Black and White vs. Color

[Suarga]

A topic I don't see discussed very much, but with watching the "Unskippable" for Mad World, it reminded me of how much I enjoyed seeing all the media for that game when it was the new thing. It makes me think of how I look at a picture in black and white and feel so much more depth behind it than a picture in color. Perhaps that depth is just in my head, but that's whats so magical about it. It allows your imagination to run free. So, I propose more entirely black and white video games. In the modern world of everyone fighting so hard to make a visually stunning game, a lot can be lost in depth if they spoon feed it to you. What say you, Escapists?

 

[Katie Paxton-fear]

It's new. Something which we don't see. It comes under the whole gritty ugly brown realism or experiment with more stylized graphical design features. There's nothing magical about the atheistic, just it's something new and different. It was a bold move by the designers and it worked well. I wouldn't say it's got a depth about it, it has a new feel to it.

 

[Suarga]

It's new. Something which we don't see. It comes under the whole gritty ugly brown realism or experiment with more stylized graphical design features. There's nothing magical about the atheistic, just it's something new and different. It was a bold move by the designers and it worked well. I wouldn't say it's got a depth about it, it has a new feel to it.

Well, when I say magical, I'm more referring to a real black and white photograph or movie that you might come across while looking into history. Maybe its just the history aspect that leaves a lot of questions unanswered that makes me feel its something special.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I hated Madworld because the black and white made it REALLY hard to tell enemies apart, or to traverse the environment because depth of field was hard to see.

 

[Katie Paxton-fear]

Well, when I say magical, I'm more referring to a real black and white photograph or movie that you might come across while looking into history. Maybe its just the history aspect that leaves a lot of questions unanswered that makes me feel its something special.

I think it has more to do with a mood of a photo or movie (or game). Color tells us a lot about the world, in creative media color has to be done really well to get the correct mood across. Black and white has a sense of mystery to it, the absence of color leads us to judge the mood for ourselves. It puts more emphasis on the visual appearance and writing to judge mood and feel of scenes.

I hated Madworld because the black and white made it REALLY hard to tell enemies apart, or to traverse the environment because depth of field was hard to see.

This is why we evolved to have color vision

 

[Suarga]

Well, when I say magical, I'm more referring to a real black and white photograph or movie that you might come across while looking into history. Maybe its just the history aspect that leaves a lot of questions unanswered that makes me feel its something special.

I think it has more to do with a mood of a photo or movie (or game). Color tells us a lot about the world, in creative media color has to be done really well to get the correct mood across. Black and white has a sense of mystery to it, the absence of color leads us to judge the mood for ourselves. It puts more emphasis on the visual appearance and writing to judge mood and feel of scenes.

Perhaps a game that you could dictate how a zone becomes, and whatever it is, the colors correlate with them? Like a huge sandbox of a game that begins as a template, like a graphic novel that hasn't been colored in, and the player is left to design his own world that can struggle and conflict with other's vision of what their world should look like? Maybe implementing some of that RPG alignment, with True Neutral being the black and white and etc.

 

[Katie Paxton-fear]

Well, when I say magical, I'm more referring to a real black and white photograph or movie that you might come across while looking into history. Maybe its just the history aspect that leaves a lot of questions unanswered that makes me feel its something special.

I think it has more to do with a mood of a photo or movie (or game). Color tells us a lot about the world, in creative media color has to be done really well to get the correct mood across. Black and white has a sense of mystery to it, the absence of color leads us to judge the mood for ourselves. It puts more emphasis on the visual appearance and writing to judge mood and feel of scenes.

Perhaps a game that you could dictate how a zone becomes, and whatever it is, the colors correlate with them? Like a huge sandbox of a game that begins as a template, like a graphic novel that hasn't been colored in, and the player is left to design his own world that can struggle and conflict with other's vision of what their world should look like? Maybe implementing some of that RPG alignment, with True Neutral being the black and white and etc.

I think that would work really nicely. A moral choice system would give you access to different colors. And changes what you see in the sandbox and what NPC's 'see'. Almost like you're on drugs, you see a beautiful city but someone who chose another path sees destruction and sadness. I can see it making a really good horror or physiological game

 

[Executor78]

When used correctly, black and white convey mood, atmosphere, mystery, etc... Schindler's List and Sin City used that idea extremely effectively. From the cutscene in Madworld, it looks like the programmers nailed the mood and noir feel to the whole thing. But, I likes me color in my games and black and white would just drive me nuts after a while.

 

[Suarga]

I think that would work really nicely. A moral choice system would give you access to different colors. And changes what you see in the sandbox and what NPC's 'see'. Almost like you're on drugs, you see a beautiful city but someone who chose another path sees destruction and sadness. I can see it making a really good horror or physiological game

I'm definitely thinking of a modern cityscape of a game, players having a definite aura about them those indicates to others what they want their world to be. Its a pretty enormous idea in my head... Someone find me a game developer and funding, stat!

 

[Katie Paxton-fear]

I'm definitely thinking of a modern cityscape of a game, players having a definite aura about them those indicates to others what they want their world to be. Its a pretty enormous idea in my head... Someone find me a game developer and funding, stat!

It would make for a beast indie title- too bad unless it's covered in brown and has lots of guns and blood no publisher would touch it.

 

[Suarga]

I'm definitely thinking of a modern cityscape of a game, players having a definite aura about them those indicates to others what they want their world to be. Its a pretty enormous idea in my head... Someone find me a game developer and funding, stat!

It would make for a beast indie title- too bad unless it's covered in brown and has lots of guns and blood no publisher would touch it.

Indie sounds like a good home for it. Well, thanks for entertaining my idea. I'll put some thought into it and maybe it can be produced after one of the several end of the worlds coming upon us.

 

[Katie Paxton-fear]

Indie sounds like a good home for it. Well, thanks for entertaining my idea. I'll put some thought into it and maybe it can be produced after one of the several end of the worlds coming upon us.

I'm a game programmer, hit me up sometime if you want to.