Visually beautiful games

These are games, which focus more on the style rather than the narrative. Out of all the games I have looked at (and have planned to look at) this section is by far my favourite, and that I find the most inspiring.

Journey

The first of this category is an indie game called Journey, created by Thatgamecompany (which have also created Flow and Flower, the next two games I am going to look at). This wonderful game is just created to allow the player to explore and get lost in this lovely world, and has no other storyline or concept behind it. Although the gameplay may seem a bit too simple or even boring to people, I love the idea that it has been created simply for people to enjoy playing. The style and design work is also right up my street, especially the simplicity, and how the gameplay is created to look like it is 2D by the texturing. The concept work is equally appealing to me, as the line work and style is really nicely done, and what I aim my own work to mirror.

Flow

Flow is a slightly abstract game, as you control tiny micro-organisms, creating interesting patterns and combining them together to create larger creatures. 

Flower

Flower is very much like Flow but this time the character that you are playing as is actually the element of wind, where you go around blowing the grass and collecting petals. This is another visually stimulating and calming game to play, but doesn't have a strong narrative core like other games.

Botanicula

At Bradford Animation Festival I was introduced to this game, by the incredible and quirky creators at Amanita. This game and its design is right up my street, and the concept art matches the way in which I best work, where initial drawings are done by hand in pencil and then more finalised concepts are digitally painted to give a fuller picture. I really like have the characters interact and work so well in their environment. Although I won't be using sound in my game, another key point I love about this game is their soundtrack, as it is as vibrant as the game itself.

The Unfinished Swan

I actually had not heard of this game until Annabeth showed some of its concept art in her presentation for this module. The concept is unusual as you travel round an invisible white world, which you need to throw black ink bombs around to give depth to the landscape and your surroundings. What I find most funny about this concept is that you could throw so many of these ink bombs that your whole surroundings become black, putting you in the same situation that you were in before. The creators however have thought about this and ensured that you could look up to the sky and still manage to navigate your way around the world without using the ink bombs. I found the two videos posted really insightful into the game, as they discuss further the game play and overall concept. Again the artwork for this is very visually and stylistically driven, with a very limited colour palette.