Graphics

            Video games have come a long way from being square dots on a screen. Back then the player just had to use their imagination to make their own world a little more appealing. So long as the 8-bit sprites vaguely resembled a person, we could grow attached to that character. Nowadays, we don’t have to do that so much. We’ve got programs that can make hyper realistic worlds that look so stunning and bring a tear to my eye… and yet, we crave more.

            I think somewhere during the transition from 2d games to 3d games our desire for more realism in games has skyrocketed. The demand for state of the art graphics in our games has reached a point so high that only the most talented people get to do the honors of meeting those needs. Despite their skill, we just aren’t satisfied. Why do we want the graphics to be so good that they blur the lines of reality and fantasy to the point of reaching uncanny valley? I’m beginning to think our demand is too great. These developers are only human. They can only do so much and we’re working them way too hard.

            Allow me to use The Order: 1886 as an example. It recently launched on the PS4 this year and it looks amazing. I haven’t seen graphics this aesthetically appealing since Bioshock Infinite. The textures, the animation, the particle effects, the lighting, you name it. However, I looked at a review for the game that heavily criticized the gameplay. What happened? This game had a cool concept from the time it was shown at E3 last year and seemed like it would be a stellar game with a brand new IP. Instead, it failed in the gameplay department, the story wasn’t too intriguing, and enemy AI was laughable. I’ve never played this game, so maybe it’s just one guy’s opinion. But he was sorely disappointed. If you want to hear the review yourself, here’s a link to AngryJoe’s Review of The Order: 1886.

            This isn’t the first time a pretty game did badly in the gameplay (let alone everything else). Sonic Boom has this beautiful aesthetic, but the game itself is really buggy and there’s no telling what kind of game it wants to be. It mixes genres so much that Earthworm Jim is asking Sonic to politely calm down. It’s universally panned as a bad game and there’s no telling why graphics were seen as the biggest priority.

            Now for a game that looks a bit muddy, but plays well: Xenoblade Chronicles. One of the biggest flaws of the game is that it looks kind of bad. For a Wii game, that was about as good as the graphics could get. However, the graphics didn’t bother me that much. The story was compelling and the gameplay was phenomenal! I still had loads of fun with it. Graphics are important to a game and can affect how the world looks and operates, but there’s no need to go overboard and try to market with looks alone. In fact, any game trailer you see that shows you cinematic cutscenes, FMV sequences, but no gameplay, that just looks suspicious.

            Granted, this is only an issue with AAA developers. Most indie companies don’t feel pressured to have the best graphics, so they can do almost anything they want. They can’t get away with graphics that make it impossible to see, but they can avoid looking hyper realistic. As for big companies such as Ubisoft, they have to meet the demand that is ultimate graphical quality. I feel sorry that these companies have to put up with this kind of work. The artists must be highly skilled and I’m grateful for the effort they put in to their games. Sadly, I can’t lower the demand for pristine graphics. I can only hope that making games like The Order: 1886 with that same quality of look becomes easier on the developers.

Immersion

          Immersion can be defined as the state in which the mind is completely enveloped in an experience. Take for example reading. When you read a good book, you aren’t just looking at the words on the pages; you are observing the actions of the characters and the events surrounding them. You feel as if you are in their reality and nothing else is real. It is only when something pulls you out such as an outside force do you realize it was only a book. You can even break immersion within the experience if something doesn’t seem right. This happens occasionally in good immersion inducing experiences and all the time in awful immersion inducing experiences. Why are some books boring? Because they don’t immerse you very well. But this sensation isn’t limited to just books. You can find it in all types of media.

            Until recently, we didn’t see games as an immersive medium. We’re still having trouble deciding if they can be called art or not, but that’s another article. As for games, the ability to not only imagine you are part of the world, but actually controlling the aspects of certain characters and events makes it all the more engaging. Let’s take Shadow of the Colossus as an example of an immersive game. You play as a young man seeking to revive his dead girlfriend and to do so, you must slay sixteen absurdly large creatures known as Colossi. Simple premise that anybody could make a game out of. But how did the developers at Team Ico get this to work so well? 

            Here’s what they did: they first imagined what fighting something of such a large scale would be like. In comparison, your character is basically a tiny ant to the behemoths. He’s so small he has to literally climb all over their bodies just to attack a weak spot! Not only that, the environments are all large scale and take you a long time to traverse. The movements of the Colossi appear slow, but pack an earth-shaking punch when they connect. All of this makes the game magnificent. 

            Now picture the game as a side-scrolling beat’em up on the 3DS where the Colossi you fight are tall enough to fit on both screens and your character is still small, but not ant sized. Doesn’t seem as epic, does it? The main reason would likely be in order to see everything from a 2D perspective, the player has to be visible at all times and the camera angle would need to be fixed. It’s hard to look up at who you are fighting. The developers made the game 3D for several reasons, including having a camera that lets the players truly appreciate the grand scale of these creatures.

            The thing about immersion is that it can be broken pretty easily. You don’t even have to consciously register it because your brain already does that. Wonder why that amazing looking film was only “pretty good” even though you can’t recall everything that happened? Because so many things went wrong such as plot holes, terrible acting, sound effects not matching up or sounding very familiar (i.e. the “Wilhelm Scream”), and not so subtle breaking of the fourth wall. Games do this often, usually in the form of mechanics. 

            True, the most important aspect of your game would be the mechanics, but if the plot has to be forced in order to work with the mechanics, you’re doing it wrong. Something minor such as a “Lives” system likely won’t break immersion, but if the explanation for being able to teleport to certain locations is explained as just “something you can do,” convenient mechanic, but how does it work in with the story!? It needs an explanation to work. It’s kind of like in Lord of the Rings where they spend three movies walking to Mount Doom when Gandalf could have just summoned those giant birds to carry them to their destination in the first place. 

            Also, being really obvious with explanations can break immersion. I’m going to compare Megaman X to pretty much any game with a tutorial system that stops everything you’re doing just to inform you of what this one button does. Megaman X has no helpful tips or advice, but you can just push a few buttons and find out what each one does. You don’t need a Youtube tutorial telling you how to play. You get attacked and lose some health. One can assume that you can make mistakes, but you have to avoid getting hit too often. As for other games (I dunno, Yoshi’s Story?) with tutorials that stop all gameplay, that gets annoying. Yes, that game is a kid’s game and the developers likely concluded that children can’t play and read at the same time, it infuriated me to no end. Players can learn through trial and error. That’s how we get so good. It’s like learning Photoshop; you don’t truly get how it works until you play with everything and mess things up horribly enough to maybe require some outside tech support.

            Immersion can be broken easily, but when it stays stable and we sink in, the experience lasts forever and we never forget it. Keep in mind that if you should make your own game or book or whatever, watch for anything that can break immersion and try to think with a bit of imagination. Sounds a little cheesy, but that’s what makes these things so wonderful. They spark our imaginations. If we can’t see your world, describe it and we can fill in the rest. If we can see your world, show us your creation and let us describe it to ourselves and to others.

Honing Your Craft

            Lots of people pursue a degree for the sole purpose of obtaining a job in a specific industry. The courses students take to earn that degree have plenty to do with the practice. Yet, I have the feeling that a piece of paper mounted on a wall isn’t enough to be good at a life-changing career. It’s like putting on a black belt and saying you are a master at martial arts. The item itself gives you no power. Only the lessons you learn from earning it are worth anything.

            How does this relate to your degree? Recently I learned that in order to truly learn something, you have to practice it. Let’s use the gaming degree as an example. Some of you want to be artists, some maybe want to get better at programming. In order to become good, you don’t just read the textbooks or the notes you write down; you improve by actually doing the work. 

            Want to be a concept artist, but your drawing is sub-par? Study other artists all you want, but that will hardly help you. You need to look into what concept art is, then try to replicate that kind of work. Search for examples of character or environment concept art. It can be for anything from games to movies to TV shows. Now, draw exactly what you see. Yes, you are imitating someone else’s work, but this is for practice. Once you fully grasp what it feels like to do concept work, you can start making your own.

            Now to make this a habit. Do something like this once per day for at least an hour. Over time it will become easier to do. It might become so easy that you hardly have to erase anything and can draw confidently without hesitation. They say that it takes over ten thousand hours of practice to become an expert at something. Well, at a rate of one hour per day, it will take you over thirty years to reach that level. Don’t worry about being an expert. Just be concerned with improving yourself in the present so that it’s easier in the future.

            Same goes for programmers. I personally don’t know how one would practice scripting, but a similar method to what I mentioned above will work. Heck, if you really like what you’re doing, spend more than an hour on your daily work. If you find that you don’t like the work you do, maybe this isn’t what you really want. As for me, I dislike programming and I can only stand to do two dimensional drawings. My concept work isn’t very good, but I would like to get better at it if only to be able to make one piece of work that serves as an example for an artstyle. What I really enjoy doing is writing stuff like this and writing out game design documents. Granted, I have only jotted down ideas and haven’t made a real game design document, but once I find an idea I can work with, I will build it into something presentable, thus why I try to write documents for one hour a day.

            All in all, no matter what your craft, practice makes perfect. Just because your skill level today is bad doesn’t mean it has to stay that way tomorrow. I’ll be writing more articles like this in the hopes that in the future that I too can become an expert.