[Critique Please] Horror game art style; also need BETAS.

[kinougames]

Hi there. I and two other people are in the works to create a full-length horror game that is well underway as far as writing and programming, and working heavily on the visual section at this time.

The game is a horror/drama boy's love game, with a similar writing layout to Animamundi (in that it will be 90% plot, and only 10% boy's love), and we might include a 16+ section sans the horror/suggestive pictures for a slightly younger market, though we're still debating the extra work on that.

The story follows a boy named Riku Harada in Japan 1992, 17 years old, as he goes from a normal high school student one day to being thrust into a horrible world of underground slavery and black market sales of a human-intelligence capable race of beings called Majin.

We have our artist, both I and our programmer have inequivocably agreed to her because of her talent and versatility. However, we're currently debating heavily on color style.

We have two pieces that were done as tests, and we decided we needed to hear from the populus. We have a few specific questions:

1) Which art style fits the horror theme better?

2) Which style would you prefer to see in a game like the above?

Color sample 1: http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x47/ ... colour.jpg
--This would be your basic vectored line-art style; what is common to most games.

Color sample 2: http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/ ... gaming.png
http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/ ... c264da.png
--These two samples are quickie outlines of what we'd do, which would be to leave the pencil sketch (though it would be cleaned up) and adopt a sketchier, darker color style with more muted light. Please excuse the sloppiness, it was a test. We should have a more cleaned up version soon.

Furthermore!

We are in desperate need of writing betas. We'd prefer a single person with a lot of experience with VNs and generally a lot of time online, but we will take a few as well. We need critique on plot and characterization MOST of all. Please send an IM on AIM directly to wana da kore, or if you don't have AIM, send an email to kyuubinogaki@gmail.com. Thank you SO much everyone, for looking here.

__________

http://ougaming.deviantart.com/
Please check out our game ミツマタ [Mitsumata (c)]!

[Samu-kun]

I think the second style looks too unfinished. But then, it's hard to really say what the second style will look like, because as you say, it is unfinished! I still think though that even if you are going for a more sketchy style, you'd probably want to at least partially line art the sketches. The lines look too much like pencil, so I think the second style looks more like development images and not final products.

[kinougames]

I think the second style looks too unfinished. But then, it's hard to really say what the second style will look like, because as you say, it is unfinished! I still think though that even if you are going for a more sketchy style, you'd probably want to at least partially line art the sketches. The lines look too much like pencil, so I think the second style looks more like development images and not final products.

I agree that as is, the second style has a very unfinished look to it, but when I looked at it, I sort of felt something (if that makes sense).

What do you mean by partially line-art the sketches? The artist is capable of smoother lines, and all of the line-art will be edited in a program before being colored over, but I think I am fond of the "sketchiness" of it. It's very similar to Hotel Dusk, which got quite popular.

[Starling]

Personally I like the first one better. I can get the feeling you'd be going for with the sketchy look, but it also feels too "soft" for a horror game. When I looked at the first picture I had a bit of a shiver down my spine, maybe it's the pose but it FELT sinister to me. And you did say the second style is unfinished, so I don't know if this will be true if you get a finalized picture, but it feels less professional right now.

If you want to go with the sketchy style, however, my suggestion might be to darken the lines so that they're more black than light gray or darken them and color them like is done in the vector sketch. The gray lines tend to make it looked washed out.

Also, you're artist is amazing, these pictures are beautiful.

[kinougames]

Personally I like the first one better. I can get the feeling you'd be going for with the sketchy look, but it also feels too "soft" for a horror game. When I looked at the first picture I had a bit of a shiver down my spine, maybe it's the pose but it FELT sinister to me. And you did say the second style is unfinished, so I don't know if this will be true if you get a finalized picture, but it feels less professional right now.

If you want to go with the sketchy style, however, my suggestion might be to darken the lines so that they're more black than light gray or darken them and color them like is done in the vector sketch. The gray lines tend to make it looked washed out.

Also, you're artist is amazing, these pictures are beautiful.

We're absolutely going to edit the lines to be darker, though I am not sure that we'll go as far as strict black. If we're doing the sketchy style, we're not going to use the vector style at all, as the color artists are two completely different people and I think this sort of style crossing might be too much to ask.

It's funny that you said the second style was too soft, because I was thinking that the first was too saturated/bright for horror. xD

We're very glad to have our artist; she's indeed absolutely brilliant.

[Meems]

I prefer the second style, personally, although I would agree that it looks a bit too soft for a horror game.

There are two problems I have with the vector style. The first is that nearly every game uses a very similar style, and after a while this gets boring. The second is that it can look a little... how do I put this... sterile? That's kind of an exaggeration, but what I mean is that it can look too clean and perfect and ends up losing a lot of energy that way. (This is talking about that style of art in general, not yours specifically, so please don't be offended.)

[kinougames]

I prefer the second style, personally, although I would agree that it looks a bit too soft for a horror game.

There are two problems I have with the vector style. The first is that nearly every game uses a very similar style, and after a while this gets boring. The second is that it can look a little... how do I put this... sterile? That's kind of an exaggeration, but what I mean is that it can look too clean and perfect and ends up losing a lot of energy that way. (This is talking about that style of art in general, not yours specifically, so please don't be offended.)

I had the same exact problems with the vector style. Yes, it is a very clean, bright colored piece, very neat, very professional looking, but precisely, every game uses this style. I think that for a horror game with a lot of very deep old world themes and dark-and-stormy-night type ideas, it comes off as extremely...shiny? Modern? Sharp? I also really have a problem with how bright the colors are. The lighting sort of reminds me of being in a hospital room with every light shining on you from every direction (sterile was a fantastic word).

Meanwhile, while the fuzziness in the second style is attractive to me, it will be more difficult to get a clean background with this style and some of the backgrounds will be very detailed. I don't want too much disambiguation between them.

I think I will try a mixing of the two styles to see what we can do.

[LinWest]

I think the points that had been made about that particular looser style not fitting a horror game is completely correct. I'd go with the clean version. You express you don't want vector-colored art for the sprites, which I completely agree with. However, I feel the first is not really all that cell shaded so it doesn't bother me. I could still seeing it be used for a horror game.

Then again, look at Togainu no Chi. Definitely a dark yaoi game, but they used really clean cell shading. They just limited their palettes to diluted colors, black, and red.

What animamundi did to get the effect they did in their colored sprites was hand-drawn the linework/link and added shadows in watercolor. Scanned it. Then they simply did a similar effect to how you colored your sprite.

I sent you an email btw.

[Deji]

I agree with the rest here that the second one looks too unpolished.
I think your problem with the first image may be the color palette rather than the kind of coloring.
I think it could also help if the lines were thinner and less saturated as well.

I did a quick Photoshop tweaking with Coplor Balance and other things, and made the lines a bit thinner... Maybe this is more to your linking?

[kinougames]

I agree with the rest here that the second one looks too unpolished.
I think your problem with the first image may be the color palette rather than the kind of coloring.
I think it could also help if the lines were thinner and less saturated as well.

I did a quick Photoshop tweaking with Coplor Balance and other things, and made the lines a bit thinner... Maybe this is more to your linking?

colorguymuted.jpg

Right, I'm not debating the fact that the second is unpolished, and I would not leave it that way to put into the game. it would be cleaned up, but we'd leave the pencil shadings in for the effect.

You're right, my problem with the cleaner coloring is largely the palette, which gives me this very annoying "I'm sitting under a bunch of bright lights" kind of feel as opposed to "people are doing to diiiiiiie". However, I'm shying away from the first color style over all because it's in every single game out there, and I'd like to experiment with throwing something new in.

I'm not a huge fan of your edit because the character looks as if he's got a flu. ^^;

[fortaat]

I like Deji's version more than the original - he doesn't look sick to me, and as you said, the first color style is overused. Anyway, he looks like a very long twig, probably on purpose, but I find it quite ugly.

You forgot to mention whether the horror is of the "LOOK BEHIND YOU!!!" kind, or the "slowly creeping feeling of something here is very wrong" kind.
If it's the second one your aiming at, I'd reconsider the art style, since it looks too stylish to give an immediate empathy for the characters. They look too much like models, and not enough human.
Look at the art of Kazuo Umezu. Since his characters look like regular kids, it scares us a lot more when they get hurt - we identify with them a lot more, even though they look less "perfect".

[Deji]

You're right, my problem with the cleaner coloring is largely the palette, which gives me this very annoying "I'm sitting under a bunch of bright lights" kind of feel as opposed to "people are doing to diiiiiiie". However, I'm shying away from the first color style over all because it's in every single game out there, and I'd like to experiment with throwing something new in.

I'm not a huge fan of your edit because the character looks as if he's got a flu. ^^;

I probably made him too blue xD; But I think a cold palette helps a lot, and the main problem here seems to be that the skin tone (and the lines around the skin) are too orange/saturated. Toning it down a bit would help, imo.
Also, I think the highlights are indeed very bright and give the impression he's under a bright light. Toning them down (not making them so bright, but closer to the base color) would help as well.

[kinougames]

I like Deji's version more than the original - he doesn't look sick to me, and as you said, the first color style is overused. Anyway, he looks like a very long twig, probably on purpose, but I find it quite ugly.

You forgot to mention whether the horror is of the "LOOK BEHIND YOU!!!" kind, or the "slowly creeping feeling of something here is very wrong" kind.
If it's the second one your aiming at, I'd reconsider the art style, since it looks too stylish to give an immediate empathy for the characters. They look too much like models, and not enough human.
Look at the art of Kazuo Umezu. Since his characters look like regular kids, it scares us a lot more when they get hurt - we identify with them a lot more, even though they look less "perfect".

It's neither kind of horror actually. It's horror in that when the extent of the story is revealed, you're made to feel rather sick and queasy and aghast. It's not any sort of huge amalgamation of BOO, or "...oh god I think someone is following me...", which is why I tend to call it a horror-drama, as it's not a thriller or mystery-thriller type (where the scares pop out or sneak up on you), but more of a story that leaves the characters in a set of catch-22s and downward spirals. The artist who did the supposed "ugly" line art is not our artist for the game; it was a test, like I said, to see what we could do, and we indeed decided against it for the same reason, and went with a more anatomically realistic artist who doesn't stick as cleanly to the all-hailed "anime style" of character, but more has what we felt was a charming blend between anime and the more realistic American comic style.

Also, we're not going to model this entirely after horror art, and we're wholeheartedly decided on the artist we have. In the end, it is a BL visual novel, and BL fans really do not give a crap about "realistic". They'll empathize just as well with gorgeous men, and they play the games for gorgeous men. (Furthermore, certain characters being oddly and astoundingly beautiful is actually plot relevant.)

And @ Deji;

I think I agree with the blue, but even with the blue he's just got this LIGHTS IN MY EYES feel, which would probably be perfect if any part of the game took place in a hospital, or it was a hospital horror. It actually looks similar to a mockup of one of the characters looking sickly that we did as another test. xD

[yummy]

This is just my two cents:
you might want to document on some anime or drawings that depict dark themes, such as Kuro Shitsuji, Higurashi series, Bakemonogatari (though I think your style is closer to kuroshitsuji)...
Usually, dark themed series tend to depict the person with eyes hidden, unusual facial close ups, goggling eyes, weird coloured eyes, cold palettes, sick auras, unusual grins... Depiction of blood is not even necessary.

For example, in a normal scene, take two people having a conversation. You'd make either views like in cinema, 3/4 from the back to see each character talking to the other one.
In a darker themed scene, you'd make use of perspective toying, like horizontal spanning, 3/4 low angle shots, eye zooms (with eventual iris movements), mouth zoom when highlighting a special word...

Well that's when it comes to animation. With still images, you might want to bring out this special feeling of falling into schizophrenia.

Also the pendant makes me remember some gothic lolita themes, but maybe it's just my imagination, but it might be useful.

[kinougames]

This is just my two cents:
you might want to document on some anime or drawings that depict dark themes, such as Kuro Shitsuji, Higurashi series, Bakemonogatari (though I think your style is closer to kuroshitsuji)...
Usually, dark themed series tend to depict the person with eyes hidden, unusual facial close ups, goggling eyes, weird coloured eyes, cold palettes, sick auras, unusual grins... Depiction of blood is not even necessary.

For example, in a normal scene, take two people having a conversation. You'd make either views like in cinema, 3/4 from the back to see each character talking to the other one.
In a darker themed scene, you'd make use of perspective toying, like horizontal spanning, 3/4 low angle shots, eye zooms (with eventual iris movements), mouth zoom when highlighting a special word...

Well that's when it comes to animation. With still images, you might want to bring out this special feeling of falling into schizophrenia.

Also the pendant makes me remember some gothic lolita themes, but maybe it's just my imagination, but it might be useful.

I am indeed going to check out Kuroshitsuji, the art style is definitely to my liking. But I'm wondering now if I should stop calling the game horror, since the word seems to elicit a different reaction than intended. I call it horror/drama because the game it is modelled vaguely after is Animamundi which is considered a horror/drama, but Animamundi doesn't make use of anything like that (nor am I sure it's appropriate). xD