This was the first texture I made for my level (and really, for anything ever). When I first sat down to work on this week’s project, I honestly thought I was just going to make a hand drawn level with some basic textures to make my weekend a lot easier. But making textures turned out to be the longest part of my project, and although a lot of that time involved navigating through GIMP and retexturing everything until it looked “perfect,” I learned two important things from this experience: one — I do not want to be a video game artist — and two — being part of the art design process, even if I’m not the one drawing or texturing, enriches the design process of a level so much.
The aesthetic principles of the level depend on the ability of the artist to imagine the style of the level, but also to integrate a particular style that matches the tone of the game and the image of the company producing it. Although video games are not an entirely visual medium, the visual components of a game can determine whether or not the game is worth playing. Where gameplay determines the genre and fun-factor in a game, the graphical content determines the pace of the game, the first impression before a person is able to engage with it. Graphics do not define how good a game is or what a game is in general. They provide another layer to the video game experience that separates it from other game types — the video component. And of course, this is common knowledge. I knew this coming into this class and far before deciding I wanted to make games. I find it interesting, though, how the pieces that combine to create a whole graphical world are often cast aside in favor of a short judgement on the overall project. Few people go through a game looking at each individual texture even though game artists can spend months drawing each individual surface viewed throughout the game. To me, that is amazing, and something that I now appreciate even more than before.