How can you improve game aesthetics?

1 Know your audience

Before you start designing the aesthetics of your game, you need to know who you are designing for. What are their preferences, expectations, and motivations? What kind of genres, themes, and art styles do they enjoy? How do they respond to different types of sounds, music, and feedback? Knowing your audience can help you tailor the aesthetics of your game to suit their tastes and needs, and avoid alienating or boring them.

2 Define your vision

Once you have a clear idea of your audience, you need to define your vision for your game. What is the core idea, message, or emotion that you want to convey with your game? What is the tone, mood, and atmosphere that you want to create? How do you want your game to stand out from other games in the same genre or category? Defining your vision can help you create a coherent and consistent aesthetic that supports your game's goals and identity.

3 Choose your art style

The art style of your game is the visual representation of your vision. It includes the color palette, shapes, textures, lighting, perspective, and animation of your game's graphics. The art style of your game should match the genre, theme, and mood of your game, and appeal to your audience. You can choose from a variety of art styles, such as realistic, stylized, pixelated, minimalist, or abstract, depending on the effect and impression that you want to create.

4 Design your sound

The sound of your game is the auditory complement of your vision. It includes the music, sound effects, voice acting, and ambient noise of your game's audio. The sound of your game should enhance the gameplay, storytelling, and emotion of your game, and immerse your audience. You can design your sound to suit the genre, theme, and mood of your game, and use it to create contrast, tension, or relief. You can also use sound to communicate information, feedback, or cues to your players.

5 Balance your elements

The elements of your game's aesthetics are not isolated from each other. They interact and influence each other, and form a holistic impression of your game. Therefore, you need to balance your elements to create a harmonious and effective aesthetic. You need to consider how the visual and auditory elements match or contrast each other, how they support or challenge the gameplay and narrative, and how they create variety or consistency in your game. You also need to test and iterate your elements to ensure that they work well together and achieve your desired effect.

6 Learn from others

One of the best ways to improve your game aesthetics is to learn from others. You can study and analyze the aesthetics of other games that you admire or enjoy, and see how they use their elements to create a unique and memorable game experience. You can also seek feedback and advice from other game designers, artists, or players, and see how they perceive and respond to your game's aesthetics. Learning from others can help you discover new ideas, perspectives, and techniques that can inspire and improve your game aesthetics.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?