Just posting some links to some interesting articles I've bookmarked recently..
"Tecmo seems fucked".
Hard to imagine such a high profile developer doing that to its employees, but I guess it happens even to the best of them. But when you have the entire development company (minus management) kicking a huge stink, that Kotaku title seems appropriate. http://kotaku.com/5017065/tecmo-employees-sue-tecmo-tecmo-seems-fucked
"Who stole all the colours from games?"
This is an article which David Hewitt would appreciate more developers start reading about.
The article writer has the opinion that it's all because of teenage boys.. "I think that publishers have convinced developers that the game buying public is composed almost entirely of teenage boys.
...(they) want "mature" titles and someone told them that mature meant dark, dank and bloody." http://www.quietbabylon.com/2008/05/30/who-stole-all-the-colours
"We were torturing Vancouver studio"
EA CEO admits that the Vancouver Need For Speed team has been working for eight consecutive years on a 12 month development cycle. O_O I wonder if anyone managed to stay on there for the eight years :D It reminds me of the time I looked through some game developer's portfolio who had worked on Madden NFL for yonks. He had picture after picture of Madden NFL game covers in his portfolio page.
I've been following the Need for Speed games for a long while, and it's obvious that the team behind the series is a damn talented one. The Underground series was really good, Most Wanted was brilliant, but Carbon and Pro Street? They looked great, but it didn't appeal to me as much as Most Wanted. Anyway, they're going to try a two year development cycle. http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/riccitiello-we-were-torturing-van…
"UK Games Industry Over the Hill?"
The UK is falling behind in coding skills because Universities aren't up to scratch, and because the youngins aren't being brought up coding / hitting the hardware like they used to with computers like Amiga / Atari ST. I had this exact conversation with a programmer friend of mine years ago. It explains why so many have difficulty with programming the PS3, he says, whereas people who coded on the Amiga/ST find PS3 programming a breeze. Anyway, a great read.
http://news.slashdot.org/news/08/06/19/1719206.shtml
Quake lighting
I'll have to give these a read. Had a quick skim over the colour article. Just out of curiosity - since when did Quake use dynamic lights? http://www.fpsteam.it/img2006/quake_tenebrae/quake_tenebrae_08.jpg
It certainly didn't back in the day when I was playing it. Look! The Zombies are actually casting shadows!
EDIT: And bump mapping!
The source for Quake
was released ages ago and coders have rummaged through the code and extended the engine with all the snazzy features. I think they even managed to get dynamic lights in before Doom3 came out?
I was reading the who stole the colours one. Not all the points given are agreeable or seemingly strong from a general reader and casual market customer point of view. The real conflict is between drab and bright. Then, smackus uses screenshots of Super Mario 64 to show us what a colourful game could look like. As if that was the last example of bright palettes in gameplay. As if Super Mario Galaxy didn’t just come out.-Tim Maley
I'd say that Mario Galaxy was a weak point due to the fact that both titles are developed by Nintendo EAD - a stronger point would have put forward a title from a different developer to illustrate that colourful titles are being made across the industry in present times. But that might just be because I was reading it as an article and not a conversational.
Certainly he redeemed it by supplying a bunch of links to examples after, but after is a little late in the mind of a reader. Definitely when talking about the gaming industry where they often say that you have to hold your customers attention span (n) seconds (not minutes) and provide the next hit or it's bust. Plenty of gamers read reviews and even opinions these days as they want to know what hints are to the next big thing.
I'd also not consider the Metroid example as entirely valid. Just my personal opinion, as there was really only 4 or 5 identifiable significant colours and or values. The palette was quite limited looking, the world was I must observe rather bland, but the point of the use of colour in that game I do realise was to draw the players attention to what mattered. Though solely from the presented footage, not from actually ever playing it.
And sins of a solar empire, while it has colour, again is rather muted and washed out with highlights for that spark of interest here and there.
Gears of War and Jerico were pretty depressing in the colour department, but then again that actually suited the game. As boring as it looked, colour can be a spoken language and I'd wager that the happy go lucky I love everyone rainbows wouldn't fit in a serious it is do or die story. Then again, I love games with comedic appeal and humour so perhaps it wouldn't be all that bad to brighten a few things up - but developers tend to make their products solid to their design. There are design reasons I would guess that determine the 'lack of colour' we are witnessing and I am not entirely concerned about it. As not everyone I know lives in a gingerbread and candy house ever so sweet.
There are still games being made out there with cutesy colours and graphics, Domo, Dofus, Perfect World, RO and Maple Story are titles that draw the attention spans of some of the market with globally bright and sometimes varying colours (though I'd suspect if one looks hard enough, limitations in the palette could likely be found in almost any title). Heck lets throw in Geometry Wars evolved on xbox live arcade, cause I like it and it's bright though colour numbers are limited.
Ultimately I'd gather that the colour choices would rest with an echo of the core message of a game rather than the desire to sugar coat the experience. And the three areas regarding the palette, hue, saturation and value will be bent to convey the message.
So perhaps the solution isn't to consider the colour palette first, but to think if the message your game revolves around is the same as the next. Perhaps you need a new message, instead of following the other developers.
Still I'm just a customer like the next gamer, what would my opinion matter? Then again, would my wallet? ;)
Spore is reasonably colourful and I've already mentioned to you Souri, I'm flat out buying it.
I'm curious as to what your casual opinion on game look and feel might be.