For Aspiring Game Designers: Perception vs Reality - Part I

Introduction

This time I’m going to start talking about an important lesson that I wish I had learned earlier in my career, namely the fact that what the Player perceives to be true is far more important than what is actually true when it comes to design work!?

This is something that is true for all forms of art in varying degrees, but games are even more susceptible to problems in this area as it is an interactive medium that the Player is actively engaging with on a more direct level than in most other types of art; there are very few (if any) other art mediums where the Player can “fail” at enjoying them in such a way that they cannot or want to progress further as they can in a game, for example.

A lot of games also places a lot of expectations on the Player when it comes to cognition and reasoning abilities in hectic scenarios, so it is extremely important that we as designers provide the tools that are necessary for them to be able to do that, otherwise the game will be seen as unfair and frustrating rather than like a fun challenge.?

This article will focus on Enemy and Character designs, as that is something I deal with a lot in my work, but following articles will go into Level Design and other Design problems too. I wanted to start out with a more practical example before I go more into the esoteric stuff that is coming.

Enemy and Character Design

When creating enemy designs,? it is almost always very important for a Player to be able to correctly and quickly identify not just who is an enemy, but also what archetype of enemy it is in any situation, no matter how hectic the gameplay is. The more unique your enemy is when it comes to the way you are expected to play against it, the more important it is for the Player to have this information at all times.

Note that this particular article only goes into visual design - there are many more tools in the toolbox that can (and should!) be used to reinforce the differences, such as how the character moves/animates, how they sound/speak and in which scenarios they are used + much more! That will have to wait for another article though.

What is the “reality” in this example?

Don’t worry, I’m not going to go full on pretentious on you here - at least no more pretentious than I usually am! This is just to set up the framework for the rest of the discussion going forward.

For this example, I made a very quick and ugly drawing of two different sci-fi looking enemies:

These two characters are objectively completely different; there isn’t a single line that is identical between the two, and even the colors (though they do use the same palette) are placed in different places on the two designs. They are even different in body builds, where one is taller and one is wider.

The reality is that these two characters are totally different from each other and we can all see this clearly from this example picture.

How is it from a Player’s perspective?

In this next image I have pasted the above designs into a much more realistic scenario for how a Player would view them in a game. I borrowed a picture from a game I have worked on,? Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, as the background.

It is much harder to see the difference now when they are at normal gameplay distance and in a poorly lit and busy surrounding environment, right??

Imagine if you also add the adrenaline and general chaos a Player experiences during gameplay, which will dramatically lower the “processing power” their brains can spend to notice things (something I talk about in greater detail in this article), and it becomes an almost impossible task to ask of a Player.

It would get even worse if the two didn’t stand next to each other for direct comparison - If there had been only one character on screen and I had asked you to identify if it was design A or B, I bet you would have a pretty difficult time without zooming in - even I would, and I drew the picture!

So, it is clear from this example that if my intent has been that the Player should be able to separate these enemy types from each other in the game during gameplay, I have failed at it from a Player’s perspective - a Player would most likely believe these two enemies are of the same type until the gameplay tells them otherwise; these may be two distinct enemy types with different behaviors or methods that the Player has to use to fight them. Maybe one of them only takes damage from the back while the other one has an instant-kill weapon - it would be quite important for me as a Player to know which is which!

How to fix it?

This is a very hard question to give a generalized answer to, as it is very dependant on the type of game you are making and the art style chosen for it - if you are making something based on reality, for example a WWII game, then you are of course much more limited by what the real-life designs were, and you can’t do too much to alter them without losing authenticity. In that case you may have to explore other non-diegetic ways to do this, such as HUD elements or other ways to show these differences if that is important for your gameplay.

In the scenario I have made up for this example, though, my hands are free to do what I want, so I made a version of the designs that work better from a gameplay perspective:

I have altered the designs in a few ways to improve clarity here in descending level of importance:

Silhouette

Adding bits and bobs to the character that can be seen from any angle. This is by far the most important fix, as it works for everyone in all scenarios, and distinct shapes is something that humans are just very good at recognizing accurately and quickly!

Lights

I added some details that are lit on their own so that they can be seen even in complete darkness. This also helps the enemies stand out against the environment, especially if they use dark colors in their design and show up in dark locations.?

This is not as easily possible in games taking place back in history, so other creative solutions will have to be used instead, unless you can have certain enemy types carrying torches or lanterns for example.

Colors

I differentiated the colors a bit to make them stand apart more and added some highlight colors to specific parts of their clothing.?

A note here: you can never rely completely on colors as a fix, as it has a lot of problems that come with it: many Players are colorblind, in dark environments the colors cannot be seen well, in hectic scenes it will be hard to pick out specific colors reliably and quickly etc. With that said, colors can (and should!) be used to further reinforce already good designs!

How to test if a design is good?

There are a few pretty simple ways to test if your design fills the requirements you have for them, and some of them are so simple that it almost feels silly to do. But, there is the saying “If it looks stupid, but it works, then it’s not stupid!” and I very much believe in that!

Some of these I have already mentioned in passing throughout this article:

Show it to someone else

Very simple test to get another person who isn’t intimately involved in what the design is intended to be to give input on it. It is hard to find problems like this on your own designs, because your own mind already knows what it should look for - it created it after all. Many problems can be detected already at this stage!

Place it in an emulated scenario

This is what I did earlier, where I photoshopped my designs into an environment and placed them at the distance I expect to see them from while playing the game most of the time. You can try different scenarios, different lighting, different levels of complexity etc. Whatever you can think of, really.

This test is cheap and fast, making changes to a finished model is much more expensive and slow!

This test has shown me that adding the light up parts have helped, but the silhouette changes may be too small to actually matter if I will regularly encounter these enemies in lighting that is this dim. If it only happens occasionally and most of the game is in better lighting, then more alterations may not be needed.

Squint/Zoom out/Blur the image

That’s as simple as it sounds; if you squint or zoom out far and look at the design, can you still make out the important details? If not, then it probably needs some additional work.?

This design holds up fairly well during a squint test I'd say, at least in this big size.

Make Low detail prototypes

Much like my ugly drawings in this article, making low detail “ugly” prototype models can help a lot, because then you can hook them into the actual game and test them in real scenarios and environments during actual gameplay! And, since the model was made quickly and cheaply, it is very fast and cheap to alter and try again after changes.

Make it Black and White

Does the design work even for someone that is entirely colorblind?

I think they work fairly well in this test, but it is also important to remember that the light up parts are not showing here - even if a person is completely colorblind, they can still see that parts are much brighter than the surrounding area, so keeping in mind that those parts would also help, I think this gets a pass here!

Silhouette

Taken to the furthest extreme, does the design still work? You can test this by making the design completely black, like this:

Is it still distinct enough that you can easily tell which is which? Then it is probably a decent design!

This silhouette test tells me that I have made the designs a bit too similar and dependent on fairly small details that become silhouette differences and they will be difficult to see at longer distances. It would have been much better if I had used bigger differences. But, in general, it is OK. And, as stated earlier, if the game mainly takes place in good lighting, it may well be more than enough!

Real Examples

Here are three examples of human characters from the game Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus that I think do a good job of exemplifying the points I have made in this article while still staying true to the art style of the game.

These are three very distinct enemy types with very different roles in combat and ways how you should approach fighting them, and I think the designs tell that clearly to the Player (all cred for this goes to MachineGames’ fantastic art team!).

I invite you to analyze them yourself to see what has been done to make them different from each other and whether or not you think they pass the tests I detailed above, and I would love to hear your thoughts on it if you have any!

One fun thing about this game particularly, is that we had different variations of certain enemies that were used in certain levels, such as this “Atom Kommendant”, which is a Commander that is used in highly irradiated areas throughout the game:

Why this is particularly interesting is that it makes it very easy to see which design elements were important to keeping the identity of this enemy type while still changing the design: the distinct hat, the long coat, the radio equipment and the decorative elements on the chest - everything else can be changed, and it will still be read as the same enemy type by the Player.

Conclusion

Note that the tips I gave for looking at designs in this article are very useful for most things that you design or make, not even just for games; artists use many of these regularly, and asking someone for opinions is pretty much always a good idea no matter what you are making! Taking a step back and looking at your stuff in a new way before you begin producing the final result can save so, so much time and effort in things needing to be changed later, it doesn’t matter if you are making an enemy for a game, painting a portrait or building a table. The saying of “Measure twice and cut once” from woodworking is just as relevant outside of working with wood.

It is even more important when making a game though, as this medium has the X-factor that most other medium’s lack: a person that is directly interacting with all the parts of the product that they choose to play. It is pretty much impossible to passively experience a game in the same way you can with a movie, music or art - participation and understanding of what is asked of you as a Player is mandatory, or else you will have a terrible time or even be barred from progressing.?

If the Player doesn’t understand what is asked of them, then they will not have a good time. It doesn’t really matter that much if the Player is correct or not - if their perception is the actual “reality” or not - it will still hurt the game in the end.

That is why it is so extremely important to find out what Players' perception of your design is going to be while making it, so that you can make the necessary alterations needed to make the perception be as close to reality as you can get it!

As stated in the introduction, this is just part 1 of this quite large subject, so stay tuned for more if you found this interesting!

//Jocke