CHAPTER 4

Visual Design

From concept to finished art, designers must always ask themselves: do the visuals being developed work with the look and feel of the game? Visuals refer to the characters, props, environments, and interfaces built for the project.

Occasionally, an existing character is the starting point for a game, such as Marvel Comics' Thor or Luke Skywalker from the Star Wars sagas. An entire cavalcade of characters and exotic worlds had already been created for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Those examples are well thought out, deeply developed entities that have their personalities and abilities clearly mapped. In such situations, the game and its gameplay usually develop around them.

In other types of design, the concept for the ...

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