Graphical Styles

Graphical Styles

Graphical styles are different art designs in a videogame. These determine how the game looks and it can influence what the game is like. Graphical style is very important in gaming especially when you consider what category the game is in or how the gameplay is intended to play out. The most common art designs in a videogame are; photo realistic, abstraction, cel-shading and exaggeration.

Photo realistic- this type of graphical style tries to make the game as realistic as possible by the use of textures, shading and paying attention to detail. This adds a realism that many games today try to improve continuously; some of today’s games even imitate real life landmarks to add realism to the game. The games that have this graphical style are games like Call of Duty, Assassins Creed, and Battlefield. These games have been made to look as realistic as possible. 

Abstraction- game isn't used often in the gaming industry and is mainly used by independent game manufacturers. Abstraction is where the animations are not realistic. Lots of iOS games are like this for example Angry Birds is an abstraction game; the games also tend to be bright and colorful, attracting younger age groups.

Cel-shading- is a type of non-photorealistic rendering, aimed to give the appearance of hand drawn graphics. This is often used to copy a cartoon or comic book style; it is often recognized with having a thick/bold black line around features of the drawings. These games are mostly fun and usually appeal to kids. Some examples of video games are Dragon Quest Viii and The Legend of Zelda.

Exaggeration- Exaggeration is where the style of the game is very over the top. From the sizes of the Characters, Environment’s and other aspects of the game are slightly or majorly out of proportion. The Japanese and the Chinese mainly make games like this. Some examples of games that use exaggeration are; Too Human, Final Fantasy and FEZ. These game styles can be very popula
r for showing off character’s exaggerated characteristics e.g big colorful hair.

 

Overall out of all the graphical styles photo realistic is one of the most popular to be used in a game. I play a lot of Call of Duty, which comes under photo realistic. Also a lot of people tend to play abstraction this is many because a lot of games are on iOS and people play on them on buses, trains and on the move.