS are probably that way because they all try to emulate the success of Doom ... which is totally lame IMHO.
But I don''t think ther rest of the games are "dark" ?

Actually, I don''t think there are that many "mature" games around ... blood and sex has nothing to do with being mature ...

In fact, I wonder, what are you asking ?
I don''t see the point of your question...

???

Actually, I''ve been thinking of doing an entirely 1-bit color FPS...

People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~

LOL Madkeith : did you ever use one of those calculators like the HP48 or the TI92 ??? I can tell you there are some major kick ass games on those, even for 1bit graphics

The Disney book isn''t just as a reference, but as a HIGHLY recommended book on the quality controls that they used, their beliefs, the importnace of communication (paramount in GAMES too!), the reaction between characters, selecting actors for playing characters etc.

Hehe I was actually waiting for someone to not take my statement serious..
AHW, I was actually deadly serious about that... I mean it, I know what I can do on paper with just a pen... I''d love to see a game that goes black and white, PURELY for style purposes.


People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~

OK
Personally I think the cut sequences in Homeworld were a very good idea. simple, elegant, and beautiful.
Actually, it''s funny that you mention black and white, this blend with the idea someone gave of making a dream sequence be in black and white (don''t remember which thread)

youpla :-P

Yep, it was one of the ideas suggested to me for dreaming. Black and white with perhaps some specific colored elements, like the candles in Schindler''s list...
I agree that colors depends on the atmosphere you want to give to your game. Still 3D games are somewhat limited, because if the textures are too bright, they don''t blend easily... Hard to achieve effects like shining sun and wind in the fields...

OMG, Schindler''s list, that''s such a good example of how you can give meaning to colors.

As well, if I remember my lectures correctly, you''d have to check on Van Gogh for his theory of colors, and their different meanings, because so far, in our western cultures, it''s still VERY useful. I think I said that somewhere else : there *ARE* stereotypes in our cultures, so let''s use them in creative ways

youpla :-P