‘Chants of Sennaar’
Art Style
The game uses a hand-drawn style, with each frame resembling a work of art. The color palette of each level of the tower (believers, warriors, poets, alchemists, hermits) is distinct—from the oppressive warm yellow of the bottom level to the cool gray-blue of the middle level, and finally to the bright and lively upper levels. This visual layering allows players to perceive the cultural discontinuities simply through color. I noticed they frequently use a single dominant color in large areas, which helps determine the main composition colors in relation to our game’s atmosphere. For example, yellow and green are used to evoke the feeling of late summer and early autumn.
‘Her Trees’
‘Her Trees’ is a point-and-click puzzle game on Steam. Players follow a little girl as she explores a black-and-white world composed of everyday objects like paper and leaves. The core themes of the game are memory, growth, and life, with the tree serving as a central symbol throughout.
Art Style:
The game employs a pure black-and-white hand-drawn style, without using any color. The deeper purpose of this design is to eliminate color interference and enhance the expressiveness of light, shadow, shape, and composition. This color-independent design also makes the game very friendly to players with color vision deficiencies.
The game uses minimalist black-and-white visuals to create a tranquil, lonely, somewhat mysterious, and melancholic dreamlike atmosphere. Ambient sound effects serve as the primary background sound, creating a strong sense of immersion.
Metaphorical Visual Symbols:
The tree is not only the center of the scene but also a metaphor for the themes of memory, growth, and life. Every detail in the scene carries a narrative function.
Puzzle Design:
The puzzles are characterized by intuitive solving. All puzzles require no textual guidance and are solved by dragging, combining, and placing objects. The puzzle design incorporates techniques such as visual illusions, overlapping, occlusion, and symmetry, with no repetition.
