Castle Paradox

[Rolling Stone]

This reminds me of an idea I had for a walkman type device that would measure body heat, odor, voice tone, etc, and play a song according to the wearer's mood. It would be neat, but it would be something of a waste of pricy technology. But I'm afraid it would offend people who don't bathe often by going "BEEEE-YOOOOOH!!" or effeminate men with "She's a lady! Whoa-whoa-whoa she's a lady!"
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BANDIT REVOLVER, DOWNLOAD IT OR ELSE.

http://www.castleparadox.com/forum/gamelist-display.php?game=620

[Cube]

Yeah. See Blaze, we're talking about video games here, where the visual aspect of the game is very important. Look up interviews from character designers for games. You'll find that they're told what characters will be in the game, and what they're like. Based on those descriptions, they character designer creates the character, and usually makes their clothing have some sort of representation of that characters personality, or involvement in the story.

The facts of life don't apply when it comes to making games. Good designers try to be rather creative with their designs. This is the reason why I like only console RPGs (Or games for that matter), and hate every single PC game...

North American game designers always lean towards realism. They are NEVER creative with their designs, as they always look like some other character created before (Who's seen the guy that has no shirt on (And if he does, it's white and doesn't have sleeves), tatooed all over, tattered shorts that are usually brown/orange/puke green, with a belt that may have a skull or two on it, and pair of leather wrists. And has a lot of musles. Can't forget those. His head varies slightly, where he's either bald with a tatoo, or has short hair that isn't in any particular style. The head itself looks stupid itself because it just isn't shaped right. Next, throw a scar or two on him with the possibility of him having a blind eye, and you got yourself your own homebrewed PC character!!). They always use dark colors, like black, gray, and brown. They over use skulls (And WHY? Does every game designer in North America have some sort of morbid personality?!). In the end you get awful designs that LITERALLY give me headaches... Their designs are just ugly.

Because the visuals are so important, the usage of color is too. Just why IS Zidanes clothing teal and blue? Why is Garnet wearing yellow? Why do the clothing of the three female characters in Final Fantasy VIII consist of the primary colors? Why is Aeris' clothing pink? Or why has Ryu in Breath of Fire worn white (I don't believe Dragon Quarter counts. If it was a main part of the series it would have been called "Breath of Fire V")? Can you honestly tell me they have those colors "just because"? That the designer just said "Ah, what the hell"? There's no WAY you can say that characters in a video game have the colors and clothing in their designs just for the fun of it.

So... That's character design for ya.

[Me]

Cube, you should know that. They use skulls because skulls are EVIL! And EVIL! means COOL! And if a game is COOL! then lots of people who want to be COOL! but in reality just sit in their room playing COOL! games will buy the COOL! game. And the game company will make lots of MONEY! Which is COOL! for them. Even though the game SUCKS! and plays exactly like every other COOL! game that they released!
The problem with American companies is that they do not try for originality. Every game is the same, and is rushed for production just so they can make larger fourth-quarter profits, so that their stocks will go up, and their shareholders and executives will get richer, allowing them to produce yet another overpriced, big budget SHIT GAME!
Their games aren't really realistic, either. I mean, sure, they're set in realistic environments, but the characters, the plots, they suck. No one on this planet would act like the main character of a first person shooter in such a situation. Even the toughest soldier in the military would probably shit his pants if he saw a bunch of terrorists running at him, using advanced tactics and armed with modified AK-47s and grenades, while he had nothing but a combat knife. The American designers focus on realism in terms of graphics and physics, while the GOOD designer focuses on MAKING A GOOD GAME.
Okay, ranting off-topic is over.
But if you want to see a good article that makes a similar point to what I have said, go to www.the-underdogs.org and click on "Scratchware" in their sidebar. It's a damn fine article.
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[Blazes Battles Inc.]

First off:

[Blazes Battles Inc.]

Next,

[msw188]

I think part of the argument here comes into what it means for a color to have a personality. Obviously, the color does not physically have a personality. I don't think that that is what the 'for color' side is arguing. Nevertheless, it's tricky to say something like "I don't think that people's general conceptions of colors are true because it cannot be proven." Of course it cannot be proven, but it is true that many people share certain conceptions of colors. While that doesn't make the conception itself true per se, it does mean that if you are making a game that you expect other people to play, you have to respect the fact that on average, most people will see a character in a white cape as somehow pure, or at least as attempting to look pure. If you (Blazes Battles Inc.) don't believe that this is true, I'm sure that there are many psychology studies to back this claim up. Sure, all psychology studies of this type are just probability, but by that reasoning so are many other things that most programmers count on (green grass is somehow nicer than dead, yellow/brown grass; it's not a truth, but you can count on that impression in players more or less all of the time).
However, I believe you're correct in saying that the color-personality matches are not necessary. I don't think that Cube meant to make it sound so strict in his post about character-designers; the point is, conceptions of colors do exist, and they are used often, but if a character should look another way for another reason, that's no reason to change his personality just to match up with his colors. At least, that's what I think, I don't want to sound like I am speaking for Cube here.

[Blazes Battles Inc.]

I don't really have much to argue with there. I think you're the perfect middle ground here... but yes, conceptions of colors do exist with plenty of people, and they are used often, I'm not arguing either of those. The whole thing got started when Octopussy said that the monk was blue because it's a soft color. Of course, the argument didn't start RIGHT then, but that's what led to it. What I'm saying in context to that is that you shouldn't just make someone wear a certain color because of one of their qualities. And although many people do thing of blue as a calmer color than red, you have to remember that not everyone does. Other people may see things differently, or not see colors of having personality qualities at all (like me). So when everyone started talking about how different shades of blue convey different feelings and stuff... I wanted to say that not everyone thinks that, so if you're going to have a lot of color-symbolism in your game like that it's not going to fly with a lot of people. When I think of blue, I think of water. Red, apples. Green, grass. Yellow, sun. White, paint. And it goes on like that. Personally, I think using numerous colors looks best, because it's MUCH more interesting and there's a lot more room for it to be memorable or at least unique.
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