Click here for Part 1 of the trends review

With the massive push for new technology this year, other aspects of game design are being affected.  Visual design, game environments, and story-telling take center stage to make sure that not only are the games technologically impressive, but entertaining as well.

Part 2 of the trend report deals with how visual aesthetics, environments, and character design trends are taking shape.

Visuals

Trend: 2D Platforming

As developers and publishers aim to out-do each other with high technology, there is a considerable backlash taking place. The desire for a pure game experience that is devoid of technological gimmickry is leading to a resurgence in 2D platform games.  In some respects, this is an evolution of retro-inspired gaming, but in other cases the genre is far-surpassing classic games.

“Re-makes” are a popular trend again, with updates to classic games (either in HD, 2.5D, or retro-influenced) currently peaking.  Nintendo’s approach is to leverage their popular franchises, pushing Kirby and Donkey Kong as their premiere 2D titles this holiday season much like with New Super Mario Bros Wii last year.  Konami is creating modern sequels to Bonk and Hard Corps, as well as a multiplayer Castlevania with an incredible zoom-out play feature.  Even the new Mortal Kombat and Marvel vs Capcom fighting games have gone back to 2D.

Independent developers see the opportunity to look at 2D platforming very differently. Indie developer Playdead is creating Limbo, a highly artistic game based on storytelling and shadows with Mario-like mechanics.  Super Scribblenauts, the sequel to last year’s E3 darling, improves the mechanic that made it popular by adding adjectives as to allow an exponential amount of variety in play-throughs.  Prope’s Ivy the Kiwi? looks at game controls from a more passive attitude.

2D platforming, thanks to playing on our classic gaming memories, isn’t just making a comeback, it’s already here.

The resurgence in 2D platforming is leading to companies evaluating alternative presentation methods for visualizing their games. Sprites, soft material, and hand-drawn visuals are in abundance this year.

Trend: Visuals as Art

The use of art-like visuals in 2D platforming has always been common, yet this year the idea is being stretched in unique ways… literally.  Kirby’s Epic Yarn draws influence from Little Big Planet in using materials to portray the pink puff and his worl, even using the physics of the materials in game play.  Prope’s Ivy the Kiwi? uses hand-drawn visuals that look as if they have been sketched on craft paper.  This is a continued extension of previous “art-aesthetic” games such last year’s Muramasa, or even Street Fighter IV.

Silhouetting (designing the games as shadows) is another visual aesthetic that is showing more in indie games.  World of Goo somewhat fit the concept last year, and Echochrome before it, of manipulation of dark on light.  This year, the use of shadow (and adversely, light) as a key game play element allows for a high-contrast use of black.  Both Lost in Shadow and Limbo, for instance, utilize a shadow character amongst a shadow world to design the visuals.

Trend: Anti-Post Apocalyptic Colors

A few years ago, the plethora of post-apocalyptic or alien invasion game settings utilized grey and brown.  This inadvertently became known as the “next gen” look, as popular games — Fallout 3, Bioshock, Gears of War — used the earthy, crumbled color scheme to portray a worn and dirty world.

This year, though the post-apocalyptic settings are similar, the colors have become much more saturated, perhaps cuing off of the success of the stylized Borderlands last year.  Bright red, “living” green, and bluish-gray are the popular colors we’ll see in games, with an electric yellow used as an accent to show off special powers or weapons.  Things are looking up for the doomed world.

Growing Trend: Environments

Every year, a new visual “schtick” takes place that highlights the latest graphics technology. Two years ago it was water. Last year developers showed off fire effects.  This year snow is in, specifically in mountainous landscapes and cities.  The reason that snowy scenes are becoming popular is possibly a correlation to the growing use of particle physics in games.  Killzone 3‘s battle scenes are reminiscent of the blizzards in Uncharted 2 or Modern Warfare 2.  Expect to see more game snow and mountains in the next two years.

Another locale that is trending is directly related to the war-torn post-apocalypse.  Collapsed cities are found in upcoming games like Rage, with the ability to take down deteriorating structures even more of a draw.  Crumbling buildings, with falling blocks of cement and dusty interiors, push the limits of texture technology, even though they don’t necessarily appear as dynamic as forests or war zones.

Growing Trend: Character Design

Middle-aged men with beards.  If there was any character design that has become prevalent in gaming it is the “Nathan Drake” look, a variation on the scruffy, middle-class, white male that’s been popularized by TV shows like LOST.  Protagonists in games like Infamous 2 and Medal of Honor are becoming more realistic, which means that there is more of an emphasis on the half-shaven, stuck in a bad situation look.  This may be a reflection of the film industry, where realistic takes on comic book properties (The Dark Knight, for instance) are becoming more popular as directors aim to create believability.

Growing Trend: The Motion Control “Look”

As Microsoft and Sony unveiled their motion control peripherals at E3 this year, both publishers had distinctive ways at marketing the games via aesthetic.  Microsoft, aiming at the Wii audience, is pushing “offend no-one” cartoon-like visuals with avatar support.  Sony, on the other hand, is using realism to showcase its MOVE games, focusing on more of the core audience.  It remains to be seen if either of these aesthetics will take hold for the respective technologies.

Conclusion Part 2

As new technology is being brought into video games, the aesthetic and design follows.  Though there is a sort of “backlash” against high-technology, 2D platforming is actually incorporating ground-breaking and revolutionary design and storytelling.  This also showcases a defiance in the peaking post-apocalypse and zombie trends in gaming that have been prevalent in recent years, with more of a focus on brighter, more pleasing colors amid new environments.  In the next one-to-two years, expect developers to begin to move away from death and destruction towards more positive experiences as a reflection of the seemingly positive turn in the economy.