What's the best way to create and keep a style guide for your game?

Celeste (2018). Madeline overcomes personal struggles reflected in mountain climbing Direction: Vibrant, contrasting pixel art emphasizes simplicity and emotional depth using character animations and environments Colors: Bold, contrasting colors (blues, reds, and whites). Subdued background tones so foreground elements pop Type: Renogare font for clean, easily readable in-game text. Limited use of stylized fonts to convey emotion and ensure clarity Characters: Simple expressive designs. Madeline's character growth reflected in her appearance, mirroring the theme of self-discovery Environment: Reflects Madeline's emotional state. Chapter 2 begins with a dark starry night sky and changes to a surreal, dream-like palette

Absolutely crucial steps! Defining your game's genre, theme, and tone lays the groundwork for its identity. It's vital to align these elements with your target audience's preferences for maximum appeal. Additionally, maintaining consistency across all aspects of the game, from gameplay mechanics to visual design, ensures a cohesive and immersive experience, enhancing player engagement and enjoyment.

Dream big but start small. Broad strokes then chip away details play-by-play. Brainstorm wildly without judgment. Quirky fusions often impress most! Consult your heart over trends. Passion fuels fresh perspectives. Sketch mood boards bursting with vibrant influences. Inspire within and beyond games.

Defining the genre, theme, and tone is the first step in creating a style guide for your game. Genre sets the foundation for gameplay mechanics and player expectations, while theme guides the narrative and aesthetic direction. Finally, tone affects how your story is conveyed and how players emotionally engage with your game. Clearly defining these aspects provides a cohesive direction for your team.

Incorporate cultural and historical references that are relevant to your game's genre, theme, and tone to enrich your style guide and enhance the authenticity of your game world. By researching and including elements from mythology, folklore, literature, or art that align with your chosen aesthetic and narrative direction, you can add layers of depth and meaning to your game that resonate with players on a cultural and emotional level.

8 steps to create a mood board: 1. List aspects of the game the mood board will visualize: character designs, environments, fonts, colors, etc 2. Collect photos, images, references from other games or real life 3. Find visuals that closely express the look and feel of your game. This includes character styles, concept art, colors, shape language, props, etc 4. Include videos to show animation styles and pacing 5. Choose color palettes to match the game’s aesthetic 6. Find quotes, signboards, typography references suitable for your game 7. Arrange your references to be visually coherent 8. Continue refining ideas and add new references for inspiration

Creating a visual mood board is essential for conveying the aesthetics of your game to your team. It not only aids in aligning everyone with the style guide but also fosters a shared vision and enhances collaboration. Another aspect to consider is periodically updating the mood board as the game evolves, ensuring that it remains reflective of the current direction and allows for flexibility in adapting to any changes or refinements in the visual design.

Collect diverse inspiration freely without limit - paint textures, movie stills, clothing, and nature. Look within your interests and aesthetics too, not just others' work. Authenticity shines through. Consider vibe in all senses - how music, sound effects and even scents could enhance mood. Experiment boldly with layouts, colour patterns and themes until it feels "you". Involve your whole team early for varied perspectives and buy-in on a shared vision.

A visual mood board is a helpful tool in determining the visual direction of your game. It is a collection of images, textures, color schemes, and references that showcase the overall visual style you intend to achieve. The mood board should be centered around the game's genre, theme, and tone, providing inspiration and a reference point for visual consistency. It helps ensure that all visual elements, from character designs to environments and UI, align with your game's core concepts.

Enhance your mood board by incorporating sensory elements beyond visuals. Think about adding audio clips, ambient sounds, or tactile materials that match your game's theme. By including auditory and tactile references alongside visuals, you can create a more immersive experience and enhance the emotional impact of your style guide.

The verbal aspect of your game is crucial for storytelling and player interaction. Writing a verbal style guide involves defining the game's narrative voice, writing style, and dialogue guidelines to ensure a cohesive and consistent narrative tone and quality.

A good list to begin with to help identify a character's speech pattern: - Background: a rogue character with a troubled past - Social status: poor outcast or born into wealth - Life changing experience: witness parents being murdered, causing the death of a friend or sibling - Education: street-smart, institutional education - Personality: cryptic, cautious, guarded - Environment: lives in a large city, home in the slums - Speech: urban slang, fast-paced, short responses - Vocabulary: specific words, terms, phrases commonly used. Also include things the character would not say - Quirks: makes snap judgements, loves animals - People: identify real or fictional people, characters, performers that embody your character's personality

Align your narrative guidelines with your game's genre, theme, and tone to enhance your verbal style guide and ensure a cohesive storytelling experience. Create rules for narrative voice, character dialogue, and storytelling techniques that mirror the overall themes and mood of your game. Also, establish guidelines for pacing, structure, and narrative arcs to maintain a captivating storyline that engages players throughout the game.

6 reasons to update and share your style guide: 1. Create consistent art style. Team members and contractors have clear documentation to create designs that align with your vision. 2. Clear visual direction. Your team, contractors and investors know what to expect throughout development. 3. A streamlined art creation workflow to remember decisions made and reduce misunderstandings. 4. A benchmark for quality control to maintain visual standards. 5. Inspire the team with new ideas and different art styles. 6. Getting different perspectives from the team to improve and stay on track.

Use version control and collaborative tools like Google Docs, Microsoft Teams, Asana, or Trello to update and share your game's style guide efficiently. Create a centralized repository for the guide and enable real-time collaboration among team members. Establish clear communication protocols to keep stakeholders informed promptly. Encourage feedback and suggestions to maintain the guide's integrity. Schedule regular review sessions to refine the guide based on development changes or playtesting feedback.

Utilizing tools and templates to streamline your style guide is indeed a smart approach, saving time and ensuring consistency. In addition, fostering a culture of regular review and feedback among team members can further refine the style guide and ensure its effectiveness in guiding the game's development. Encouraging open communication and collaboration empowers everyone to contribute to the style guide, resulting in a comprehensive and cohesive vision for the project.

Create personalized templates that cater to the unique needs and requirements of your game, making it easier to create and maintain your style guide. While pre-made templates can be a good starting point, customizing them to reflect the distinct aesthetic, narrative, and gameplay elements of your game ensures that your style guide remains relevant and actionable for your team. Take advantage of tools like Microsoft Word, Adobe InDesign, or Canva to design visually appealing templates that include sections for typography, color palettes, visual assets, narrative guidelines, and audio specifications.

It might be somewhat of a hassle, but try your best to keep constantly updating aspects of the style segmented in their own chapters and avoid refering to them in too many details in other chapters. Otherwise it will be very hard to maintain consistency. If it is absolutly necessary, make sure you keep a very consistent langauge and terms throughout the text so any reference to the contents of another chapter is easily traceable through search, then make sure to seaech and update the references when ever you update the source chapter.

Creating and maintaining a style guide for your game involves using tools like Google Docs, Dropbox Paper, or Notion for collaboration and organization. However, beyond just documenting visual and narrative elements, it's crucial to embed the style guide into the development process actively. Integrating it into project management tools like Jira or Trello ensures that adherence to the guide becomes a routine part of development, leading to consistent and polished results.

Don't be afraid to ask for feedback from others you trust, whether it's friends playtesting prototypes, experienced developers reviewing your work, or the community providing suggestions. Outside perspectives help you improve. Consider making connections in your local game dev scene through events and online groups. Surrounding yourself with like-minded peers can lead to exciting collaborations and valuable advice at any stage of your journey.