Do not make game cartoonish
- Thread starter Pyramid Head
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Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
Cartoonish is a subset of "comic," though, to be fair. It's not talking about anything animated, it's talking about a particular "childish" style.
Lord Tirian
Erratic Poster
Yeah, but remember, C:BE is firmly a Civ5 spin-off, hence it is likely that they will carry over the art style (as I also pointed out regarding the trailer design). And if you look at Civ5's art direction (especially compared to CivIV or CivRev), you'll see that they really went towards more realistic, less exaggerated style, just look at this:
Spoiler :
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To be fair, Julius Caesar and Octavian Augustus are two different people.
Otherwise, yes. Civilization V had a nice art style except for the fact that I had to hover-read hexes for a while before I could tell the difference between jungles and forests.
Otherwise, yes. Civilization V had a nice art style except for the fact that I had to hover-read hexes for a while before I could tell the difference between jungles and forests.
Fabio1701
King
ha! Well played sir. Maus is indeed a great piece of work showing how disturbing cuteness can bee with a dark theme.
On the one hand (no disrespect to our fellow cfc's) I wonder how many people would appreciate the jauntedness of a cartoonish/cute look in a dystopian game. I think it would go over a lot of people's heads and, as I said, make it all the more easier for them to kill millions of people rather than think twice.
but really, from the screens it does not look like this will be a civ4/civrev type game. Those little soldiers look pretty realistic. the leader screens will seal the deal though. as will the design of messages reporting that you put 30,000 people to death when razing a base. I was quite shocked when I first got that message in SMAC. I though then "this is no ordinary civ game". In civ5 I raze left and right because they are jsut numbers, don't even say the population in the city. I assume all the newly homeless people will disperse into the country like the cockroaches they are.
Imagine getting that message with Mickey Mouse smiling at you. Must... think... happy thoughts... for Mouse.... God....
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The fact it is a video game makes it easier to kill millions of people without thinking twice. The only time I had personal moral problems with in-game actions was in Civilization IV over a massive nuclear first strike that ended up turning half the continent into a barely populated hellscape where rebels would spawn and raze the settlements heaviest hit by the bombings.
Then again. That particular save was full of, err, moral problems.
Lord Tirian
Erratic Poster
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Heres a cartoon example to consider, some images taken from X-Men, Generation Hope.
The reason I picked these pictures is because they kind of resemble mind worms, and the mutant the story is about is some super scary tentacle growing thing, almost alien - like.
So would it not be ok for CivBE to have cartoonish graphics like these? They are rather creepy, so take caution:
The reason I picked these pictures is because they kind of resemble mind worms, and the mutant the story is about is some super scary tentacle growing thing, almost alien - like.
So would it not be ok for CivBE to have cartoonish graphics like these? They are rather creepy, so take caution:
Spoiler :
Securion
Civ Veteran
Judging from the Trailer it looks fantastic. Clean, sleek, futuristic and believable/plausible.
Good work so far.
Good work so far.
KevinLancaster
Prince
That's good. It makes you think that you are playing a game, like you actually are. Eventually someone tells you that you are actually killing millions of digital people ("OMG, it's so deep!"). It can be social commentary on the nature of warfare in the information age, with drone bombardment, combat through cameras, and nuclear strategic maps. Your brand new genocide, now with extra monsters.
It's like how in original SMAC, they had nerve stapling, but never described what it actually was (I assume it's something like an amplified lobotomy); how you could overuse it if you avoided the wrath of the Planetary Council without actually realizing that you are committing atrocities. It was also your decision to be made: the game never told you what to do, which is the advantage of video games as a medium and possibly as a form of art.
I feel that DEFCON did this to a degree, but it was too simple and too obvious being based on the Cold War. With this game, you have a variety of choices and the mood could change instead of simply being depressing. Like when you are researching early tech the music is upbeat but the worse decisions you make the more moody it becomes. You could even have a colour filter like EU4 has with the seasons to amplify this, but that might be too much. Mismatching music and graphics could already make the game unsettling. CivBE: The Sci-Fi Strategy Horror Experience.
The only problem is that it has to be a game, so it has to force you to do some things in order for you to play it. Being forced to do things was a complaint I heard lodged against Spec Ops: The Line, which was a shooter which tried to deliver an Apocalypse Now style storyline. It made it more into a movie than a video game, you can't just say you can shut the game off to excuse it forcing you to do things a certain way since in real life you don't constantly have a single path through every controversial decision and you can't just shut reality off (this is debatable, technically you can do so for yourself but reality still goes on, the game doesn't give you an ending if you turn it off). I hope the CivBE "narrative"/tutorial doesn't tell you some stupid lie like nerve stapling (or whatever it's called in BE) is the only way to solve riots. You could then say "Oh I was just following what the game told me to do" but the whole point of it is that YOU are in charge, YOU are the faction leader, YOU did this.
With SMAC the one thing that felt forced made sense: technological progress. Even if you disagreed with what your scientists were doing (given in the little blurbs that only appeared when you discovered a new tech for whatever reason) you had to keep up with your competitors, and this is true in reality as well. Most other things were left up to you. It would be nice if CivBE doesn't railroad players into one of the three affinities, since they aren't exactly the only ways of progression. Alpha Centauri's tech categories of Explore, Discover, Build, and Conquer were good in the they were generic, and each had its advantages and you didn't have to switch social policies upon discovery of a technology which enabled them, but in the end if you wanted to match wits with the other factions you needed research balance.
What's really nice about Beyond Earth is that it's really about us, about our generation and onward, and it could be a serious reflection of humanity in the 21st century. We can't just say, oh we can go warmongering because we're playing as Genghis Khan and this is the 12th century. We usually consider themselves, implicitly if not explicitly, better than that now; but are we really better than we were in the past? If done subtly, not pretentiously, BE could really be a great work; something to be studied, to be considered in discussion. A unique creative experience, not just something to be played with.
EDIT: Should I email this to them?
SammyKhalifa
Deity
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Lord Tirian
Erratic Poster
On the flipside, it's a difficult walk: if you make it too much of a game, too "cartoonish", your mind won't fill in the blanks. That's what made SMAC so great. There was implied story, but it was fragmented, told in quotes and vignettes.
It was these snippets together with the eerie atmosphere that came together and gave you that dystopian, alien feel. With a game like Civ, you have history to create resonance - but with a created universe, you fight an uphill battle.
Hence, my hope for a realistic art style and atmosphere. And I think the "clean" Mass Effect/Elysium-style visuals (and vibe) can work for that: they're neutral enough to be interpreted either as optimistic future or as being a ruler in an ivory tower, away from actual reality - much like DEFCON's super-clean and abstract graphics juxtaposed with the chillingly quiet soundtrack on some level made it worse than more graphic, more gritty imagery.
KevinLancaster
Prince
Yeah that's why later I just said mismatching imagery and sounds (after reading some posts I made while writing mine), it doesn't have to be cartoony (we're not making Toy Story 3 here) in fact it would be better with what you said because of ambiguity.
I hope the realistic look they shoot for is "how our planet really looks like under sunlight". And not realistic as in "looks like somebody's poorly lit basement". The latter is too prevalent among videogames nowadays, especially in modern shooters.
KevinLancaster
Prince
What do you think of this?
Attachments
The greens on the flora could be a little more vibrant. It looks nice though.
I just don't want to repeat the debate that went on in other games, with Diablo 3 being a very good example. People complained too much that the outdoor areas were too bright and cartoony. They wanted it to resemble their parents' dimly lit basement, which is what they view as "realistic".
Fabio1701
King
And then game he rainbowland bonus stage.
I actually thought the D3 graphics were nice, plenty dark enough. no point in having a super expensive graphics card when all you are seeing is someone's poorly lit basement.