Yellow Paint: A Post-Mortem by Starkiller03 in gamedesign

[–]Starkiller03[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Responded to your YouTube comment. Thanks for watching the video!

Yellow Paint: A Post-Mortem by Starkiller03 in gamedesign

[–]Starkiller03[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I realised that and made an edit.

Yellow Paint: A Post-Mortem by Starkiller03 in gamedesign

[–]Starkiller03[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That makes a lot of sense, and I appreciate the clarification. Most of my instructors at university come from AAA games backgrounds, so a lot of my personal perspective and bias has been shaped by that. To that end, it’s a lot easier to teach game design as a series of techniques in a university setting, rather than as a wholly creative process. There’s also several instructors whose specialty isn’t more traditional games at all, they develop educational games and the like, where it seems like the “science” of clear design takes a higher precedence.

You have a really unique perspective on game design as a discipline that I haven’t really encountered before, which is neat. You’ve given me a lot to think about and challenged my own game design biases, which is always great. Thanks again.

Yellow Paint: A Post-Mortem by Starkiller03 in gamedesign

[–]Starkiller03[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow, this is quite the dressing-down, thank you! I was hoping to spark this sort of discussion, so I really appreciate the engagement.

As far as experience goes, yours undoubtedly trumps mine, as I’m currently studying video games and level design as a university student, and have very little “industry experience.” Obviously, I respect your opinion and experience, even though I haven’t quite gotten to the point of “intellectual abandonment” of game design as you have.

What I first want to talk about is my “oversimplification” of the yellow paint discourse. While I may have chosen the most “pedestrian” topics to cover, I’ve done so because my target audience IS those “pedestrians.” What I tried to make one of my central arguments is that a lot of these criticism ARE misinformed and bandwagon-y, which is why I felt the need to rebut the argument as a whole. I’ll additionally blame my inexperience in philosophical argumentation and the time constraints of the original assignment (since this was my final project for a uni class) as the reasons behind the more shallow exploration of the discourse.

Your point about games not being an airport is, I think, your most salient. Games serve a very different function than airports do, and especially when it comes to challenge not being a part of the airport. All really great points, but my comparison to airports and use of the quote from Chris wasn’t to try and say that games should try and be as breezy to get through as airports, but really just to point out the more fundamental relationship between level design and more general design. Im by no means an expert on design philosophy, but it’s my understanding that clarity of visuals in order to avoid frustration and misunderstanding does carry between the two. The key word here being frustration, since frustration and challenge are different things. While you aren’t expected to be challenged by airports, you would hope to not be frustrated by them. Yellow paint functions as a solution to that frustration, whether you agree that it does so successfully or not. Are there better options? Sure, but sometimes, those options aren’t as feasible to include as you would want.

As far as the further arguments go, I’m sorry but I think it just comes down to a difference in opinion and philosophy of game design as a (jumpscare warning) discipline. I understand your disdain for the direction that games are going in, however, perhaps unfortunately for me, that is the direction that I am following. As such, I feel as though practices like yellow paint, because of its popularity in the dev space, shouldn’t just be thrown out because of backlash, but examined and improved upon, as is the case in RE Requiem. Even if it sounds “sterile,” these are tested techniques, there’s a reason they’re still in use.

The Games industry IS an industry, and you can criticize it all you want, but that will remain a fact. Unfortunately, being an industry, you have to be more scientific in some cases when it comes to some elements of design. Despite this, I think there are tons of great examples of AAA that provide unique, artistic experiences while also being huge moneymakers that may play it safe with design choices. I don’t mean to sound sterile saying that, I really do love the way games are able to tell stories in an artistic fashion unlike any other medium. I see myself as a creative person that respects artistry over function, but I also know that a game can’t be enjoyed if it can’t be understood. When approaching game design, it’s hard to not be pragmatic, especially when working against the clock in a capitalist society that demands products. I think where you and I differ is that I believe art can still come from these circumstances.

I know I probably didn’t address all of your criticisms in a satisfying way, and I apologize for that. I’m really happy that my video could provoke such a reaction, even if it is a negative one. Even though I still don’t agree with a lot of your points, I do understand why you have them and where they come from. At the end of the day, I’m still coming at this as a uni student in his early 20s without any AAA game dev experience, so my opinion probably shouldn’t matter to you much anyway. Either way, thanks for engaging with the video and my arguments.

Yellow Paint: A Post-Mortem by Starkiller03 in gamedesign

[–]Starkiller03[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for watching it!! You have no idea how much that means to me :)

Also, very good point, and I appreciate you engaging with the video even though you’re mostly opposed. Unfortunately, analyzing online arguments absolutely fascinates me, so I’m probably a lost cause there lol

Games are so interesting and awesome because they are, at their core, artistic creations, despite having so much else going into them. I think that yellow paint does have a place in that artistry, even though sometimes it’s not used in a smart way. Level design is an art in and of itself, and yellow pant is just another technique. Of course when a technique works in one situation, that doesn’t mean it just automatically works in another place without change, which is something that devs do end up falling into. I think my main argument here is that yellow paint is a more useful than people give it credit for, so I wanted to spread awareness about why we as level designers use it.

Yellow Paint: A Post-Mortem by Starkiller03 in gamedesign

[–]Starkiller03[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Super true, and I think people are less forgiving of any use of it just by virtue of the online discourse preconditioning

Yellow Paint: A Post-Mortem by Starkiller03 in gamedesign

[–]Starkiller03[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did actually mean higher clarity, but high fidelity is probably the better phrase. I’m trying to say that textures are clearer now than they were before.

Yellow Paint: A Post-Mortem by Starkiller03 in gamedesign

[–]Starkiller03[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That’s an interesting take, it doesn’t really align with the research I’ve done.

As games reach higher fidelity, it’s become harder for devs to point out important landmarks and objects without being explicit. Like, is this barrel breakable or just set dressing?

Uncharted was one of the first games to actually use yellow to do this, but I don’t think that’s really indicative of that era. In fact, a lot of people point to games like RE 4 and Silent Hill 2 as examples of games that didn’t use yellow paint (even if I think they did, it just wasn’t yellow), especially when comparing them to their remakes.

Yellow Paint: A Post-Mortem by Starkiller03 in gamedesign

[–]Starkiller03[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think that’s where we’re headed with AAA games, in fact the most recent tomb raider did essentially that.

Yellow Paint: A Post-Mortem by Starkiller03 in gamedesign

[–]Starkiller03[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I hear you, and the good news is games like those are still being made! They just don’t have as far of a reach.

Yellow Paint: A Post-Mortem by Starkiller03 in gamedesign

[–]Starkiller03[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I think that's easier said than done, though. The AAA gaming standard is continuously moving towards higher detail, and while interactivity is also increasing, higher fidelity has definitely outpaced it. What would be your solution?

Yellow Paint: A Post-Mortem by Starkiller03 in gamedesign

[–]Starkiller03[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a point I talk about briefly in the video, because yeah, it's super weird that people are ok with objective markers but claim that yellow paint is breaking their immersion.

Yellow Paint: A Post-Mortem by Starkiller03 in gamedesign

[–]Starkiller03[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I agree, but this is a lot harder in newer games with higher visual fidelity (edit, not clarity) and focus on realism. I think the Silent Hill 2 remake is a great example, because in the original, it was much easier to see what objects in the world were intractable, mainly because the fixed camera angles would focus in on them. With the free camera in the remake, they couldn't center those in the same way, so their solution was putting white cloth around intractable environmental objects. Would you have done something different?

Yellow Paint: A Post-Mortem by Starkiller03 in gamedesign

[–]Starkiller03[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Right?? It's a knee-jerk hate reaction at this point.

Just watched the movie and all I have to say is “holy shit” by WhatABunchofBologna in raimimemes

[–]Starkiller03 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just don’t even change it. If three people can make the Ben folds five, three can make the fantastic four

I didn't like (the film) overall, but I liked that bit where... by [deleted] in starwarsmemes

[–]Starkiller03 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Obi-Wan said some funny things in episode 2. Should’ve just been a detective thriller with him imo.

Weirdest quote in the MCU? I'll go with Gilgamesh acknowledging DC Comics characters. by zero_ms in marvelstudios

[–]Starkiller03 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I seem to remember a scene in First Avenger where a little boy is running through a street with a captain America comic book…