Alright, now that it's the fourth post in this blog and there is a rudimentary base of information in the previous posts to work off of, let's put it to use in a real game.
It's about time we played something, y'know?
PAYDAY2
The game up for observation is Overkill Software's Payday 2. In the game, players take the roll of professional criminals knocking over banks, stores, museums, and more, all in the name of sweet sweet cash. Let's take a brief look at their visual vocabulary. All pictures are screenshots from the game taken by me.
For starters, let's look at the main menu.
 |
| Yes, I am a gun-toting, blue and white striped, wicker unicorn. Shhhhhhh. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
Immediately, it is noticed that there is a general cool color scheme featuring strong blues, whites, and greys. The background is navy blue overlayed with translucent white scrawls and curling smoke. The majority of text is blue with headers and essential information in white.
The color scheme, due to it's low saturation and strong contrast between colors, conveys an air of serious business, like what one would expect from professional criminals (ignoring the whole unicorn mask thing), This helps to tell the (somewhat sparse) narrative of the game.
The composition aids in this silent storytelling by being very simple and clean. It draws the viewer's eyes from top left to bottom right. The primary visual focus is on the character present. since there are no other physical elements to help place the character in a visual space it is akin to having a lone figure in an infinite void, which definitely helps to add a sense of importance, weight, and gravity.
Next are pictures of screens seen before playing a game.
 |
| Me and some friends. I wish they wore weirder masks for this screenshot though. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
This first screen is very similar to the main menu, but this time it shows the multiple characters used by different players. Notice that they are color coded for convenience. Additionally, scale is used as a subtle cue to show which character is me. I am set larger/closer to the camera and thus my importance is increased in relation to the other characters on screen, which is reasonable since my in game avatar is more important to myself than the others.
 |
| Screenshot by Marc Chea |
This next picture shows the mission select screen. Like before, it features strong color contrast between white and blue, but this time shape also plays a much larger role. Missions are represented by white squares with disappearing circles inside. Red and yellow are colors that are used to mark special missions and increased difficulties. The combination of bright, solid colors and sharp distinct shapes sets the selectable objects apart from the background which is so full of lines it simply fades from view, as it should.
That's it for the boring menu stuff, now onto actual gameplay screenshots.
 |
| Repetition features in the minimalist pre-mission difficulty display. The screen shows four skulls with the last having distinctive horns signifying something special about the mission. (read: very very hard) Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| Screenshot by Marc Chea |
Once out of the menus, the game is actually quite lively, with a prominent focus on shape and color to convey the majority of information that the player needs.
The primary shapes used in this game to represent important events and actions are squares and circles respectively.
Due to their solid nature, squares are often used to represent objects and places in the game. Think nouns and the like.
The missions in the menus are represented by squares, places to put objects are square, doctor's bags, ammo bags, supply drops, and more are all roughly square.
 |
| Square drill areas. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| Square(ish) medic bags. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| Square ammo pickups. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| Square cash blocks. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| Square ammo bags. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| Square safes. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
You get it. The game ties tangible physical stuff to square shapes and the like.
On the other hand, actions are usually represented by circles since they imply movement.
Placing, using, and interacting with objects always has a circle show up and complete itself as the action is done. Additionally, character stamina and health is show with small green circles at the bottom of the screen.
 |
| Bagging bodies. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| Grabbing ammo. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| Fiddling with locks. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| Using drills in illegal ways. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| Experience is also represented by a circle because, y'know, cycles and stuff. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
Color plays just as big a role, if not bigger, as shape. In both the previous and following images, it can be noted that cool/neutral colors are never ever used to denote objects/entities that are harmful to player characters. For example, most beneficial pickups (like ammo and medic bags) are outlined in bright cyan, objectives, (like loot bags and jammed drills) are outlined in yellow, and enemies are outlined in deep saturated red. This color coding helps players rapidly identify stuff as well as find things in 3D space since the outlines can be seen through walls.
 |
| Special enemies can be spotted. When they are, they gain a bright red outline. Here's a sniper about to shoot my face off. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| When your armor breaks, the screen will flash red to tell you that you are now taking health damage. Here's a bunch of cops shooting me to death. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| Loot bags are lined in yellow. The orange flags represent alarmed civilians. Here's me enjoying the sight of bags full of stolen jewelry. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
This is a look at the practical side of color in this game, but there is also the part of color that exists purely to help the game look good.
Frequently, as seen in the previous pictures, the game world has very bright and vivid colors to create visual interest, but one part that seemingly lacks color are the base character models. Pretty much every character's outfit is black, grey, or brown. Taken by itself, outfit colors are pretty boring, but that's where the masks come in.
The masks are the primary fashion with which players can customize and express their individual style in the game. As you saw earlier, my mask is a blue and white striped unicorn head made of wicker. There is a vast amount of combinations that can be made using masks, patterns, and colors.
Indeed, I would say that the masks are the sole most important aesthetic element in the entire game since the game is done in a fairly realistic art style. They are what really tell the visual story of PAYDAY2. The masks aren't just a place for players to input their own personal flair, they also help to remind that technically, in this game you play as the bad guys. The mask are often grotesque, with faces contorted by deep wrinkles and lines. When looked at they cannot be thought of as pretty. They instead are made to look scary, creepy, or just plain odd. These masks are not meant to be worn by anything resembling the 'good guys'.
 |
| The Christmas themed Strinch mask. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| My unicorn mask. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| A classic hockey mask with a color and pattern applied. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| The Doctor Crime mask. Looks rather familiar. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| Hoxton's mask shows facial burns and an angry smile. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| Bonnie's mask depicts a Glasgow smile, where a victim's cheeks are cut. Think the Joker from the Batman movies. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| The happy Santa Claus mask. Screenshot by Marc Chea |
 |
| An angry Mrs. Claus Screenshot by Marc Chea |
Looking back at this post, there's so much more to this game than what I talked about. I feel like I've only made a weak, shallow pass at everything that could be covered, but hey, there's only so much a single blog post can do. Maybe I'll get better at this. Eventually.
-Marc
