International Explorers Renowned Society and its wonderfully diverse character design

[MerlinCross]

When we talk about design decisions we don't like we are told that we should be more positive and bring up games that do it right and not just bash games. When we bring up games that made design decisions that we like we are told that it doesn't matter. Once again the internet proves that you can never win a discussion on it.

Also, that game became an instant buy for me, thanks Ert!

Oh it does matter and I'm glad more people get to see this game. But I wonder, would it have been brought up if it was a bad game?

 

[Saetha]

Eh, I'm not seeing it. The designs just don't look tremendously diverse to me. With the exception of the first guy and maaaaaybe the luchador gal, they all have pretty similar body types, similar height, similar weight, etc. Of course, I assume the "diverse" we're using means "visually varied and interesting" and not "non-straight white guy." To that end, kinda falls flat to me - would probably need more exaggeration in the designs to really push all the characters apart from one another. I'd say they didn't do that for fear of making things cartoonish, but going off the bright color palette and how they seem to abusing common character stereotypes (Luchador, tiny hunched over old-man, BDSM whip-slingin' lady.) I find that hard to believe.

Indivisible seems to fit your definition better than this.

 

[Amaror]

You are the one who subtly implied that players shouldn't want to look at "ugly people". Don't deny it. So, who is the one advocating their tastes as a grand ideal?
Second thing to consider: do not confuse my personal artistic preference with the issue of sexism. The issue of sexism is one thing. The fact that I like physically diverse characters is a completely unrelated matter.
So, while I do not claim my personal artistic tastes should be a grand ideal, I DO advocate that the lack of sexism MUST be a grand ideal.
A videogame in which every character, male or female, is superhot and/or idealized... is a videogame that does not follow my artistical preference, and I have zero problems with it.
A videogame in which every character,male or female, is realistic looking or physically imperfect.... is a videogame that follows my artistical prefererece, and I have zero problems with it.
A videogame in which male characters are realistic looking or physically imperfect BUT female characters are superhot and/or idealized.... is a sexist videogame and usually I tend to have a problem with it (unless the entire point of the videogame were to stare at hot babes).

Don't put words in my mouth. I never said anything about what people should or shouldn't want.
My comment about you liking ugly people was, as explained in the very next sentence in that original post, about you making the same criticism over and over and over again. Not about whether you should or shouldn't want to look at ugly people.
Your explanation of your qualms about diversity makes sense, yet i have seen it differently in the past.
You have complained about the Witcher 3 for example, which features both ugly and pretty males and females. For example:

And even in this cast i would say the the spanish muscle-woman isn't exactly conventionally attractive.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

Eh, i think Indivisible looks more interesting in that deparment.

But it's a roguelite, and i like roguelites, so maybe i'll play it in future.

 

[Coruptin]

I don't know anything about the game, but I have to say that the art style and animation are far from my liking. It's that particular "I'm in/just graduated from art school and haven't developed my own feel yet" look I've been seeing all the time over the internet lately. You know, the X re-imagined as Y stuff that's everywhere.

A videogame in which every character, male or female, is superhot and/or idealized... is a videogame that does not follow my artistical preference, and I have zero problems with it.
A videogame in which every character,male or female, is realistic looking or physically imperfect.... is a videogame that follows my artistical prefererece, and I have zero problems with it.
A videogame in which male characters are realistic looking or physically imperfect BUT female characters are superhot and/or idealized.... is a sexist videogame and usually I tend to have a problem with it (unless the entire point of the videogame were to stare at hot babes).

Then you'd be using your subjective barometer for what is beauty to judge whether a game is sexist or not wouldn't you? Also, surely, a game could have male and female characters who could be considered ugly, but be developed with sexist intent. Likewise, a game could fit your criteria of a sexist game without being developed with sexist intent. I also don't see where artistic style and physical attractiveness has any correlation, but I think you meant to say personal preference not artistic so what evs.

 

[iller3]

Whenever I hear: "Look how diverse this game is!" ... I have 2 automatic Assumptions.
1) There was never a budget planned for a character creator which means its potential diversity is actually really limited.
2) There wasn't even a budget for seamless transition between gameplay mechanics either which just makes the "Characters" into extremely flat 2D stereotypes that aren't adaptable to a wider scope of Confrontations or Talents. Instead they're just a deck of cards basically and there's already a ton of A+ budgeted games out there that run the whole Deck-building or BuildWars theme a lot better.


...well there's also a 3rd assumption too... which is that the person saying it, is just new to the medium or "Virtue Signaling" for attention but that's a personal opinion that doesn't normally even need to be brought up since Game Design itself is all that really matters to veteran Gamers.

 

[Areloch]

I don't really know how much you can define games as a "visual medium", as it relies mroe on gameplay than graphics, besides, I'm not making a topic about how awesome Tekken (or just any fighting game) is because all the diversity in the cast.

Yes, it stands to reason that videogames are in large part a visual medium. They're an amalgam of audiovisual stimuli and interactivity.

Just think about all the visual feedback that gameplay relies on. When I had to design a game for a project incredible amounts of time went towards its visual design and for good reason. Think about multiplayer shooters for instance. Imagine one where every character look alike, you can barely distinguish teams and the levels are absolutely filled with clutter. That has strong impact on how the game plays.

That's not even talking about two less technical things, namely aesthetics and the fact that videogames are still works of culture (whether they're art or not).

I think more in terms of narrative, for example, Bioshock and Infamous will not work as well as films or books, while visuals are a big part, in the end gameplay is the one thing that differenciates between the unmemorable and memorable, of course some good games can be just pure eye candy but they are few in numbers.

Well, almost every single game ever made has a reliance on the visual medium in order to actually play it though. You're absolutely correct, the interactivity is what sets gaming apart, but much like the whole square-rectangle thing, games can be a visual medium without movies being an interactive medium.

Also, tying back to the interactivity being the definitive element of gaming as a medium, Cowabunga raises an excellent point that lots of games explicitly utilize the visual side of things in order to facilitate better gameplay.

Valve is super fond of this and has written several presentations on it. You can check one out here:
http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2008/GameFest08_ArtInSource.pdf

It covers how they use art to influence gameplay in TF2 and L4D. Further, using subtle visual cues has been used extensively elsewhere in gaming, such as using lights or textures in a level to intuit to the player which direction they should go, using reds can denote nearby danger, blues can denote safety, etc.

Lots of excellent games use the visual side to accentuate the interactivity element.