Understanding the Difference Between Game Design and Game Art
By
ChicMic Studios
September 13, 2023
The game development industry has two major disciplines that define the path of a game: Game Art and Game Design. They are both responsible for creating a visually stunning game that offers an excellent player experience. Despite these individual fields’ popularity, people often confuse and use them interchangeably. Join Chicmic, one of the top game development companies, and let’s understand the intricacies of each field and how they are different.
What is Game Art?
Game Art is responsible for the visual storytelling within the game development process. It undertakes the game’s visual aesthetics to create immersive and captivating worlds for the players to explore. Let’s look into some key aspects of game art:
- Visual elements: Game artists are responsible for the visual aspects of a game, including character design, environment art, concept art, 3D modeling, and texturing. They use their artistic skills to bring the game’s world and characters to life.
- Aesthetic Consistency: Game artists also work to maintain the visual consistency of the game. They must ensure that the art style, color palette, and overall look of the game align with the creative vision set by the design team.
- Emotion and Atmosphere: Art can evoke emotions and set the game’s atmosphere. Game artists rely on color theory, lighting, and composition to convey the intended mood and tone of the game.
- Player engagement: The game’s visual appeal is a crucial factor in drawing players into playing the game. Game art plays a significant role in player engagement, making the game visually appealing and intriguing.
- Collaboration: Game artists work closely with designers, animators, and programmers to integrate art assets into the game engine. Collaboration ensures that the visual elements align with the gameplay and technical requirements.
Types of Game art
Game art is further divided into four types. These are:
- Concept art: Concept art is about creating the game’s early art designs. It helps create a common game design idea among the artists, designers, and developers. The game artists sketch several character models in different postures that undergo hundreds of modifications before finalizing the best iteration. Concept artists follow similar steps for the game world as well.
- Character art: Character art involves giving the game characters a visual appeal through costumes and facial expressions and implementing sculpting, rigging, and other concepts. Character art starts with 2D drawings and proceeds to build 3D models for final use in the game.
- Prop art: Props are the elements present in a scene that add to the aesthetic feel of the game environment. These may be a tree, boat, glass, table, utensils, vehicle, etc., that support the game but are not part of the game. Prop artists design props for different scenes and environments depending on the game.
- Visual Effects: Visual effects increase the player’s immersiveness and gaming experience. VFXs are further divided into gameplay effects like explosions and car engine noise and environment effects like river flowing and rain.
- Environment Art: Environment artists spend hours creating the game world with landscapes, buildings, people, props, and detailed backgrounds. These environments bring the game world to life and set the tone for other game development processes.
What is Game design?
Game design concentrates on the interactive elements of a video game. Designers craft rules, mechanics, and player experiences that shape a game. Here are some critical aspects of game design:
- Gameplay Mechanics: Game designers create the core gameplay mechanics that include movements, combat, puzzles, and progression systems. These mechanics dictate how players interact with the game.
- Level Design: Designers are responsible for crafting levels and environments that challenge and engage players. They determine the placement of obstacles, enemies, and rewards to create a balanced and enjoyable experience.
- Player Experience: Game design ensures players have a satisfying and meaningful experience. This includes providing clear objectives, feedback, and a sense of progression.
- Balancing: Game Designers fine-tune the difficulty and balance of the game. They adjust enemy AI, resource availability, and challenges to create a gameplay experience that is challenging but not frustrating.
- Storytelling: While game art sets the visual stage, game designers are often responsible for the game’s narrative structure. They create story arcs, character development, and dialogue that fit within the gameplay.
- Iteration and Testing: Game design involves continuous iteration and playtesting. Designers gather player feedback and make adjustments to improve the gameplay, mechanics, and overall player experience.
Types of Game Design
These are the different types of game design:
- Game Mechanics Design: A fundamental aspect (as explained above) and distinct type of game design, mechanics design defines the interactions between game elements and characters. These interactions are responsible for providing a seamless gameplay experience for players.
- UX Design: Game designers continuously work on game flow, interactions, wireframes, and layers to create a seamless user experience. They execute playtests to understand the player’s POV and smoothen the issues within gameplay.
- UI Design: Game Designers create the game menu, color palette, and icons that would enrich the user experience. They must ensure the navigation between different menus and screens is easy to grasp.
- Level Design: Game designers create game missions, levels, stages, and goals that add to game engagement. These levels create challenging gameplay for the players to play and win to proceed to the next level.
- Sound Design: Sound designers collaborate with other designers to understand the game and create appropriate soundtracks and elements. A game contains several sound elements like theme music, action music, environment sound, etc., which add to the overall gaming experience.
- Narrative Design: The narrative design involves creating a harmonious combination of game script, story, and character dialogues. The game designers work on the game plot from the game writers and create the game around it.
Concluding note
The game development process relies on game art and design to create authentic gaming experiences. They are like two sides of the same coin that work in tandem to build captivating and immersive games. While game art attracts players through visual appeal, the game design provides a challenging arena to keep them engaged. ChicMic offers uncompromised game art, design, and development services that bring out the best in your game idea.
