As players advance through the levels, they feel a sense of pride and accomplishment that motivates them to play more and achieve all rewards. However, what seems easy on the front is a challenging task to take on the backside. A lot goes into game level design to make them engaging and adventurous.

You will know if you have ever tried designing, and you wouldn’t if you never gave it a try. If you want to learn how to design game levels, then our game level design guide will take you through the process and tell you the do’s and don’ts of it. If you want to invest in game level design then it will walk you through the process and help you hire the best professionals for the work.

So read further to understand game level designing in depth.

What is Game Level Design?

Game level design is the foundation upon which a game’s entire experience is built. It is the bridge between imagination and immersion, where players step into the world level-designers have crafted.

In other words, game-level design is the process of developing various environments, spaces, challenges, and experiences within a video game. It includes creating structures, layouts, objects, enemies, interactions, and visual elements that make up the individual levels or stages of the game.

The primary goal of level designing is to offer an engaging, entertaining, and memorable experience to players that keeps them hooked to the game for a long time.

What is the Correlation Between Game Genre and Level Designing?

There are various types and genres of games, each with its unique characteristics, mechanics, and gameplay experiences. You have to design your levels, keeping the game type in mind.

For example, levels in platformer games include challenging jumps, moving platforms, and other creative obstacles. Whereas shooter games feature open spaces for gunfights, cover elements, chokepoints, vantage points, strategic weapon placements, and tactical positioning.

Contrary to this, open-world environment games have an immersive world with diverse regions, dungeons, towns, hidden secrets, multiple paths to explore, and different points of interest. On the other hand, puzzle game levels present clues, interactive elements, and environmental puzzles.

These examples are just the beginning of the connection. There are many other types of games that you have to evaluate and understand before you start working on the game-level design.

Important Parameters of Level Designing

Game level design comprises various parameters that support the creation of balanced, adventurous, and immersive game environments. These parameters shape the gameplay experience and demonstrate how the levels fit into the game design. Here are some of the key parameters of the process.

Research & Analysis

Start with figuring out the basics of game-level design and familiarize yourself with the game genre, layout, and mechanics. Analyze levels of other games of similar genres and determine what works for them and what does not. Examine their layouts, mechanics, features, pacing, obstacles, and rewards, and use visual and audio cues to understand the player’s interest and interactions.

Take inspiration from real-world locations, historical settings, landscapes, and architecture. Their models will help you create believable and distinguished surroundings. Review game design documents and their narratives and objectives and align your vision accordingly.

Concept

Before you start designing game levels, have a clear concept in your mind. A well-detailed concept outlines the overarching idea, theme, and purpose of the level creation. It influences every aspect of the design process, provides a clear vision, and helps designers make decisions about the layout, visuals, gameplay mechanics, and other elements.

Summarize the core ideas and game premise, providing a brief overview of the main features. Define game settings, including atmosphere, period, culture, and other setups.

Gameplay Mechanics

You must define game mechanics because they create the rules and systems that govern gameplay experience and player’s interaction with the game. These mechanics decide the order of levels and their creation, the player’s communication with the game, challenges and obstacles, etc. Game mechanics are the core components of any game, and you must outline them before designing the game levels.

Storytelling

Strong storytelling adds context, depth, and emotional engagement to the game. You should set up a backstory with a clear aim, and players must know what your character intends to achieve in the game. What’s the character’s backstory, and why is it playing the game? Figure it out all before you start the design process.

In a nutshell, when levels are designed with storytelling in mind, they become more immersive and engaging for players.

What are the Stages of Game Level Design?

Game level development involves a series of stages that transform initial concepts into fully realized and playable environments. These stages ensure proper alignment and balance of these levels. Below-mentioned is the preview of the process:

Outline Narratives and Backstory

Think of a backstory you would like to put in the level and place the elements gradually. Each level has a story to tell and a mission to achieve. You have to guide the player through this mission and encourage them to achieve the objective.

Moreover, these narrative elements and backstories help players immerse in the game world, providing context for their actions. So, you should also outline these factors and integrate them into the game.

To do so, start by understanding the overarching game narratives, including the main story, plot, theme, key characters, and their motives. You should know how these narratives fit into the broader context and make an impact.

Also, understand the specific role and backstory that the level plays in advancing the game further. Define its critical points, character development moments, and side quests, adding depth to the gameplay.

Sketching

Use all the collected references and research to visualize the level design and layout. Choose design tools you are comfortable with. You can take paper and pencil or digital tools, like graphic tablets and design software. It’s your choice.

Before putting it down on the paper, define the scale of your sketch. For example, how is it supposed to look, and what will be the overview of the entire level? What will be the role of the player on the stage? How will it lead the player, and what rewards and obstacles does it offer? Start drawing the sketch and add details once you figure out these objectives.

Begin the sketch with a rough outline and use basic geometric shapes to display rooms, corridors, pathways, and other major landmarks. Adjust their size and metrics according to the decided shape and layout.

Sketch out prime locations of player engagement, objectives, puzzles, enemies, and interactive objects to give an arch to the game level. Gradually add fine details to the sketch and include environmental features, terrain, and structures, giving it a sense of the real world. Plan the pacing of the level and mark the moments of tension, exploration, and rest.

Create different variations and multiple sketches of a single design. Explore alternative pathways, placement of key elements, and gameplay scenarios before choosing the final sketch.

Blockout

The Blockout stage is the initial phase of building a basic, simplified version of a game level with primitive shapes and placeholders. The version serves as a rough framework for the layout, mechanics, and spatial arrangement. Designers can test and iterate this framework to ensure performance, balance, and flow before investing time in building detailed art assets. You can follow this process to create a Blockout of the game level.

Choose your software for 3D modeling from Blender, Unreal Engine, SketchUp, Unity, etc. Then create a rough design using the sketch and place basic geometric shapes, like cubes, cylinders, and planes, representing the sketch design. Get proportions and overall shapes in the right order, mass, and volume.

Blockout large structures like floors, platforms, walls, ceilings, and other landmarks with simple shapes, defining the pathways and areas of the gameplay. Arrange these structures to achieve the proper spatial arrangement and flow while considering the player’s movement, potential checkpoints, and open spaces during the arrangement.

Define the playable space and leave enough room for players to move around, jump, run, and interact with objects in the game. Put placeholders, including puzzles, indications, switches, doors, collectibles, enemies, etc. These placeholders will help you test the element coordination with the game level layout.

Blockout all elements and create an efficient layout while minimizing unrequired complexities. Test it thoroughly to know how the final design will look after deployment and make adjustments according to your experience and opinion.

Gray Boxing

Gray boxing refers to creating a more refined version of the game level by replacing the geometric shapes and placeholders of the blockout model with untextured and monochromatic 3D models.

These models represent the level layout, scale, and gameplay features and serve as an intermediary step between the initial Blockout phase and the final level design. The version makes it easier for artists and designers to align their visions and understand the placement of these elements within the environment.

Replace the geometric shapes of the blockout with less detailed 3D models, representing the elements firmly.

Take the support of basic shapes, extrusions, and simple forms to display structures and objects, but avoid intricate details at this stage and keep them for the next one.

Check the objects and level design alignment and keep the color palette monochromatic. You can also try using basic or neutral colors to keep the focus on gameplay and layout rather than visual aesthetics.

Level Designs of Variable Difficulties

After grayboxing, work on the type of level you want to build for your game. Two types of level designs with variable difficulties are as follows:

1. Level Designs with Easy Difficulties

When designing levels for easy difficulties, the primary goal is to provide a more accessible and enjoyable experience for players who may be new to the game or prefer a less challenging experience.

While designing levels with easy difficulties, the main aim is to provide a more accessible and less challenging experience to the players. These levels have simplified obstacles, reduced enemy difficulties, more ammunition and power packs, clear objectives, better chances of survival, lower time pressure, optional challenges, balanced progression, adjustable settings, etc.

When you start working on the design, you must focus on making them more intuitive and forgiving. Along with it, you should reduce the complexity and difficulty of puzzles, platforming sections, or combat encounters.

If your game has combats, make enemies less aggressive and minimize their health risks and damage output. Ensure that fights are easy to win without requiring expert skills.

Reduce hazards like traps, bottomless pits, or environmental dangers. Make the environment less lethal and forgiving, and minimize the chances of falling or making mistakes.

2. Level Designs with Hard Difficulties

While creating levels with hard difficulties, focus on offering a satisfying, effortful, and challenging experience while maintaining fairness. Your players should win the game, but not that easily.

These levels have complex puzzles and challenges, aggressive and powerful enemies, limited checkpoints, fewer chances and resources, time-bound challenges, deadly hazards, traps, and other hardships. These difficulties offer a thrilling ride to players that is hard to master and conquer.

During the design phase, you should put the difficulties and well-designed challenges at the level and avoid introducing unfair mechanics or enemy behaviors. Players must feel that success is achievable but with skill and strategy.

In combat scenarios, make enemies more durable, aggressive, hard to defeat, and intelligent. Let the players achieve victory through clear strategies and advanced tactics.

Encourage proper management of resources and reduce the availability of health packs, ammunition, and power-ups.

Make objectives less obvious and require players to think critically and explore thoroughly to progress. Avoid excessive hand-holding or clear markers.

Provide less time to finish the game and add urgency, forcing players to make quick decisions.

Make hazards and traps more deadly and perilous, but provide clear visual clues to help players get through them.

Character Engagement

Character engagement with the game, environment, collectibles, and enemies is a significant part of level designing. You must design these parts, keeping engagement, exploration, and exploration in mind. Here is a basic overview of this process.

1. Character Interaction with Environment

To ensure proper character engagement with the environment, put yourself in the player’s shoes and think about the game. Ponder over the facts, like what will make the game more interesting or character relatable? Also, consider the player’s expectations, desires, and motivations.

Outline goals, rewards, and obstacles in the environment for players within the level. Plan for character development and growth over time and allow them to make decisions, evolve in the atmosphere, and face challenges.

Use storytelling techniques, including dialogues, cutscenes, and in-game events, to evoke emotional responses from players.

Design landscapes, architecture, props, and other required elements, keeping character interaction in mind. Also, design surface details and choose colors and material properties defining the visual appearance of the assets.

Properly define the environment, so your character interacts with it. Some players just rush through the layout in search of victory or rewards without interacting with the environment. Make sure your players don’t follow this.

2. Character Interaction with Collectables

Apart from interaction with the environment, collecting items also plays a role in diversifying the player’s engagement.

To enhance the interaction, make collectibles visually distinct from the environment. Use contrasting colors and unique shapes of glowing effects to draw attention.

Use audio cues or sounds like soft chimes or others during the pickup of each collectible.

Integrate a clear system that displays players’ progress in collecting items. You can add a counter, progress bar, or checklist with received collectibles.

Put collectibles in different locations, hidden areas, branching paths, and secret passages and attach rewards or achievements with them.

Use indicators to direct players near the collectibles and put visual and auditory cues like highlights or ping on the minimap to help players locate the items.

3. Character Engagement with Enemies

Design a wide range of enemies or a few powerful ones, each with unique abilities, behaviors, and weaknesses. The variety of enemies will encourage players to adapt to better strategies.

Implement intelligent enemies using AI that can react to players’ actions and make tactical decisions.

You can keep different weapons or powers to fight different enemies. The variety will extend the game and keep it unique till the end.

Design levels with environmental elements like destructible objects, cover, traps, and hazards. Allow enemies and players to use these elements during the gameplay.

Give enemies clear visual or audio cues before they execute powerful attacks. It will allow players to react and strategize, adding an element of anticipation and skill.

4. Accessibility of the Environment

Make the environment, landscapes, architecture, props, and other required elements easily accessible for players.

An accessible environment will make players feel connected to the game world, storyline, characters, and challenges they encounter. It will make them feel like they are a part of the world and must achieve victory to survive the ordeals.

Maintain flow and pacing to avoid player’s inactivity and frustration during the breakdowns. Proper pacing and flow ensure a balanced classification of levels and challenges.

From here, we will move on to post design steps of the process. These steps will enhance the overall look and feel of the design and provide final outputs.

Polishing

Integrate all elements and move to polishing to execute the process. The stage involves implementing final touches and refinements to the game level. This stage is all about adding the extra layer of detail, immersion, and quality that makes the game level visually appealing.

Adjust the placement of objects, enemies, obstacles, and interactive elements to ensure a seamless gameplay experience for the player through the level. Improve the visual quality of the level by refining textures, lighting, and effects.

Ensure the game level’s aesthetic alignment with the game’s overall art style and narrative, add more details, enhance textures, adjust color palettes, and refine visual effects. Now, move to the audio elements and review background music, ambient sounds, and special effects. Improve their quality before proceeding to the level testing stage.

Testing and Finalization

Review the layout and conduct quality assurance testing to identify last-minute issues that might have occurred during the polishing process. Address technical issues and fix bugs at the level, including collision problems, AI behavior issues, scripting errors, etc.

Refine user interface elements, like health bars, minimaps, and objective indicators, ensuring their integrations with the level. Perform a final pass of the level to ensure its cohesiveness and make sure all the individual elements work together seamlessly.

What is Bad Level Design?

Bad game-level designs consist of elements that hinder the gameplay experience and disrupt immersion, making the game frustrating and unenjoyable for players. It may have unfair difficulty spikes, poorly placed checkpoints, cluttered and chaotic layouts, repetitive environments, unintuitive puzzles, unresponsive controls, etc.

These levels lack clarity, responsiveness, variety, and visual interest, making the gameplay monotonous, frustrating, and hard to navigate. You can understand bad game-level design with examples:

• If a game has a sudden boss fight, that is more challenging and almost impossible to win compared to previous encounters. Then, it will lead players to uncountable failures and frustration.
• Another scenario of irritation and disinterest could be players repeating a lengthy platforming sequence every time they die.
• If a game doesn’t explain its goals or mechanics adequately, players may feel aimless.
• If a game has unreliable and sudden collision detection, the player may experience frustration while trying to navigate through the obstacles.
• If a challenging side quest offers an unnecessary or underwhelming reward, then players may see the level as a waste of time.

There could be many other examples of bad game level design. You should test it multiple times and make edits according to the player’s behavior and preference to avoid such designs.

Do’s of Game Level Development

The game level design process is a combination of creativity, technical skills, and a deep understanding of player engagement. There are many things to consider while working on design. Below are some of the most important ones:

• Start with a simple layout, slowly put forward new levels, challenges, and obstacles, and allow players to progress, learn, and adapt to the game with time.
• Keep hidden secrets, areas, and rewards throughout the level and encourage players to explore the environment to get them.
• Balance obstacles and intense actions with easy segments, maintain pacing and leave some time for players to relax.
• Use environmental and visual cues to guide players and spike points of interest.
• Experiment with different playstyles and design comprehensive levels catering to various approaches and strategies.
• Collect player data, behavior, completion and engagement times, and other information. Analyze these details to identify areas of improvement.

Don’ts of Game Level Development

It is necessary to avoid certain pitfalls and common mistakes to refrain from damage and technical errors. Here are some of the most important ones:

• Avoid overloading levels with too many elements, rewards, challenges, and elements that could confuse or frustrate players. Anything in excess amount will lose its value.
• Don’t use excessive tutorials or try to guide everywhere. Let players discover mechanics through gameplay.
• Don’t create challenges that support luck or trial-and-error methods. Your challenges should be based on skills and strategies.
• Avoid making the game too hard to play or win. There has to be a limit to difficulties or obstacles. Otherwise, too many failures will frustrate players and diminish their interest.
• Do not directly copy level designs from other similar games without comprehending their mechanics and storyline. You can use them as a reference and adapt and integrate successful design principles into your work.
• Don’t design dead ends that confuse players and restrict their movements. Always keep a way for them to switch the level or move to the next point.
• Don’t make the level seem unrealistic or out of place for players. You can experiment with unique layouts and concepts, but ensure they fit into the game properly.

Required Skill Set for Game Level Design

Game level design is a multidisciplinary field that requires years-long experience and a diverse skill set. You should evaluate the following skills while choosing developers to design levels for your game.

• Expertise using the latest game engines like Unreal Engine and Unity. You must have scripting abilities and know how to use their level editing tools.
• Experience with 3D modeling software like Blender and Maya to build and modify game levels.
• Knowledge of level editing tools like Unity’s Terrain tools and Unreal Engine’s Landscape Editor.
• Familiar with scripting like C# for Unity and Blueprint Visual Scripting for Unreal Engine to create interactive elements and behaviors in your levels.
• Strong knowledge of lighting techniques and shaders for visual effects to set the mood and atmosphere of game levels according to the selected theme.
• Understanding of collision detection and physics systems to make the object interactions believable for players.
• Proficiency in implementing user interface and user experience principles, intuitive HUD elements, and menus in game-level design.
• Skilled in optimizing levels for performance enhancement, draw calls reduction, LOD (Level of Detail) techniques implementation, and asset management.
• Ability to integrate sound effects and music, AI behaviors, NPCs, and interactive elements in the atmosphere and game levels.
• Skilled in creating clear and precise design documents and level notes and using level design patterns and principles such as pacing, player flow, challenge progression, etc.

Why Choose 300Mind for Game Level Development?

Game level design is a specialized field and requires extensive expertise to create level layouts, environments, structures, challenges, and overall experiences that players interact with. You must hire expert-level designers to pace the gameplay and integrate advanced features and moments of thrill, exploration, and relaxation for players.

300Mind is a reputed game design studio and your perfect design partner. Our level designers weave the narratives seamlessly into the gameplay environment. They analyze game layout, theme, design principles, technical constraints, user response, market demand, and many other factors before finalizing the level design for your game.

Our team builds levels that are easy to navigate for beginners and adventurous for hardcore gamers. We help you serve a wide range of audiences, propelling the growth of your game to the ladder of great success.

FAQs on Game Level Design

The post Comprehensive Guide to Game Level Design: From Architects to Adventure appeared first on 300Mind Blog.

All you need is an apt guide that helps you with understanding the concept of 2D game art, different types of 2D game art styles, a process to create amazing 2D game art along with many insightful things.

This could make the process of designing your 2D game art much more fun. Let’s begin learning:

What is 2D Game Art?

2D game art refers to the digital graphics used in 2D video games. It encompasses all the visual elements of the game, including the game characters, backgrounds, environments, items, and user interface (UI) elements.

2D game art is typically created using digital art software, such as Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, and can be made by professional game artists or amateur game developers.

The art style can range from pixel art to vector art and can include hand-drawn illustrations, digital paintings, or 3D models rendered in a 2D format.

The quality of the 2D game art can greatly impact the player’s experience and the overall success of the game. A desirable 2D game art is visually appealing, consistent with the game’s themes and style, and effectively communicates information to the player. It can also help to create a memorable and immersive game world that draws players in and keeps them engaged.

What are the Different Types of 2D Game Art Styles?

Here are different types of 2D game art styles in detail, let’s take a look at them in detail:

Pixel Art 2D

Pixel art is one of the most popular 2D game art styles in the field of gaming. A pixel is nothing but a basic tiny object that is combined with a bundle of other pixels to create a shape or character.

But the crux is that people generally consider pixel art animation as a conventional art approach; it was used with early video games and arcades but it’s still in use. Pixel art brings out nostalgia and the Pokemon game is the big-time example of the same. You will get to see this art in many latest games.

Monochromatic Art

Monochromatic games are the lover of black, white, and grey themes. Popular games like World of Horror – 80, Aviary Attorney: Definitive Edition – 81, West of Loathing – 87, Hidden Folks – 83, Return of the Obra Dinn – 89, Contre Jour – 93, and so on, these games are the ideal examples of monochromatic games.

However, if we talk about the concept of monochromatic games, it has nothing to do with black and white color specifically, the concept of monochromatic games revolves around the usage of a very limited combination of colors or color palettes.

Flat Art

There are no boundaries to creativity when it comes to creating a game with flat art. Not that other 2D game art styles do not allow artists to turn on their creative cells. But when it comes to the flat art style, there is no such thing as depth or volume in it.

The concept of flat art does not revolve around the rules of physics or realism thus artists have their free hand to try anything out. Whatever fits well to the concept of the game is finalized.

Cutout Art

The concept of cutout art is mainly based on animation. In this art, this style mimics pictures on paper that are cut out and imported on a new plane/medium. Let’s make it clearer for you, you can create a digital asset of a character on a computer or import a paper cutout into it. At that stage, it becomes part of the game’s world.

Moreover, the cutout image remains unchanging, but the designer can move the image to simulate action and motion, and it can be immediately replaced by a different cutout to simulate a change in state.

Doodle Art

Doodle 2D game art refers to a specific style of 2D game art that features whimsical, hand-drawn, and often simplified illustrations. It is characterized by its playful, sketch-like appearance, typically resembling doodles or drawings made with pen or pencil.

Doodle 2D game art often incorporates loose and organic lines, minimal shading, and vibrant colors. It may include characters, objects, and environments that are visually simplified, featuring exaggerated proportions or stylized forms. The art style is generally lighthearted, and charming, and has a casual, DIY aesthetic.

This art style has gained popularity in indie games, mobile games, and casual games due to its accessibility, unique look, and ability to evoke a sense of creativity and nostalgia. Doodle 2D game art can be created using traditional mediums and scanned into digital formats or directly created digitally using digital art software.

Cel Shading Game Art

Cel shading 2D game art, also known as toon shading, is a specific art style used in 2D games that aims to mimic the appearance of traditional hand-drawn cel animation. It involves applying a flat, solid color to objects and characters in the game, giving them a cartoony, comic book-like appearance.

Cel shading 2D game art typically uses bold, well-defined outlines around characters and objects, similar to the black ink lines seen in traditional animation. The colors are typically bright and vibrant, often with minimal shading or gradients. This style creates a visually striking, high-contrast look that emphasizes the graphic nature of the game.

The purpose of cel-shading in 2D games is to evoke a specific aesthetic and create a stylized, animated feel. It can give games a unique and eye-catching look, reminiscent of classic cartoons or comic books. Cel shading can be used in a variety of game genres, ranging from platformers and action games to role-playing games (RPGs) and visual novels.

Cel shading can be achieved using various digital art software, including Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or dedicated game development tools. Artists may create art assets by hand-drawing them and scanning them into digital format or by digitally creating them.

Now that we have come to know about different 2D game art styles, let’s move forward with learning about the process of creating 2D game art.

How to Create 2D Game Art Style From Scratch

Here is the process that will properly guide you throughout creating the 2D game art from scratch to the end. Let’s learn about the same in detail:

1. Choosing a Game Style

This is the first step of creating the 2D game art: choosing a game style. As we learned above, there is a different kind of 2D game art styles, it depends on the requirement of clients’ gaming projects.

Either they come up to you with their ideas of creating a game along with selecting a gaming style or they hand it over to you to take a call.

Moreover, if the client hands over the responsibility of creating the game from scratch including finalizing the 2D game art style, then your chain of thought will be totally different. You got to consider thinking about what game genres are best suited to 2D art. Generally, 2D art goes well with almost every genre.

If we talk about some of them, such as pixel art, puzzle games, visual novels, or platformers, are the most common and ideal genres for 2D game art.

2. Concept Art

Concept art plays a crucial role in the 2D game design process. It refers to the visual representation of ideas, concepts, and designs for characters, environments, objects, and other elements in a game. Concept art serves as the foundation for the overall visual direction and artistic style of the game.

In the context of 2D game design, concept art is typically created in the early stages of development. Game artists or concept artists work closely with game designers to bring their vision to life. The concept art helps to establish the look and feel of the game, setting the artistic tone and guiding the creation of assets throughout the development process.

Concept art often includes sketches, digital paintings, mood boards, color schemes, and reference images. It showcases the characters’ appearances, poses, and costumes, the environments’ atmosphere and style, and the overall visual composition of the game.

3. Draft

In order to create art, the first step is to find a composition, a form, and an initial silhouette. A mood board with references is of great help here. It is common for artists to hastily make thumbnail drawings (brief, compact, simplified drawings generally done quickly and without any adjustments). To help understand where to move further, it is important to quickly show all possible directions. A sketch is created by selecting a thumbnail, refining it, and then turning it into a final image.

4. Sketch

When you have reached the stage of sketching, you will be emphasizing design and detailings here. There are two key attributes in a sketch, line, and tone. The first one allows you to visualize design ideas and materials aptly, While the second allows you to see depth and lighting. Assets are sent to the client for final approval post-sketch creation. As soon as it gets approved, the concept is carried out for further details.

5. Color Concept

Once the concept art is approved, the creative crew moves forward to work on the color palette. Color concept is mainly about the color scheme. Concepts can be any: black & white, and colored, it all depends on the purpose of the game. For example, if the game is casual, the concept is generally hand-drawn. If the game is more complex, in that case, the artist can use a photo collage, 3D images, and other advanced tools and instruments.

6. Character Design

Character design in 2D game art typically begins with conceptualization and sketching. Artists explore different ideas, shapes, and features to develop a unique and visually appealing character. The design process involves considering various aspects, such as the character’s backstory, traits, and role in the game’s narrative.

Here’s what a detailed character design looks like, check out the key elements:

Visual Appearance

This includes the character’s overall silhouette, proportions, facial features, hairstyles, clothing, accessories, and color scheme. It aims to create a distinctive and memorable look that aligns with the game’s art style and target audience.

Personality and traits

Characters should be designed to reflect their personality traits, backstory, and role in the game. This includes considering their emotions, mannerisms, expressions, and gestures. Design choices such as body language, facial expressions, and clothing details can help convey their unique attributes.

Abilities and Skills

Depending on the game genre, characters may have specific abilities, skills, or powers. The design should visually communicate these traits, either through visual effects or distinctive elements that represent their abilities.

Animations and considerations

Character design should take into account how they will be animated in the game. Considering movement, gestures, and expressions to ensure they are visually appealing and suitable for gameplay mechanics is very important.

What Mistakes to Avoid While Creating 2D Game Art?

When creating 2D game art, there are several mistakes that you should try to avoid to ensure the quality of your artwork. Here are some common ones:

1. Poor planning

Planning is the core aspect of any game design and development process; it determines how your 2D game art is going to look after following all the steps.

Failing to plan your artwork can lead to inconsistencies and a lack of cohesion in your game art. It’s essential to have a clear concept and design before starting your artwork.

2. Not considering your target audience

Beginning directly with the game art process could be troublesome as you will be designing a game that is not well researched, and your target audience’s expectations and your creations will contradict.

A well-researched process ensures that you stand up to the users’ expectations; it prevents your process from going in vain.

3. Inconsistent Style

Maintaining a consistent art style throughout your game is important for visual coherence. Mixing incompatible styles can make your game look amateurish or disjointed. Establish a style guide or visual reference to ensure consistency.

4. Overcomplicating Designs

Complex or overly detailed artwork can be visually overwhelming, especially in the context of a game where simplicity and readability are important. Simplify your designs and focus on conveying the essential elements effectively.

5. Ignoring User Interface (UI)

Game art needs to integrate seamlessly with the user interface elements. Ignoring game UI considerations can lead to visual clashes, readability issues, or poor user experience. You need to ensure that your art complements the UI elements and does not hinder usability.

6. Lack of Iteration and Feedback

Avoid getting attached to your initial artwork without seeking feedback or iterating on your designs. Getting input from others, playtesting, and iterating can help you identify and rectify any weaknesses in your art.

Wrapping Words

So, this is it! We hope next time you get your 2D game art styled, you will surely consider these points. And of course, for excellent game design and development services, we would love to partner up with you and help you create a game that opens the doors of success for you all!

FAQs for 2D Game Art Style

The post How to Create Desirable 2D Game Art – The Ultimate Guide appeared first on 300Mind Blog.

Well, creating a game that is capable of making users spare time for it is a big deal, as there are millions of games that users have already come across! The truth is that making a game work does not rely solely on a novel concept. It takes a lot of things to be incorporated to make it big, as different teams do their part to run the process.

The line that keeps connected all the dots in the process of gaming development is game design documentation.

A game design document ensures that all the people involved in the project are on the same page. The document consists of everything related to the game that the development team and the other concerned teams are required to learn while working on the technicalities.

This article has emphasized the importance of a game design document and provided a detailed guide to creating a certain game design document, along with other necessary insights that will brush up on your knowledge about this topic and help you create a robust GDD. So, let’s roll up our sleeves and get started.

Let’s clear the concept from scratch:

What is the Game Design Document?

A game design document (GDD) is a comprehensive blueprint that outlines all aspects of a video game’s design. It is a detailed document that describes the goals, mechanics, story, art, audio, user interface, controls, levels, and other elements that make up a game.

The GDD serves as a reference for everyone involved in the game development process, including designers, programmers, artists, writers, and producers. It ensures that everyone is on the same page regarding the game’s vision, goals, and features, and helps keep the development team focused on creating a cohesive and enjoyable player experience.

What Does a Game Design Document Include?

A GDD typically includes a variety of information, including:

Concept and overview

This section describes the game’s basic concept, its genre, setting, story, and main gameplay features.

Gameplay mechanics

This section outlines the game’s core mechanics, such as controls, gameplay systems, rules, and player progression.

Level design

This section details the various levels, maps, and environments in the game, including their layout, difficulty, and objectives.

Characters and creatures

This section describes the various characters and creatures in the game, including their abilities, strengths, and weaknesses.

Art and visual design

This section details the game’s visual style, art direction, and graphical assets.

Sound and music

This section outlines the game’s audio design, including sound effects, music, and voiceover.

User interface and user experience

This section describes how the game’s interface will work and how the player will interact with the game.

Marketing and monetization

This section detail how the game will be marketed and monetized, including pricing, microtransactions, and in-game ads.

A game design document is an important tool for the game development team, as it provides a clear and detailed plan for creating the game. It also serves as a reference for stakeholders, such as investors and publishers, who may use it to evaluate the viability of the project.

Why is the Game Design Document Required?

A game design document (GDD) is a crucial document in the game development process. It serves as a blueprint for the game and outlines the game’s design, mechanics, story, characters, levels, gameplay, and more. Let’s talk about certain reasons that make it pretty important for a game development team to follow a seamless game development process.

Format and curate your ideas

Having your ideas and future plan curated in the written format helps you implement your ideas in a better way as you have everything well organized and written to be implemented. 

When your whole strategy is written on the piece of paper, you can evaluate better and reach a viable conclusion by fixing a fly in the ointment if there’s any.

GDD guides you through the whole game development process 

The process of game app development goes through many iterations right before it’s released and that’s pretty normal. In order to track every action that is taken while the process of game development, the GDD serves as an ideal assistant.

Since GDD covers all the vital components of the game design, the concerned teams can use it as a reference to make sure that the process is carried out as planned, and if any modifications have taken place, are they done in accordance with the object of the game?

So, GDD is the prime reference point throughout the entire process of game development.

GDD helps newcomers get acquainted with the game process rapidly

Team members who are working on the game are well-versed in the process and have properly gotten along with the guidelines of the game development process. But if there’s a requirement for more people to join the project, then it becomes really difficult for the new employees to get a hang of project guidelines in a short period of time.

In such cases, the game design document alleviates their difficulties, as it has everything mentioned all ready to be put into action.

GDD acts as a proof for all participants

Plan details and plans of adherents of the GDD are preferentially documented. It is also possible for the GDD to have the contract deliverables listed so that all parties will be able to see the results to be expected and know who is responsible. By doing so, the document serves as proof for all parties involved. You’ll be required to provide documentation with a detailed outline of your game when you collaborate with giant game distributors like Sony.

5 Rules to Keep in Mind while Creating a Game Design Document

Let’s move forward with learning about these 5 surprising rules that will help you create a robust game design document:

Rule no.1: Avoid creating GDD in MS office

MS Word is a suitable platform for many reasons but when it comes to creating a game design document, it is possibly not an apt tool for you. Due to its slender accessibility, the content could end up locked away on someone’s hard drive without ever getting updated or likely to be accessed.

A GDD is the prime source of reference for every member who is involved in the project, so the document has to be upgraded regularly. So, you better opt for a tool that is competent enough to be accessible and matches your requirements.

Here we are suggesting you some tools that will help you create a better game design document:

Trello

Trello is a project management tool that can be used to create game design documents. It allows you to organize ideas, assign tasks, and collaborate with team members in real-time.

Confluence

Confluence is a collaboration tool that can be used to create game design documents. It offers a wide range of features, including document version control and team collaboration.

Google Slides

Google Slides is a presentation software that can be used to create game design documents. It is a good option for creating visually appealing documents that include images and diagrams.

Lucidchart

Lucidchart is a diagramming software that can be used to create game design documents. It offers a wide range of templates and shapes that can be used to create flowcharts, wireframes, and other visual representations.

Rule no. 2: Collaboration is the key

Working as a team helps reach better and more desirable conclusions. Thus, when you are working as a team on a game development project, make sure you all are on the same page to ensure a smooth process.

Try to lay bare the details that can help the rest of the team members gain insights and work in a better to way to bear favorable results.

A game design process that involves your entire team will ensure that they feel involved in the process and the final product will be turned out to be as expected.

Rule no. 3 Pay attention to visuals, too

You won’t be able to put everything into words while creating a game design document. In such cases, mind mapping and concept art will be a source of help to put your ideas and concepts into visuals for a better understanding of the team.

Visual aids also enable team members to keep their ideas organized as the game design document keeps on modifying and evolving, and it accumulates details as the process takes measures.

Rule no. 4: Try to keep it as incisive in the beginning as possible

A game design document is filled with so much detail in different formats that it sometimes becomes quite confusing for the team to apprehend every detail. Well, its nature is bound to be comprehensive.

So, to avoid further confusion and doubt, it’s better to keep it concise in the beginning for everyone to get the hang of it. As the GDD keeps on evolving, adding details after a period of time into the document is completely okay.

Rule no. 5: Always welcome productive changes

As mentioned before, a game design document is modified and updated regularly. There is no point in treating it as a mere template as it could kill creativity by breaking down the bridge between ideas and their implementation. 

It is important to keep things agile and be prepared for the final document to differ from what you started out with. To easily undo any changes you made to your document without losing anything, make sure to keep your previous versions of the document.

A Perfect Guide to Creating a Game Design Document

Let’s refer to this guide for detailed information about the steps to create a game design document aptly:

Step 1: Name your game

For all the efforts you have put into the development of your game and a game design document; it’s equally worthy and necessary to name your game with equal efforts, too.

Giving your game app an appealing and connective name helps you with marketing strategies while launching it to seek the limelight of players; your target audience. Well, we deliberately considered naming your game a part of GDD as it sounds simple but naming your game is not really a piece of cake in hindsight.

So, when you are naming it, avail all your creative and marketing cells and come up with a splendid one.

Step 2: Description of your game

A game description is a brief knowledge of your game; a summary that briefly describes your game’s main functionalities. The key goal of creating a game description is to make the audience aware of your game’s core characteristics and what makes it unique from the other existing games.

Your motive is to add all the relevant information about the audience related to your game and make it as appealing and read-worthy as possible that executes your vision about the game.

Step 3: Prime characters of the game

Here is the mechanism that leads you to the perfect character design for your game:

Consider the game genre

The genre of the game will often determine the type of characters that will work well in the game. For example, a first-person shooter may require a tough, skilled protagonist, while a role-playing game may require a diverse group of characters with unique skills and abilities.

Determine the game’s story

The game’s story will often dictate the characters that are needed. Consider the setting, the plot, and the conflicts that will occur in the game. From there, you can determine what types of characters will be needed to tell the story.

Identify the game’s mechanics

The game mechanics will also impact the characters that are needed. Consider what types of actions the player will be taking, what types of obstacles they will face, and what types of skills will be needed to overcome them.

Sketch out the characters

Once you have a general idea of the types of characters that are needed, you can begin sketching out the characters’ basic traits, backstories, personalities, and appearance. Try to create characters that are unique, interesting, and memorable.

Step 4: Create a gameplay

Creating a gameplay section for a game design document involves outlining the core mechanics and features that will be used to engage the player throughout the game. Let’s refer to the below-mentioned points for creating perfect gameplay:

Identify the game’s genre and target audience

Understanding the game’s genre and target audience will help you create gameplay that will appeal to the intended audience. For instance, a puzzle game may require a different type of gameplay from an action-adventure game.

Define the game’s objective

The game’s objective should be clearly stated in the gameplay section. This is what the player will be trying to achieve throughout the game. For instance, the objective of a racing game may be to finish first in each race.

Identify the core mechanics

The core mechanics are the basic actions that players can take in the game. These mechanics should be designed to be engaging and intuitive, making it easy for the player to understand how to play the game. For instance, the core mechanics of a platformer game may involve jumping and dodging obstacles.

Outline the progression system

The progression system should be designed to keep the player engaged throughout the game. This includes the difficulty level of the game, the rewards for completing levels, and how the player can advance through the game.

Consider multiplayer options

If the game is designed for multiplayer, the gameplay section should outline how players can compete against each other or work together to achieve a common goal.

Step 5: Graphics and styling for making GDD visually appealing and clearer

Generally, the quality of graphics and the impact of the game environment determine the overall gaming experience. The purpose of this step is to describe the look of your game, paint a picture for designers, or include some concept art as a guide.

Step 6: Technical description

It is in this step that you discuss the different platforms where your game will be launched and the specific tools you will use to develop it. It would be helpful if you included a detailed technical description to avoid confusion later on. A cross-platform game for mobile devices or a standalone game for PC would come under this section.

Why should you Choose 300Mind for Game Design and Development Services?

Being one of the top game design and development companies, we own expertise in every facet of game development. Our proficient 3D artists and mobile game developers help you design your game that matches your expectations as well as players’ preferences.

We are into full-cycle game development right from scratch to end-to-end solutions be it; specialized game design or interactive game development. Through an artistic approach, we structure plots and characters by storyboarding and endless creative inputs. When it comes to building games, our game is never over!

So, if you are planning to hire game developers, we are the source of light for you!

And It’s a Wrap

We hope you have gotten substantial insights that will surely help you create a robust game design document that will be a source of great help in the process of game app development. I hope you will entertain your audience with a splendid game.

FAQs on Game Design Document

The post A Perfect Guide to Creating a Game Design Document appeared first on 300Mind Blog.

The aim of concept art is to transform an abstract design notion into a well-thought-out, real-world object. Concept art serves as the foundation upon which the game is built. Very often the finished artwork will only remotely resemble the original idea, yet it is critical to all forms of game development.

Without great concept art, a game could feel unpolished and incomplete to even the most casual gamer. This article takes a closer look at game concept art as a discipline and why it is so crucial to the success of your game.

What is Concept Art in the Gaming Industry

Concept art is the first stage of the creative process in which game artists take an idea described in words and try to create accurate visual representations of it. The process of creating concept art starts with quick raw sketches that allow game designers to choose between different versions and cull options to finally settle upon the most promising piece as early as possible during the pre-production stage.

With a collection of approved game concept art, you can easily handpick the ideas you feel are worth developing further. Selected sketches are then sent to the production and design teams for further enhancements and finalization.

We recommend that when you plan on developing a game, begin by working on concept art as early as possible. The sketches your artists will create will spearhead further art development. Remember to bring an experienced team of concept artists onto your project that can do justice to your game vision.

The work of a concept artist influences everything in the game world. Every single shard of tech, machinery, prop, landscape, and character within a game has been formed through iterative cycles of the concept art design.

Even tiny elements like screws in armors or belt buckles or even a bed of flowers outside an NPC’s household are drawn multiple times, sometimes even in different shapes, colors, and textures before the ‘final’ variant is found. Concept art is categorized by the multitudes of basic drawings created by artists from which only a precious few achieve the seal of approval.

It is quite common to see multiple artists working on a single piece of concept art. This is because each artist has a unique design aesthetic and an equally unique point of view. By combining the sketches of multiple concept artists and using the best components of each, you can settle upon the perfect visual rendition of your idea.

Read also: How to Design Engaging Game Art That Elevates Mobile Gaming Experience?

Types of Game Concept Art

Multiple factors go into developing a game and therefore each art form within a game is created by concept artists of separate specializations. There are multiple forms of concept art, some of which we have discussed below:

1. Character Concept Art

Character designers need concepts to build upon before they begin. While early concept sketches are usually very rough around the edges, they still demonstrate the character’s traits and features. Character concept art includes finer nuances like anatomical features, color schemes, armor, and clothing.

That is a lot of drawing. However only one or two drawings out of a pile of a hundred get selected, but that doesn’t stop character concept artists from churning out design after design.

The ideal character concept artist should be familiar not just with human anatomy but should also be conversant with animal physical traits. Games usually have meta-human characters in them (especially fantasy and sci-fi games) and these characters may have attributes of an animal, Some examples are the reptilian race of the Argonians from The Elder Scrolls.

2. Environment Concept Art

Every game has its own unique setting. It is essential for the game to display its setting accurately so that the players have a little context of where they are when they begin playing the game. Games like League of Legends have extensive lore detailing each setting and the story behind how it came to be.

From landscapes to architectural structures and other environmental elements, environment concept artists create the setting of the game’s narrative.

Regardless of whether the setting is a cyberpunk beer bar or a rolling alien landscape of crags and forests, the ideal environment concept artist must make sure that not a single element within the scene should look out of place or unnatural as this could ruin the atmosphere.

For an artist to be able to conceptualize an entire fictional environment, he must need a vivid imagination and equally strong visualization skills. Other designers will subsequently work on the environment concept artist’s initial designs And turn them into digital art within the game.

3. Prop Concept Art

Sculptures, decorated bottles, magic potions, furniture, and barrels of gunpowder; are all examples of smaller objects called props. Props help fill the environment and bring life to a scene. Take them away and your scene could look drab and empty. Prop designers create these little thingamajigs to add flavor and character to the game.

Prop concept art is probably the most open to experiments among the types of concept art. Designers can be as creative as they want and can draw inspiration from thousands of objects in our world.

There are of course limits to creative freedom as a 21st-century cell phone would be completely out of place in a medieval bar. Prop concept artists make sure that every little element of the scene is in synergy with the overall design language of the game.

4. Equipment Concept Art

While some designers say that equipment art falls under the category of prop art, this is not entirely accurate. Armor, gear, and weapons used by game characters are much bigger and have a lot more screen time than an ordinary prop. Equipment concept art also offers visual cues about the world where the game’s story unfolds.

The protagonist’s favorite gun can say a lot about his character and preferences providing a sense of completion to the final product. One example is Lara Croft’s famed double pistols from the Tomb Raider franchise.

Equipment concept artists have a good understanding of how the items they are creating will work in the real world.

Vehicle designs are also a part of the equipment concept artist’s responsibilities. Drawing a believable machine requires a good eye and a fair understanding of traditional vehicle production. Cars, ships, jets, and other vehicles have distinctive designs, so any edits made to these designs should have logic and knowledge backing up the design. Creativity must always be believable.

Main Concept Art Styles

In order to create an awesome game, you need three critical ingredients – Intuitive and engrossing gameplay, appealing graphics, and detailed concept art. It wouldn’t be an overstatement if someone told you that among these three, concept art may be the most important as through it the look and feel of the game is established. The three main concept art styles in prevalence today are:

1. Abstract

This concept art style can use abstract shapes and forms in any combination. Abstract concept art forces players to guess the purpose of the element without providing them with any context or explanation. The functions of abstract concept art elements are revealed once the player progresses within the game.

In abstract concept art, characters can be represented by simple geometric shapes like triangles or squares.

2. Stylized

We are sure that you have played Super Mario BroGames like Mario have a slightly cartoonish, exaggerated look. This art style draws inspiration from comic books and caricatures.

Stylized games usually do not have to operate within the boundaries of real-world physics, movement, etc., and yet this does not mean that a stylized game cannot be realistic. One example is Alto’s Odessy. This game is stylized yet has a very accurate physics system. Even the crazy multiplayer platformer ‘Fall Guys’ has a solid physics model in place.

3. Realistic

This is the most commonly used art style in games. Most high-ticket AAA games use a realistic concept art style. In the realistic art style everything from the game world, to the characters, their equipment, and vehicles, and every object in the environment aims to replicate items from real life as closely as possible.

This is also the go-to art style for most modern FPSs like Resident Evil, Cyberpunk 2077, and Death Stranding to name a few. Simulator games also focus strongly on realism. Examples are Forza Horizon 5 and Microsoft Flight Simulator.

How to Create Game Concept Art

Now that we have spoken at length about the ‘what’s’ and ‘why’s’ of game concept art, it’s time to touch upon the ‘how’s’ of it as well. Read on as we discuss a step-by-step process of creating highly appealing and production ready game concept art.

1. Start Small  

It’s always best to start with a small sketch or a line drawing. Once you are satisfied with the lines, shapes and overall structure of your art, you can begin building in composition details like the positioning of light and shadow as well as the overall mood of your art.

2. Set your Tone

In continuation of the first, the next step is to decide on a mood/tone for your art. Are your character and his environment a fun, happy place to be in? or is the atmosphere more serious and darker. Tonality can be captured in the form of colors used, types of edges and lines as well as props in the environment.

3. Give Your Character Life

Your character is unique. He has a way of dealing with things and is equipped accordingly. Creating a persona for your character with emotions like how angry he is with the antagonist, or how excited he is about exploring the world you have thrust him into should be clearly depicted through poses, equipment, expressions, physical-build and choice of colors.

4. Build Depth

Concept art covers both characters as well as their environments. In this stage, you should start thinking about how your character interacts with his environment as well as what the environment is.

It is very unlikely for a cyberpunk Sci-Fi landscape to have ruins of an older civilization among its mega structures. Also take components like environment temperature and overall climate so that you can use appropriate clothing, environment colors, etc.

5. Don’t Skimp on Detail

Now that you have a good base to work on top off, begin adding in minute detail.

The right texture of your character’s cape or an accurate depiction of the metal tower that looms ahead are elements that will draw the viewer into picturing the final product in the exact way you intended.

In Summation: Concept Art is a Must-Have

The creation of game concept art requires a deep understanding of both art and game design. The ideal concept artist will know that for a graphically light project, he should use the abstract style, thus reducing the TAT of art production and realistic art for a game set close to our timeline. Choosing a stylized or realistic art style makes the process a little more nuanced and requires specialists.

Since not every investor or publisher has his own art studio, outsourcing concept art has risen as a cost-effective yet hyper-efficient and high-quality alternative. Whether you require basic artwork and concepts for your next game or a team that can take care of the entire project, 300Mind can prove to be the perfect partner.

Why Choose 300Mind for your Game Concept Art

With a team of vetted professionals deployable to every concept art design aesthetic requirement, 300Mind offers end-to-end game concept art design and development services.

Right from initial concept design and on to full-scale game design and development, rest assured that with 300Mind, your game design is as much of a sure-fire as a desert eagle headshot.

FAQs on Game Concept Art

The post Game Concept Art: A Comprehensive Analysis appeared first on 300Mind Blog.

It’s always graphics/visuals and effects – that live at the heart of a game, aren’t they?

The visual style depicts the tone of your game and sets benchmarks for players’ commitment to the game. Hence, your game’s visual aesthetics should take your game design in a much more meaningful, storytelling, and creative way that elevates your gamers’ excitement level for the gaming experience to cloud nine.

And in the topic of the game, this visual aesthetics refers to “Game Art”, which is a prime stage in the game design process that can’t afford a single error.

That’s the main concern behind curating this guide for game art design with the help of game design experts at 300Mind.

Ahh…! Caught your excitement to dive into the ocean of game art design! So, let’s explore the matter of game art.

What Is Game Art Design?

The game art design is the core process of game development that creates artistic dimensions for video games. You can even call it a pre-production phase of a game design process, which covers all game elements, including the game world, characters, settings, props, etc.

Game designers – the game artists – create all these game concept designs before shifting these game pieces for the actualization – the development phase.

Some experts do call this game art design “programmer art” – involving more game artists and technical artists to convert the rough game element sketches into digital visuals.

Source: 3D Character Modeling for Games

As the game design is a broad term, it includes two or more game artists creating different game visual elements as each artist based on specializations.

At 300Mind, we have a dedicated team of game artists with varying expertise in the game art design areas who can help you meet varying game conceptualization, design, and development requirements.

As the game art design covers so many aspects, it becomes necessary for you to know to not leave loopholes in your game artistic medium.

Video Game Graphics Terms To Know Before Getting Started With Game Art Design

Game design is itself an extensive process. Below are some primary game design terms that all game artists should know about:

1. Pixel

A pixel is a minute of an area or a tiny square of colored illumination on a digital screen that composes many forms of visuals.

2. Pixel Art

Pixel art is a type of 2D visual art that composes and renders pixels to animate the game characters; and thus, the whole game world. It cites early video game aesthetics that are highly praised and marketed by world-class video game console firms, including Super – Nintendo Entertainment System (S/NES) and Sega Genesis.

3. Low-Poly Design Art

Low poly is a composition of 3D polygon-based visuals with relatively fewer polygons per mesh (around 300+ polygons). Because of this characteristic, low-poly design arts are highly used in real-time scenarios (online games) – contrary to high-poly design arts that are being used in animated movies and videos with special effects.

Low-poly design arts are used in many famous games that we have played, and many people are still playing those games, including Subway Surfer, Clash of Clans, Temple Run, and most arcade games.

Source: Medieval Bar Interior

4. High-Poly Design Art

Simply put, high poly is a 3D visual art composed of high numbers of polygons per mesh (1000+ polygons for mobile games). This type of high poly mesh is also known as high-quality animation with more realistic and detailed structures.

Due to this, since inception, high poly design arts have been in high demand and widely used in AAA titles, games offering real-world-like scenarios (AR/VR games), etc.

Source: Medieval Weapons

Now that you have basic knowledge of game art components, it’s appropriate to move to the process of creating the ultimate game art design.

Best Practices to Create A Compelling Game Art Design

If we see the design approach for video games, it changes with the type of games and the game system. It’s obvious that a game cannot directly go into development before the Game Art, which is created by doing tons of experiments for the game concept.

Here are the tips for creating game art that game visual experts use:

1. Pre-Production: The Game Concept Inception

It is evident that every product-based company is always in a hurry to launch its products into the market as soon as possible. But in order to meet such requirements, giving less priority to the game story inception process should never fall into the plan. Hence, you have to ensure to follow the proper process before jumping to the design part.

Competitor Research & Reference

Of course, as you’re planning to develop your dream game, you must have your game genre and future plans pre-decided. So, it’s time to do some competitor research on related game projects that are the best in the market.

For this moment, just collect references and highlight the best art features you like from their game art. This competitor analysis will help you figure out the good things to add and the unappealing game art style to avoid.

You can even learn about the preferences of your target game players from the research, using which you can create unique game art that your audience would love to explore.

A Strong Backstory

Whether it is a movie or a game, a strong backstory for the game world, characters, and plots play an important role in designing creative game art. This helps game artists to visualize further game art inspirations.

Game Concept Art Documentation

Once all the planning and brainstorming work for the game art design is done, it is always the best practice to document the video game concept with detailed 2D sketches of game elements.

However, the approach to creating a game concept art depends on the game artist, like whether to sketch it on paper first or directly experiment with the software – Autodesk Sketchbook.

2. Hire World-Class Mobile Game Artists

The game’s strategic planning is done, but you also need someone to execute your game design. And that’s where it creates a need for game artists.

Professional game artists to whom you’ll give your game concept art design project will help you accomplish the following tasks:

1. Finalize the best-fit game art style for your game idea.
2. Extensively collaborate with your game creative team to aid the visuals.
3. Helps to anchor the game aesthetics with functionalities, which is highly advised for mobile game development.

Looking for the best game designers in India, then 300Mind Game Studio is the best-fit team of Game Artists and Developers that can prioritize to meet your game design and development requirements.

3. Delve Into the Mobile Game Art Design Principles

Usually, when designing a game for different devices, technical artists have to take care of many factors. And the slightest calculation mistake could create chaos in the game design to match up with the device compatibility and performance standards, especially for mobile games.

Visual Size

When creating a game object art for the mobile game, consider a large array of mobile screen types along with the visual size of objects (no. of pixels forming one object). This will help you balance the game screen visual size (pixel groups for objects – clarity) and the appearance of game objects as per the role priority.

The bigger the game object’s visual size is, the more texture space it would ask you to secure. And you probably don’t want to invest too much visual size on a game object that plays a tiny role or would require only limited pixels in the game world.

To understand this concept better, see the below screen art of the Clash of Clans game, which shows a world scenario with many soldiers who secure a limited number of pixels on the screen.

It fulfills a couple of roles:

1. A small texture reduces memory overhead.
2. A perfectly balanced texture enables you to visualize all important game objects in the game world map.

If you see the image below closely, you might discover the soldier with their triangle meshes. These low triangle countparts are pretty similar to texturing, playing an important role in reducing the GPU overhead during the triangle vertice rendering process.

Even though the object triangles secure a few pixels, they demand impressive GPU processing power. It helps GPU extensively in avoiding the micro triangle rendering issues.

So, the fewer the triangles, the less rendering effort it takes to process. Not just that, it also helps in maintaining the visibility of game objects when their size is small or they are at a far distance in the scene.

Game Art File Compression Type

When the game artists are done with the object texturing, they usually export the art into PNG, JPG, or TGA format. But at the time of game processing, all of these art texture files are converted into special, compact formats that are small in size and fast to load.

At the time of choosing an art compression file type, ensure to choose the format that renders quickly without compromising on the artistic quality of the design.

As a leading team of game artists with decade-plus years of experience, we highly recommend using ASTC (Adaptable Scalable Texture Compression) file type that uses varying block sizes to represent the art rather than a single fix-blocked size.

• For the most basic art assets, it is recommended to use a block size of 5×5 or 6×6.
• For the smaller assets, it is recommended to use a block size of 8×8 or 10×10 – that secures fewer screen pixels.

In some cases, we also recommend experimenting with different block-size settings to find the best art file representation configuration for the game.

Level of Detail (LOD) & Mip Maps

Now that we all know that the fewer vertices a game object has, the faster GPU rendering time it could offer. With the object’s visual sizes, it is also important to ensure its object form alike from a great distance as well as from close. And that’s where the Level of  Detail (LOD) concept comes into the picture.

A LOD system designs objects in the low-poly model and generates its different models as it moves away from the foreground. Game artists create these object movement models while keeping the count of vertices of micro triangles with top-notch performance for both near and distance views.

In order to improve the visual efficiency of LODs, you can even use the Mip Maps to flexibly scale up and down textures between LODs.

But what are Mip Maps in Game Art Design?

Mip Maps are the texture copies that save object LOD models at granular resolutions with details. So, whenever the game screen moves away from the object, it will directly render and replace with the smaller resolution model with a smoother page refresh rate.

In short, Mip Maps are applied on the objects with not so clear distance from the player’s focus game screen. Using Mips and LODs together will indeed boost the game screen rendering speed.

Optimize the Game Object for the Transparency

Rendering each transparent game element that overlaps the other game elements is expensive for all game systems.

When doing so, in the case of mobile screens, rendering transparency often leads to “overdraw” – where its GPU has to render the same pixel again and again to meet the characteristics. And this rerendering process directly affects the game performance, which is not good for players; and thus, business.

However, transparency in the game design and development is necessary. Hence, to use it intelligently in the design, you need to search for the efficiency available in the market.

Alpha Blend

Since the mobile GPUs have sufficient graphics optimization capabilities, alpha-blending the game objects is the highly recommended option. The reason is the Alpha blend enables artists to create different models with varying transparency rather than just turning graphic transparency ON/OFF as cutout offers.

There’s also another method to optimize the game object transparency level, which Alpha Tests. But as it makes the game transparent object completely transparent, like they were never in that space, it is often referred to as “Cutout”, which is not a recommended  practice by industry experts.

4. Create Art That Tells A Clear Story

“Let the art speak for itself” is the mantra that all visual mediums follow, including animated films, advertisements, TV shows, etc. Then why should mobile games stay away from this guru mantra?

Nowadays, the majority of digital users, including gamers, prefer to get all information by just looking at the graphics rather than reading a couple of text instructions. This creates a need for you to create information-aided gameplay.

Speaking of which, Subway Surfers reflects points to collect in an illuminated/super highlighted way so any user would get an idea to collect such. Also, when a new user starts the game, it shows actions to perform through guiding gestures. So, players can learn to play the game and the best game mechanisms from the very start without additionally watching any extensive user guide video or reading players’ gamecraft guide.

5. Appealing Appearance Matters

Games are for experience, and players come to play games to refresh their mood. Hence, as game artists, it falls into our responsibility to choose an appealing color scheme.

Not just the bold color scheme but also using shallow depths of field (Low f-number or f-stop, from 1.4 – 5.6 points) to effectively style the game nouns.

Just think and test your game animation choice to see how this choice impacts your psychology when seeing that effect in the game. And game designers should never underestimate giving preferences to the visual choices for the game because of the reason – the impact.

Note: While working on making the mobile game art appearance appealing, ensure not to use UX dark patterns.

6. Art Improvement is Necessary

Improvement is the nature of the world. In the tech world, settling down to one app version has never been an ideal option. With time, advancement in technology, and trends, each and every app present in the respective app store has to be up-to-date with UI UX design trends and technological advancements.

When speaking of game design and development, it becomes important to release new updates with upgraded game UI UX features, levels, performance optimization, security patches, etc. And the same applies to the game world.

Concept Art is the core part of the game design, which must be upgraded and optimized on time to meet players’ ever-changing game experience preferences.

Let’s take one example. In 2012, supercell launched Clash of Clans with that time’s art style. But over time, it has released many new versions with upgraded art style and performance to maintain players’ interest in the game.

In your game versioning, the update can include anything – new game levels with more difficulties, introduce new characters and weapons, add new story extensions, improved art style, etc. For better ideas in the game improvement, take your players’ feedback continuously.

In short, your initial game art style shouldn’t have to be the last.

7. Game Art Responsiveness

Last but not least! Once the whole game art design part is done, always ensure to make it adapted to all screen sizes, including mobile devices, tablets, Laptop/PC screens, TV screens, etc.

Nowadays, the digital device market is full of varieties in terms of screens and performance, especially in the case of smartphones. With this availability of screen size varieties, you – as a game designer – have to make your game art responsive to all possible screen sizes.

Definitely, it can’t be done so easily! It would require tons of conceptualization of time, adjustments, and experiments. And with such effort investment, you will eventually meet your game art screen adaptiveness goals for all screens.

Hence, it’s better to invest much time – fixing loopholes than releasing the game with tons of pixel holes and diffusions.

Do you want to know how mobile games are created? Luckily, we have prepared an extensive guide on Mobile Game Design, which you probably don’t want to miss out!

How 300Mind Can Help You Create Game Art For Your Dream Game?

The game concept art design lives in the heart of our game artists, who always love experimenting with different art elements, like a 3D armory, characters, etc. 300Mind Studio is a proficient full-cycle game design and development company based in India, helping game companies to bring their game ideas to life, from game concept art design, environment design, motion, and animation, to the final game development with extensive testing.

Here’s the case study on our star game product – Bal Hanuman, which is entirely conceptualized, designed, and developed by game artists at 300Mind.

Visit our 300Mind Game Art Collection for better design references.

Want to hire our game artists for your dream game project? Contact our game design consulting team today!

FAQs On Game Art Design

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