A matter of style

Computergames nowadays are not only challenging in matters of storytelling and gameplay but also visually appealing. Every AAA game allows players to immerse themselves in visually rich and beautiful environments which is an important part of the game-experience. According to this, the young generation of computer affine kids is a quite crucial audience.

Ludwig wants to give the players that visually rich experience and therefore much effort was put in the creation of the graphical style of the game.

Styleguide

The first step was to analyse many different games and styles used to express certain moods considering how suitable the specific style might be for an educational game.

Starting Point

After research we defined our own style. Since we already had some ingame footage, we were able to start from screenshots right out of the game. The game had a more realistic look at that stage of development.

Overpainting

The screenshots got overpainted several times. Colors and Lightning were changed in some iterations until we were satisfied with the results. The painted pictures acted as a reference for the 3D gameworld.

The style is defined by aesthetic criteria as well as clarity and also influenced by technical considerations inspired by a wide variety of media such as games, comics and paintings. 

Final Gamegraphics

This is our result of translating the painted reference images to the 3D gameworld. The roots of drawing are still visible. Full colors and high contrast define the handdrawn textures.