How do YOU make your game look good?

Great blog post there, enjoyed the read.
Great thread as welll though I'd say don't take the rules in here as rock solid directions to be followed strictly.
That 3.4 seconds Halo jump versus the "0.7 seconds in-reality jump" is a perfect example - the makers of Halo might have made that choice to make the players feel alien to a strange world they've never faced before and to exaggerate the strength of the Halo marines. That jump might still feel odd and result in bad gameplay (never played that franchise), so there might be room for improvement. But generally speaking: learn the rules and break 'em where needed.

 

Hmm, old thread but interesting.

One tip I think is to put stuff in the game that doesn't `need` to be there, but which enhances atmosphere, like extra background animations, critters that run around, things which really have nothing to do with the gameplay and you might not even especially notice them, but they still add to an atmosphere.

Also on the topic of attention to detail, a word I prefer is `subtlety` ... perfection generally comes from honing into the most accurate and subtly-tweaked version of something. The more `coarse` an adjustment the more it overshoots perfection. So like when programmers who are bad at art make art for their games if often looks horrible because they make very coase-grained decisions without a grasp of the subtle nuances and fine-tuning. Beauty comes from subtlety. That's the polish.

Also ask yourself what are the most obviously bad parts of the game, the ones that get your attention the most, and work on improving those first. Case in point, Hippocoder's example of a good game with terrible obvious text. I think people also appreciate that there is evidence of polish when they see that the background stuff, the seemingly less important stuff, has been paid attention to, because this gives the impression that you also paid a lot of attention to the important stuff AND even paid attention to the tiny details or subtle nuances or background animations. It's often too easy to focus on the `center` of the game like the character, weapon, etc.. and get distracted from the rest of the environment. IMO the environment is the main contributor to the game's look and feel.

 

I am surprised this absolutely classic talk has not been linked to: juice it or lose it

 

I dont care if my game looks good in the prototype phase. that's where i focus on first.

 

What do you mean delayed rotation to item in hand? I can't quite picture what you meant...

 

I think he just means motion easing on held objects so they don't have a 1:1 movement animation on screen like you have some sort of robot grip.

 

All I can picture is this :

I mean, what kind of object that you would put in hand that would require delayed rotation in first person view??

 

I think they mean that when you walk the weapon doesn't bop up and down as the arms take some of the force?

 

He would mean weapon drag, shown in this video when he turns.

as you can see, the weapon takes some time before it gets back into position.

 

Ah ha! Thanks guys, that's quite a good tip! I agree, in a lot of games the weapon in hand doesn't sway like its an object with a bit of heft or weight. Because weighted objects creates inertia when force is apply to it, so making it delay slightly definitely makes it look more natural.

 

I just watched that. It really is a pretty good video and the presenters do a good job of explaining themselves.