Blogs - BlueBoothStudios

If the industry drive for more graphically impressive games has taught us anything, it would be that visually complex designs are superior to more rudimentary ones. And yet I know that many of you are already picking apart that logic with examples of how that isn't always the case. That is, as a small example, my point in this article.

When it comes to a characters color scheme - less is more. My rule of thumb is between 1 - 3 colors, anything more is too much. That may seem harsh, but when you think about memorable characters, you'll begin to realize this rule is followed more often than not. At least with characters you remember. Now I should be clear, this color limit doesn't include variants of color from lighting, shadows, and gradients. But keeping it to such a low limit makes the character immediately visually recognizable.

Let's go over a few examples. Meatboy is red and white. Consider Batman; his primary colors are either blue and grey, or black and yellow, or black and grey, depending on which version of the character you go with. The first two designs are better than the third - why? The two colors chosen are high contrast to one another, creating a visual color conflict, but natural variation in the colors give the eye enough detail to work with to buy the design as a whole. The colors themselves also highlight elements of the character - black has ties to night, darkness, and seriousness/brooding, and the yellow stands out as a flashiness that wars with the otherwise functional suit design, representing the flashy excesses of the batman character. In a similar way, your own character designs should focus on a few colors of high contrast with symbolic ties to your character.

Our design for Francis takes these lessons to heart - his colors are white, blue, and purple, each substantial in contrast, yet not so severe you wonder what happened to his clothes. The white represents Francis' innocence and purity, the blue represents his loyalty to his friends, and the purple hints at Francis' noble origins among the aristocracy.

Follow these rules and you'll be well on your way to creating more visually memorable characters!

PS. Mandatory half-hearted disclaimer about not owning Meatboy and Batman or any related works.

Hi there. You probably don't know me yet (and that can be forgiven), but I go by Michael. I'm the president of Blue Booth Studios Inc. a company that plans on transforming the face of the gaming industry, one bit at a time. If that sounds vague, over-reaching, and stupid, you may be partially correct, but rest assured, we have a solid plan for doing so. Part of that plan involves reaching out and sharing our experiences with those interested in the gaming industry.

So I'd like to share with you my thoughts and experiences with game engines. Game engines are strange because there are far too many, and yet when it comes to designing our own product, it feels like there are far too few. Thanks to "Unity 2D", it looks as though 2D developers finally have a viable option apart from XNA (which was arguably more framework than game engine). 3D developers have a much wider range of options.

So, what are you, as a designer, going to do? Utilize an engine that may handicap your features, or design your own? We opted to design our own, and it was a mistake. Don't get me wrong, it was a mistake that taught me a huge amount about game programming, but it was also expensive in terms of time lost. We ended up abandoning our engine part-way through - it had potential, but I still lacked the experience to create a properly OO, decoupled design with sufficient quality assurance to ensure it's stability on a multitude of platforms.

The reason was simple. I didn't care. I want to create an amazing game, but does that mean I need to provide better line of sight processing algorithms than engines already available? What about shadow-casting methods? I don't care. I want something that works, today, and I can worry about tweaking it later. I don't need to design my own particle system, and unless that's what I'm particularly good at, how do I stand to benefit by doing so? Can I justify the initial and maintenance costs of doing so?

We decided to go with Unity. That has meant learning a new engine design and fitting our completed work into place, but now I have a solid test-bed to prototype on, I have shadows and ray-casting, line-of-sight algorithms and particle systems. This frees me up to focus on what matters most to our particular product, and avoid weeks if not months of slogging through issues like transparency and culling. There is no simple answer, and I know adopting an engine has both pros and cons, but for me, putting my pride aside was the best productivity choice I could have made.

What are your thoughts? Has creating your own engine worked well for you, and why?