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Visuals in Games

Define visual design in the context of video games.

Explain the significance of visual aesthetics in game development.

Play: Pictonary

📝Critical Thinking | 🕒20 minutes | 📂Required Resources: Taboo cards

This activity is designed to help students recognize how visuals affect a game.

Discussion

Play a round of Pictionary, after which discussion how are visuals used in the game? Do artistic skills equare to overall wins? What player type is this game designed for? What makes a this game engaging?

Visual Design Considerations​

When talking about game visuals, designers and players alike will often use the term aesthetics. While aesthetics is generally defined as something pleasing in appearance, it does not always equate directly to the visual elements within the game.

In this context the term aesthetics is more representative of the game atmosphere which can also be thought as the overall style of the game. While the individual visual elements or graphics are often used to discuss a games atmosphere these elements alone do not ensure a good game atmosphere (i.e. aesthetics).

Why High Resolution Graphics Aren't Enough

Visual Fidelity and Performance​

One major concern for video game designers is balancing visual fidelity and performance. Visual fidelity is the quality of the visuals, that provides high accuracy (i.e more detail) and no visual distortion or information loss. High visual fidelity will often require more computer processing to render, which make limit the amount of processing power to actually play the game; which could ultimately lead to game lag.

In order to balance visual fidelity with performance, designers need to first identify what are the technology limitations of the target player, will they expected to be playing this game on a mobile device or a high-end gaming PC?

Optimizing game assets can also help to improve performance. One way to optimize visuals is to make use of the Design principle of simplicity. In other words, simplifying the visuals of unnecessary details without compromising the effect of the visuals in the overall game atmosphere.