Visual Design of Games

Here is a look at my first attempt at game visual design based on the game Cheese or Font…

I started with identifying the core elements of the game, then drew up six quick mock-ups of how the game would look like under different design principles.

I first made one element (the score) huge, taking the majority of the screen. Everything else had to be pushed to the side. I also had to delete “timer” in order to balance the visuals since it will sit next to score.

Then, I tried the one-color sketch, using yellow to represent the color of cheese and let the player highlight the cheese names from the vocabulary list.

In this sketch, I tried to apply principles of proximity by having the player to drag the words closer to each category, while also having the categories displayed more uniquely to distinguish from the other words.

My three sketches playing around with typography allowed me examine the relationship between words and which ones should I prioritize. It seems to me that the bolder, serif fronts are often given the highest priority and is best used only once or on one type of item per screen. Pictures/icons could play a similar role.

Last but not least, the most beautiful game to my mind is Journey (PS4). The game is beautiful to look at by having a great choice of uniform color palettes for every scene, depicting the tone of the environment. In order to highlight the grand scale of the journey itself, the game often pans the camera out, making the character small and the architectures huge, and thus creating a strong sense of epicness.