Visual Design in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

attackfighter

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So this game always struck me as having exceptionally good visual design. It fits the atmosphere perfectly, while looking good on it's own as well. I love walking aroung the game world, admiring the scenery and exploring for any hidden details I may have missed. Here are some examples of the great visuals:

haubMh.jpg


The forboding towers in the background make it immediately clear that you're in hostile land. They form a wall surrounding the map you are in, giving you a sense of isolation. Their spikes both look foreign and intimidating, reminding you that you're an unwelcome guest in the Kuei-Jins' domain. Dark smog surrounds the towers, suggesting the dark, dystopian undertones to city life. You are truly in a World of Darkness.

In the foreground you see the picture of a happy, redhaired girl advertising food. She both fits in as a gaudy advertisement and starkly contrasts with the gloomy world around her. The Asian signs and unusual architecture reinforce the fact that you're in Chinatown's market square. In the background looms the golden temple - an artifical relic in the centre of a modern city. The lanterns strung out across the road add a touch of flare to an otherwise dark setting.

Love the design.

XRQAsh.jpg


Here in the city centre stands Venture Tower, a grand structure rising high into the night sky. The height denotes it's dominance over the city, as well as the disconnect between it's inhabitant Prince and the streets below. The red glow gives it a sinister, hellish look, warning of the abomination within. Lights shine out of the windows, illuminating the night. The sky a dark, almost purple shade of blue doesn't convey a dystopian theme like that in Chinatown, but rather a world that is the plaything for creatures of the night. The trees and benches lining the city streets give you a downtown vibe, while the hunched gargoyles looming off the walls hint at something much more supernatural.

This game just has awesome atmosphere all around, and the visuals played a huge part. Feel free to discuss.

Good evening.
 
That's on topic. And a good find too.

Troika actually lifts a lot of their designs from existing things. Some good examples are the character portraits in Arcanum; most of them were traced from historical portraits or photographs of Troika employee faces.
 
Yes, sadly Troika, despite being extremely good at the scripting and design of their games were pretty good at lifting images from other games.

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I mean, that's Daniel Day Lewis, whoever was working on the game was just too stupid to take notice of basic copyright laws. Even Firaxis isn't that bad at stealing images.
 
Wait so they are not creative enough to make simple logos/portraits so they just copy them from other places ?
 
Bloodlines is an awesome and very underrated game, which might have to do something with the fact that it was supposedly a buggy mess when it came out. Or so I heard. I only bought it after a couple of unofficial patches were out, and I never encountered any unusually bad bugs.

To be honest, the atmosphere is exceptional, but I never paid much of attention to the visual design. Except Confessions. Running a club in the shape of a church is on my list of eccentric hobbies I'll allow myself should I ever get rich.
I was most impressed with the facial expressions and the writing/scripting at the time. The game has one of the scariest levels I ever saw in a game (during my first playthrough at least) and that level doesn't even have any enemies.

And :goodjob: for playing Tremere. It was the first clan I played in the game and it was the result I got from the questionnaire at the start. I guess I'm kind of a smart and creepy guy.
 
Wait so they are not creative enough to make simple logos/portraits so they just copy them from other places ?

I hate doing logos myself, I think it's one of the hardest things to make, and the easier one to get tired of doing. The iterations, to look for references, to work every single white space into shape, creating an isotype worthy image, etc. It's just a lot of minutia, which is why most logos are just stolen from other logos.

Worst part it's that you can get away with a lot of rough spots when illustrating, but it's really easy to shut down a logo.
 
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