video game research

1. Research

2. Hollow Knight
Hollow Knight uses a very
hand-drawn unique art
style that stands out from
a lot of the games within
its genre, which is
especially impressive
given the fact that it is a
crowd funded indie game.
Although the game is very
dark color wise it still
manages to instill lots of
bright color schemes in
certain zones of the
games level designs.
The lighting is also used expertly well, with certain
attacks casting shadows and lanterns in the background
slightly illuminating the foreground that shade areas
beautifully. The use of black and white is definitely
something I’d want to emulate in my final product as its
simplicity allows me a lot of creative freedom.
Hollow Knight’s background
design is also excellent and is
definitely inspiration to
consider when it comes to
creating my background stage

3. Limbo
A huge inspiration for
the visuals of my
game is definitely
Limbo, as the entire
game is in silhouette,
everything present in
the game is cast in
shadow with very,
very rare occurrences
of any real lighting.
Like Hollow Knight, Limbo's art style is very simplistic,
however it is of course more so due to the fact that all
aspects of the game are cast in shadow. For my final game I
want to use character designs that are silhouettes, so using
screen shots from the game as a frame of reference as well
as blacking out character from other existing products will
be useful as a reference. Limbo also uses the binary motif of
light and dark, which is another aspect that could be worth
exploring when designing my characters, UI and stage.

4. Super Street Fighter II Turbo
Street Fighter II's art
style is definitely what
I'm trying to emulate in
my final product, as well
as its sound effects that
are used for certain
moves like Hadouken
and Shoryuken. I also
like the look of the UI as
it is very simplisitic and
appropriate for the
game as it is unintrusive.
The art style for Turbo is also a point for inspiration as it
uses more modernised renders for Ryu and Ken etc but
using their original sprites as a basis, therefore making
them still iconic and true to the originals. I hope to be
able to do the reverse of this perhaps for my project, by
making 2 character renders in a similar art style to Ken
and Ryu but then using tools in photoshop to pixelate
them

5. Dragon Ball Fighterz
Dragon Ball has a very clean
and unique visual style that is
incredibly close to its source
material by use of cell-shading.
It also helps that the game,
although containing fully 3D
models is from the perspective
of 2.5D which allows for
visuals that resemble even
panels straight from the
manga for iconic moves used
in the game.
In particular I really like DBF's UI design, as all of the
healthbars, character portraits, assist icons and super meters
look incredible and dictate to the player exactly the right
amoung of information they'll need at a glance. The
healthbar shows you how much damage a move has done
and how much you can regain if you change character's very
clearly through the use of yellow against the bright red which
resembles the regainable health. The super meteors change
colour depending on what level it’s at out of 7 in total,
meaning even without looking at the stylised numbers you
can tell what super gauge you're at.

6. Research Analysis
• Some features that are common in my research
are the usage of black and white colour palettes
and unintrusive UI design. Also renders based on
pixel art that have been hand drawn based on the
original sprites
• Most aspects discussed for each piece of
researchs specifics will be used for the project,
such as the slick UI design for healthbars etc and
the silhouette work etc etc

7. Bibliography

8. Bibliography
1. Team Cherry (2017) Hollow Knight
2. Playdead (2010) Limbo
3. Capcom (1992) Super Street Fighter II Turbo
4. Arc System Works (2018) Dragon Ball Fighterz