Gris:
Gris is a platform-puzzler game based around grief and loss. The player character is a young girl, who I will assume is named Gris despite never being confirmed. As she explores her world (symbolically processing her grief), it becomes more colourful and Gris moves with more speed and swiftness. This shows her mental state gradually improving.
Gris’s narrative is split into five sections that reflect the five stages of grief. You might pick up on that thematically, or you may find the secret actions in each section that unlock an achievement named for that stage.
The use of audio and the colour palette is what I find most interesting about this game. As the game progresses it becomes more vibrant. The music consists of pianos and stringed instruments.
As you can see the colour pallet for this game is vibrant with mainly warm hues. Although I’d like my colour pallet to change throughout like Gris does, I want my colour pallet to be more cool toned as it’s underwater.
What Inspiration will I take from this for my own game?
- 5 stages of grief- my character is anxious because her mother has been recently diagnosed with a terminal illness. I think including the 5 stages of grief into my game would be very fitting and I could use different theming for each room.
- Changing colour pallet- For each of my 5 rooms I’d like for the colour pallet to gradually become more vibrant, allowing the player to see the change in mental state. Room one will start with darker hues such as grey’s and dark blues and in comparison room five will have brighter blues and greens.
Gameplay:
Game ending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6A71-kF0MM
From watching these two gameplay videos you can see the contrast between the beginning and the ending of the game. The beginning starts in black and white and as you progress more colour is shown in the levels.
I really like this idea and will be using this in my own game.
Child of Light:
Child of Light is a platforming role-playing game. The black queen has stolen the sun, the moon and the stars. You play as a princess who must restore all three and defeat the black queen.
Although the narrative and game-play is very different from the game idea I aim to make, I really like the art style of this game.
I love the watercolour look and the dark colour pallet used in this game.
This game has a more cool-toned colour pallet in comparison to Gris.
What Inspiration will I take from this for my own game?
- Art style- I’d like to use the watercolour style with black outlines
- Colour pallet- I want my colour pallet to be very similar but instead of dark purples I would use dark blues.
Hollow Knight:
Hollow Knight is an action-adventure game. The player controls a silent insectoid protagonist called “the Knight” who explores an underground fallen kingdom called Hallownest. The Knight’s mission is to find and kill three bugs called the Dreamers, who act as the living seals on the temple door. Once the seals have been removed, the Knight may confront the source of the Infection.
I love the dark aesthetic in this game. The colour pallet mainly consists of cool tones such as blue and greys which is what I want my game to have.
On https://color.adobe.com/create/image you can extract the colour pallet from images and extract with different moods. As you can see, depending on the scene, the colours vary from dark to vibrant.
What Inspiration will I take from this for my own game?
- Colour pallet- I aim to have contrasting colour pallets in different rooms. These colour pallets could help me set the mood for each room.
- Art movement- because I want my game to have a warped reality, I aim to use surrealism as my main inspiration. One concept artist I would like to look at who uses surrealism is Tim Burton who you can tell massively influences this game.