Artistic Styles

Artistic Styles

In the gaming industry, many games use different artistic styles. The artistic styles which are used the most are photorealism, cell shading, exaggeration and abstract. These are the four artistic styles which are going to be thoroughly explained.

Photo-Realism

Photo realism is where the artist is attempting to make the game look realistic, almost like a real photograph. Photo realistic artists aim to reproduce an image with accurate detail. They aim to make the objects, background, characters and foreground to look as real as possible. Most first person shooters use this style in their games. Photo-realistic games attempt to catch the emotion on the faces of their characters so that we as the gamers or viewers are able to define the emotions of which the character is currently feeling. Light and shadows are used immensely throughout photo-realistic games, without brilliant light and shading, the game wouldn’t look as realistic as they would like it to be.
A great example of photo-realism would be Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies. There is a zombie DLC that they have created which uses the characters Sarah Michelle Gellar, Robert Englund, Danny Trejo and Micheal Rooker. The characters they have used in this zombie DLC are actors in real life. They have attempted to make them look as realistic as possible. Beneath is an example of what the characters looked like in the game on the left and a photo of them in real life on the right. We are able to link the pair of them together as they have quite a few similar characteristics.
Exaggeration

Exaggeration is a game style which is used in games such as final fantasy.  Exaggeration styled games manage to convey emotion better than the photo-realistic games. In various exaggerated games, they may have exaggerated eyes for example which makes it easy for us to see the emotion in their eyes. A lot of RPG games use the exaggerated art style as this make the characters more desirable to play as them. Weapons, physicality and objects are usually exaggerated the most in games. Anime/Manga games are most commonly known to use the exaggerated style. A few games in which use the exaggerated artistic style are the new Pokémon series from Generation 4 to the 6 and the animal crossing series. Both of these games have characters in which have exaggerated eyes and proportions of the body. 




Cel-Shaded


Cel- shaded games are the opposite of the photorealism style. Cell shaded games use bright colours which relates to the style which is used in comic books. These sort of games which use the cel-shaded artistic style are very effective and they stand out. A cel-shaded game example would be The Legend of Zelda:  The Wind Waker.  The colours in this game are very bright and it gives a very childish comic feel which makes the game look like younger children can play the game as it looks safe and friendly.  Borderlands is also another game in which uses the Cel-shaded art style. 


Abstraction 

Abstract styled games usually consist of games which use geometric shapes and lines. The abstract artistic style is used in games in which aren’t meant to resemble anything at all. The abstract games are meant to be very unrealistic and other people may look at these games from many different perspectives. A game which uses the abstract style is The Unfinished Swan. What the players have to do is throw paint to reveal the world around them. The player used black paint on a white background.  Hyphon is an abstract game where you have to make your way through the shapes without touching any of the walls and obsticles."For a work to be considered abstract, it should not represent anything real or derived from real life, even in a heavily stylized way. Thus the concept does not necessarily include games with exaggerated visuals like Guacamelee, visually minimal games like VVVVVV, and games that depict unreal creatures or worlds like The Neverhood."


http://www.giantbomb.com/abstract-art-style/3015-1558/



Retro

The retro artistic style works with a limited amount of colours. The colours which are chosen for the game usually determine the mood and feel of the game. The retro artistic style works with pixelated characters and objects. A classic example of a retro game is Pac Man, all the characters in this game are pixelated. This game is abstract too as Pac Man lacks physical features. Retro games are 8-bit games.

Impact of computer games on society

Impact of computer games on society

Concerns such as excess playing time:

They are many concerns about how much time a child spends playing video games. There are various articles and much news coverage on how much time people spend on playing video games. Furthermore, many parents worry about their children spending too much time on a game and wonders what the effects are. http://www.babycenter.com/404_can-spending-too-much-time-playing-video-games-hurt-my-child_69631.bc

This article is accordingly written by a development psychologist and lists the psychological effects of what could happen to child when it grows and what the child is currently missing out on.
Many games do offer a time where you can take a break, for example, Animal Crossing new leaf 3DS.
In South Korea, they have a law which is called the “Cinderella law” which is also known as the “Shutdown Law”. Also in South Korea, they are people that are so addicted to playing games and spending so much time on playing the games that people have become seriously injured or have died in result. This link explains what the “Shutdown Law” is and tells you some of the stories of what has happened to people’s lives due to playing games excessively. http://geography.about.com/od/culturalgeography/a/South-Korea-Computer-Gaming-Culture.htm

Social Isolation and separation from reality:

Video games can result to social isolation. People can isolate themselves from others because they want to play a particular game or complete a certain level. This takes them away from reality and puts them in this gaming world of their own. However, some games do “help them engage with friends and community”. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7619372.stm
Apparently, Nottingham Trent University has done research on gamers who can and can’t tell reality from fantasy. Their research has revealed that some gamers are so stuck into the fantasy world of a particular game that they are unable to distinguish the real world now. One story is that a 15 year old called Simon, had admitted in a interview to “wanting to use a gravity gun” to retrieve something from his “fridge”. http://metro.co.uk/2011/09/20/nottingham-trent-university-researchers-gamers-cant-tell-real-world-from-fantasy-164943/

Costs:
There are direct costs and indirect costs. Many gamers spend a lot of money buying games and such. The things which costs are the consoles, PCs, upgrading parts of a PC so the game runs better, paying for broadband, paying electricity bills, buying DLCs for that particular game, paying to get rid of ads and so on.  “Video games are a fun hobby, but no one ever said it was an inexpensive one: a brand new video game for the Xbox can run you $60, and a hardcore gaming rig can cost upward of $2000”. A lot of people do tend to spend a lot of money buying things so that they can progress in their game or make the game perform better (PC).

The indirect costs include time. Gamers spend quite a lot of time playing a game. During this time, gamers lose out on development and interaction within reality. The costs of time integrates with the concerns of excess playing. There are costs in which effect children, they can either be really exhausted and late for their next day in school, and they lose out on playing outside and interacting with family members.
There is also costs in the real world after playing so many games for many hours, this link is a story in which a guy had lost his girlfriend and job due to spending to much time playing videos games and kept wanting to play Everquest. http://kotaku.com/5384643/i-kept-playing--the-costs-of-my-gaming-addiction?utm_expid=66866090-52.r5txldOmRkqnbJxnyozIeA.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2F

Benefits (hand-eye coordination, brain thinking)/thinking and strategy skills: There are many different genres of games in which can improve some skills. Such as puzzle games and strategic games. COD is a great example for team work developing. To win most of the games you have to work well in a team. Usually you give one another call outs and tell them where the enemies are and so on. Working in a team on this game will help you win the game so resulting in success. Other games such as the Professor Layton series are puzzle games. About every few minutes in the game there are puzzles that you need to complete to continue with the story line. These puzzles involve using maths and English skills and problem solving skills. Another problem solving game is portal. Every level you do is a puzzle and you have to reach your end goal for you to progress. Others say that video games have health benefits from playing video games. Apparently it can reduce stress and depression, improve your decision making skills and can provide pain relief (emotional and apparently physical). http://theweek.com/articles/466852/7-health-benefits-playing-video-games

Future impact/Impact on ‘mainstream’ application development:

Games have already came a long way and development of them is phenomenal. Something called the Oculus rift has took a huge step up from playing games on monitors and TVs. The Oculus rift is a headset that you wear over your eyes and you are put into a virtual reality. With this you are given a controller or two controllers (one for each hand) and you use all of your body. The way your head moves, the games moves with it, so if you look left, then your character looks left too. I feel like with this newer technology, more gamers will not be able to define what reality is and what reality to them isn’t anymore. This link is a review on the Oculus rift and explains what you use and how you use it. http://www.techradar.com/reviews/gaming/gaming-accessories/oculus-rift-1123963/review

Psychological Factors

Sound:

Sounds can produce emotional reactions from the gamer, in horror games particularly, they use sounds to make the gamer feel fear and to notify you that something is happening or going to happen. For example, the game “The Outlast” when you get caught by one of the mental patients, the music is very tense and loud, you hear the breathing of your character is very harsh and you can hear the fear breathing. Sound is very important in horror games in particular as you would want to portray those sorts of feeling to the gamer in which the character is experiencing, this making the game scarier. http://www.amplifon.co.uk/resources/playing-with-your-mind/
This link below is the soundtrack of the game "Outlast".



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p19RO5368pY

High score listings:

High score listings can either leave you with a positive psychological effect or a negative one. High score listings are nearly in every game, especially competitive ones. If you are top of the leader board you are most likely to feel better about yourself than be bottom of the leader board. To find out that you are bottom of the leader board, you might feel pretty down about it although some gamers can revert that feeling from being down and changing it to determination of wanting to retrieve a high score. I am one of those particular gamers. A gamer who in which is at the top of leader board would feel “pleased” with themselves. According to this source of information, researchers had found out that someone who did “supposedly the best on the task, people had lower self-esteem than those who were the top performing on the losing team – even if they did better”. http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2012/07/the-psychology-of-high-scores-in-edge-magazine/

Competitive games:
Competitive gaming can leave a few psychological effects. If you are on a team of 5 or 6 (dependant of the game) and you are the one that makes the team lose, not everyone is really going to be nice to you after the match. Possibly, constant losing could lead to aggressive behaviour, this resulting in them losing their temper on when they lose a match.
However, there are some psychological benefits in competitive gaming in which may boost self-esteem and developing social skills. When winning a lot of matches, gamers tend to feel quite happy whereas others might be quite boastful which will aggravate the players in which are losing the matches. http://www.contentedwriter.com/psychological-effects-of-computer-gaming-on-individuals-and-society/

Peer Pressure:

A lot of gamers are peer pressured into buying a certain game. They usually get peer pressured by their friends. Their friends would get them to buy a particular game because they need someone to play with or because it’s an amazing game and they should buy it. Also, there is peer pressure to not play a particular game or buy one. This is because of someone telling you the game is bad or telling you not to play that particular game and so it results in the gamer not playing it in case their friends notice. There is also a huge amount of pressure to buy the latest consoles and to choose the right one. As there are console wars, people would tell you to buy a particular console because they don’t the other one which is out; for example Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

Fun:
Casual gamers play for fun whereas competitive gamers play to win. However, overall, the majority of gamers do play games for fun. What makes games fun is the fact that these games let you do things that you can't necessarily do in the real world. For example, the game called "i am bread" this game is a steam game where you are slice of bread and the objective is you need to become toast. This is a very fun game as you need to move yourself around a certain room and find something you can "toast" yourself on/in. With other games, that you play as a certain character, you are able to act out that characters life in an unusual world. The fact that games designers make the games fun to play leaves a very positive emotional effect on the gamer.
Educational Value:

Many games do have educational value, there are dedicated games in which children/adults can learn from. There are games which are specifically made for educational purpose.
"Epistemic games are computer games that are essentially about learning to think in innovative ways. They’re designed to be pedagogical tools for the digital age where the player learns to think like professionals by playing a simulated game of such professions as management, engineering, journalism or urban planning."
There are also games which are made to teach a particular skill or problem. The maths website in which I used when I was in secondary school was cool maths games. A lot of these games help develop many maths skills in my opinion. I feel as if educational games do have a big impact on society more now than before.
http://www.coolmath-games.com

Expectations:
The majority of gamers have certain expectations for particular games that they are interested in. I believe that series such as COD receive very high expectations each time they bring out a new COD game every November. Gamers like to see many improvements and better graphics each time a new game comes out. As a gamer, I always have high expectations of newer games to have better graphics and fairer gameplay. Furthermore, gamers who have played a previous series of a certain game leave comments and reviews in which the game designers can read and take ideas from. I believe that game expectations leave a positive effect on the society in which they can improve their games and possible employ more people to help make these improvements.

Levelling:
Levelling leaves a positive but also negative psychological effect on gamers. Lets start with the positives. The positive effect it can have is self achievement and achievement in the game. In the majority of games, they have a levelling system in which you can improve your particular character over time or completely levels you can get rewards from. Levelling might make the gamer feel pretty happy about levelling up stats and such. However, the negative effect this can have is the addiction of wanting to carry on levelling up. Therefor, the gamer staying awake possibly to finish their game or not attending to any other duties except from trying to complete a certain level. To conclude, levelling can have a positive psychological effect and a negative psychological effect. One good be for the enjoyment of the game or you may lose your job and the closeness of family around you being to determined to a level.

Software and Hardware costs for game development

Software/Hardware Costs (game development)

Maya:- Maya costs £97 per month and for a year it costs £1,160.
GameMaker:- Game maker has 3 different prices for 3 different versions. The first version is for free, this includes registration, made with GameMaker Splash Screen in game, unlimited resources, GameMaker: Player Export and Windows Desktop Module. The second version of GameMaker (Professional) costs $149.99 which includes a lot more features and the third and final version of GameMaker (Master Collection) costs $799.99 which includes everything GameMaker can offer.
UDK: - (Unreal Development Kit) UDK is free to download.
Unity: - Unity has two options in which you can download. The first version is the free download which is called the personal edition and has a limitation on the features and the second download is the professional edition which costs $75 per month and comes with all the features.
Unity system requirements: - To run Unity, you will need the minimum of Windows XP, 7, 8, 10 and graphics card with DX9 (anything made since 2004). Lenovo H30 Desktop PC costs £449.99 includes, windows 10 free upgrade, I3 intel core processor, 8GB RAM, dedicated NVIDIA GT 705 direct X 9 compatible graphics card and 1TB HD.
In my opinion, I wouldn’t go for a PC with NVIDIA GT as I feel the GTX graphic cards work a lot nicer and makes it all look a lot nicer. This system is also suitable for GameMaker too. UDK system requirements: -
For the system requirements to use UDK you will need the minimum of windows 7/8 64-bit OS, Quad-Core Intel or AMD, 2.5 GHz or faster, 8GB RAM and DirectX 11 compatible graphics card. The cheapest computer I have found costs £499.99. This PC has 8GB, AMD FX-4300 Black edition processor, AMD Radeon R7 250 which is direct x 11 compatible, comes with windows 10 free upgrade and 1TB hard drive. This system is also suitable for Maya.

Publishing:
ID@Xbox: - It is free to apply for ID@Xbox. If you are a developer with an approved concept for Xbox one then you will receive two dev kits for free.
 iOS: - For the Apple Developer Program it costs $99 per membership year. You are able to download and install the latest beta OS releases simply for development and distribution, advanced app capabilities, testing and support app which allows you to invite users to test your iOS app and then you are able to distribute your app. Android: - For the android developer you need to pay $25 as a one-time registration fee that can be paid with various cards. Androids developer console offers you to set up a google payments merchant account if you want to sell priced apps, in-app products or subscriptions. 

10 Games from Best to Worst

(1) Pokémon Alpha Sapphire/ Sapphire version.
This is my most favourite game. The reason why I have put both of them as the top is because Pokémon Alpha Sapphire is a remake of Pokémon sapphire. This game is a role-playing game (RPG for short) and follows the route of using the exaggerated/Retro artistic style. At the start of the game you are introduced into the world of Pokémon. From then on, you have to travel the region and collect gym badges, fill up a pokedex (where you register your caught Pokémon) and try to become the champion. However, in every Pokémon game there is always a back story behind your main objective which slows down the journey for you, with this back story, you get directed into visiting many different areas and you have a better chance to catch different types of Pokémon. This was the first Pokémon game I played and I have been hooked onto playing the other Pokémon series. Pokémon sapphire offers a great story and I find the Pokémon in this game a lot more interesting than the Pokémon in the other series. The remake of this game (Alpha Sapphire) uses the exaggerated artistic style whereas the original game uses the retro style.

(2) Ark Survival Evolved Ark survival evolved falls into the genre of survival and the style of this game is exaggerated. This game is currently an early access game which means it is still getting updates quite frequently. I have only just started playing this game about a month ago (played 200 hours so far) and I can say that I have thoroughly enjoyed playing this game. Although the FPS is a problem, they are always trying to fix bugs and add in new dinosaurs. This game is all about taming

and killing dinosaurs, building bases and creating tribes. You can play this game in first person and in third person, you have the choice of whether to be male or female and you start off the game with nothing. You have to gather tons of resources and level up. The higher the level you are, the better things you can craft/make.
You can play this game online or on you own. This is a PC game (until they release the next gen console versions) so there will be servers you can join. What I love the most about this game is the amount of dinosaurs you can tame, you can tame many T-Rexs, Parasaurs, Raptors… etc. and it is a very challenging game. It has managed to captivate me for many hours due to the amazing graphics it has and the amount of things you can do on it.

(3)Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (Zombies).What I particularly like about the Black Ops 2 Zombie gameplay the most is the story line and figuring out the Easter egg (A set of steps which you have to figure out which order they follow in and in the end you are rewarded with an achievement and it connects to the next DLC). Each Easter egg is very entertaining to complete but very time consuming. Black Ops 2 zombies is a FPS (first person shooter) in which you are one of the four characters stuck in a zombie apocalypse. You don’t get to choose which character you are but each of the characters are significant within the story line. Black ops 2 in general is a photo realistic game. Here is a quote which backs up my opinion on the game. Quote from a review “The zombies mode is purely for entertainment, and I must say, it is EXTREMELY entertaining.”

(4)Minecraft
Minecraft is a cell shaded game which is an arcade game. This is a game in which I have spent quite a few hours on however, I only find the game fun when I have a project set for myself and when I play with others. If I play alone I get bored of this game very quickly and if I don’t have an idea of what to build then I find it relatively boring. However, with friends I am able to enjoy the game to its full potential as we always find new mini games to play in the world of Minecraft. This game has a creative mode where you can build anything you can imagine with many different unlimited materials and then there is survival mode in which you have to go grab the resources yourself to build whatever you imagine. Also there are different levels of difficulty and you have to fight “mobs” which are the enemies. There are skeletons which shoot arrows and creepers which explode within proximity of you, zombies, spiders, zombie villagers, witches etc. There are two bosses on this game, the wither skeleton and the ender dragon. The ender dragon is the main boss. This game for me is very fun with friends, not so fun on your own and you need to be imaginative to play this game (unless you’re on survival!!).

(5)Portal 2
Portal 2 is a puzzle game which is on steam. I have spent quite a few hours on this game! The reason why portal 2 is 5th on my list is due to the reason of I don’t play it as much as the games above. I played the multiplayer on this game because I found it very fun to work with another to reach the end goal of each level. Portal 2 is a game where you have one gun but two modes, one mode is orange and the other is blue. They do the same thing but just opens two portals. You have to shoot the portal gun on a wall that has moondust on it. Once you have placed two portals down you can walk through the wall and end up where the other portal is placed! I found this very entertaining, I once placed a portal above me and beneath me and let physics do its thing. Portal 2 is a very good game but it is only a game I would resort to when I feel like playing a puzzle game, otherwise than that I don’t really play it much.

(6)GTA V

This game for me when it first came out was exciting. It is a photorealistic game and I think they have done a great job on recreating the Californian environment. When playing this game too much I get very bored overtime. I am not much of a “play the story line” person so I basically put all my interest into the online mode. I do have fun when they bring out new DLCs as they add new cars and guns but as soon as I’ve had fun with the new cars and guns, I get bored and then not want to play anymore. I’ve not played this game in while as I just have no recent interest in wanting to play it. The things that you can do on this game are; high speed driving, shooting rocket launchers, killing people and watch the police go after you, flying planes, stealing a jet, crash into lots of places and so on.

(7)Skyrim

This is game is an exaggeration game which falls under the genre of adventure as you can freely explore the map and such. I have probably only played about…2 hours of this game in total. In Skyrim, you get to do lots of different quests and join certain groups and kill dragons. I didn’t
particularly get on well with this game as half the time I was lost or I didn’t know exactly what to and I just couldn’t get used to the gameplay. There is not much I can say about this game because I haven’t played it for long to see what else there is.

(8)Modern Warfare 3

Modern Warfare 3 is a photorealistic FPS game. I feel as if this game is the worst COD I have played. For some reason every time when someone asks me to play this game I just don’t want to play it. I played a small part of campaign and I wasn’t interested in it at all so I can’t really describe what the whole of the campaign was like. The multiplayer however, I’ve not really played much of either. I guess this is another game where I couldn’t get used to. I didn’t really like the guns on this game that was available in multiplayer and I particularly didn’t like the maps. Usually in COD games I slowly get used to the guns but on this game, I couldn’t do that.

9. Fifa Series
When I was younger, I tried to play this game as I was interested in football. After playing a few games I got very bored quickly. It didn’t seem to interest that much. I felt like it was the same after every game, you pass, you tackle, you shoot and then you either score or don’t score. I feel like there was nothing else to it. I guess if you’re a huge fan of football then this is the perfect game for you but for me, I just found it hard to become engaged in the game. I played matches where I was against my friends but I still didn’t find it interesting. This game is a photo-realistic game as it does try to recreate the real players’ characters and such.

(10) UK Truck Simulator
I played roughly 5 minutes of this game and found it completely boring. I didn’t really play this game optionally, I was just covering the game for someone whilst they had to do something and I was so bored that I refused to carry on playing the game. Basically, (within the amount of time I played) all you do is drive a truck from one place in the UK to another. That’s it. Well that’s all I know that you do anyway, it’s pretty slow moving, can’t do anything reckless… I guess that’s the whole point of the simulator. I’m really not sure what fun about driving a truck is. To conclude, I didn’t like the game.

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