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[Geti]

There's a long history in video games of fighting characters just wearing gloves and sporty outfits. Street Fighter, Final Fight, Streets of Rage, SNK games, Tekken.  

These are literally all fighting games, not just fighting characters. Easy counterpoints Zelda, Starcraft, AOE, Star Ocean, Final Fantasy, Fire Emblem, Metroid, Castlevania, Metal Slug (trying to keep it in pixel art/2d territory)... Lots of games incorporate weapons into their designs.

If the character is for a fighting game, then sure it's often no weapon and all pizzaz. Game art in general there are lots of characters with items. Maybe I missed the point where it was a fighting game character? The context I got was literally "Here's a character and an edit of it".

[jtfjtfjtf]

There's a long history in video games of fighting characters just wearing gloves and sporty outfits. Street Fighter, Final Fight, Streets of Rage, SNK games, Tekken.  

These are literally all fighting games, not just fighting characters. Easy counterpoints Zelda, Starcraft, AOE, Star Ocean, Final Fantasy, Fire Emblem, Metroid, Castlevania, Metal Slug (trying to keep it in pixel art/2d territory)... Lots of games incorporate weapons into their designs.

If the character is for a fighting game, then sure it's often no weapon and all pizzaz. Game art in general there are lots of characters with items. Maybe I missed the point where it was a fighting game character? The context I got was literally "Here's a character and an edit of it".

Streets of Rage and Final Fight are side scrolling beat em ups. Those are different games than fighting games. My point is just because there is no weapon doesn't mean you have to add a weapon because zelda or castelvania have weapons. Just because there is no weapon doesn't mean the design is vague or unclear. There are enough examples of gloved, sporty clothed or street clothed brawling characters that are immediately recognizable. So if I see a character with a sporty outfit and MMA looking gloves, athletic puncher is a logical conclusion of what I'm looking at.

[Geti]

The design was vague and unclear though.

I feel like the beat em up vs fighting game distinction is reasonably opaque, feel free to elaborate - isn't the big one that in beat em ups you smack hundreds of CPU mooks, in fighting games you 1v1 someone? Aren't they both games about punching/kicking?

Doesn't the whole genre more or less elide the use of weapons in both cases as a matter of "fairness"?

Either way I'm sorry for having worked with and played more games depicting fighting with weapons than fighting without, that's definitely a blind spot of mine. Athletic puncher is a conclusion I would almost never jump to as a result, unless I see a shirt off big fist fighting stance character with a distinct lack of subtlety.

[Landshark RAWR]

I think the intent of punchdude was vague only because of the pose. the fists weren't being held as a weapon, or at least not in a way that puts emphasis on the fists as being important. the sassier pose with the non hipped hand being held out and looking sorta clenched looking works pretty well.

[jtfjtfjtf]

The design was vague and unclear though.

I feel like the beat em up vs fighting game distinction is reasonably opaque, feel free to elaborate - isn't the big one that in beat em ups you smack hundreds of CPU mooks, in fighting games you 1v1 someone? Aren't they both games about punching/kicking?

Doesn't the whole genre more or less elide the use of weapons in both cases as a matter of "fairness"?

Either way I'm sorry for having worked with and played more games depicting fighting with weapons than fighting without, that's definitely a blind spot of mine. Athletic puncher is a conclusion I would almost never jump to as a result, unless I see a shirt off big fist fighting stance character with a distinct lack of subtlety.

Beat Em Ups and fighting games are different genres. Aliens vs. Predator by capcom was a beat em up that had weapons. In street fighter some characters have weapons. Vega has a hand claw. And I wrote a post to you previously about the implications of having a short bladed weapon can have on a character. Yoshimitsu in Tekken has a sword. In some fighting games like Soul Calibur and Samurai Showdown all the characters have weapons. And in some RPGs there are puncher characters. Look up Tifa from FFVII. Look at what her weapons are.

[Geti]

You still didn't elaborate on what the difference between the genres is though.

Re: unarmed stuff in RPGS etc sure, there's also "unarmed" stuff in dark souls which is a weapon heavy game. There are also a lot of examples of characters _with weapons_.

Re: connotations of a dagger - again, I was working from a reasonably blank slate, I don't see how a short blade is somehow COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE like you seem to be suggesting, or how the weapon in question is held, decorated or presented in a way that is evocative of a sneak.

Overall, I still don't see your point. I didn't think the character game off as a puncher and merely suggested giving it a prop to show intent, assumed it was a fighter, so I picked a weapon, defaulted to a small cutting weapon. Having the hands in a punching pose and big gauntlets accomplishes the same goal (shows intent and purpose of the character), so there's not a need for a prop, I mentioned that above.

You and catguy seem to feel like I mandated that all aspects of my edit were incorporated; it was just a collection of suggestions, like any other criticism.

[Cranky]

The design was vague and unclear though.

I feel like the beat em up vs fighting game distinction is reasonably opaque, feel free to elaborate - isn't the big one that in beat em ups you smack hundreds of CPU mooks, in fighting games you 1v1 someone? Aren't they both games about punching/kicking?

Doesn't the whole genre more or less elide the use of weapons in both cases as a matter of "fairness"?

Either way I'm sorry for having worked with and played more games depicting fighting with weapons than fighting without, that's definitely a blind spot of mine. Athletic puncher is a conclusion I would almost never jump to as a result, unless I see a shirt off big fist fighting stance character with a distinct lack of subtlety.

Beat Em Ups and fighting games are different genres. Aliens vs. Predator by capcom was a beat em up that had weapons. In street fighter some characters have weapons. Vega has a hand claw. And I wrote a post to you previously about the implications of having a short bladed weapon can have on a character. Yoshimitsu in Tekken has a sword. In some fighting games like Soul Calibur and Samurai Showdown all the characters have weapons. And in some RPGs there are puncher characters. Look up Tifa from FFIV. Look at what her weapons are.

Are you sure you aren't just disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing?
Character design wise there is no difference between beat em ups and fighting games, heck almost every single character from final fight is present the street fighter series: Guy, Cody, Poison, Hugo, Rolento, Sodom, probably lots more. How is saying that those two genres are different add anything to the discussion of character design?

Seriously, could you guys just agree to disagree instead of disagreeing about stuff that is just a matter of opinion at this point?

[Jad]

geti, why are you defending this "show gameplay element through character design" in absurdum? the tone is gradually souring. (it's not like mario looks like he jumps on things, but hey, play the game and you'll find out)

it's especially annoying because you're both a constructive AND productive person, and a nice person too.

I can get that you're in super-defensive mode right now because catguy said a bunch of mega-blunt stuff to you that last page, but can we just agree at this stage to

1. keep defending our ideas only if we have more interesting info to add (convincing people that you're right is meaningless)

otherwise 2.

[jtfjtfjtf]

You still didn't elaborate on what the difference between the genres is though.

Re: unarmed stuff in RPGS etc sure, there's also "unarmed" stuff in dark souls which is a weapon heavy game. There are also a lot of examples of characters _with weapons_.

Re: connotations of a dagger - again, I was working from a reasonably blank slate, I don't see how a short blade is somehow COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE like you seem to be suggesting, or how the weapon in question is held, decorated or presented in a way that is evocative of a sneak.

Overall, I still don't see your point. I didn't think the character game off as a puncher and merely suggested giving it a prop to show intent, assumed it was a fighter, so I picked a weapon, defaulted to a small cutting weapon. Having the hands in a punching pose and big gauntlets accomplishes the same goal (shows intent and purpose of the character), so there's not a need for a prop, I mentioned that above.

You and catguy seem to feel like I mandated that all aspects of my edit were incorporated; it was just a collection of suggestions, like any other criticism.

The difference between the genres is gameplay. My point with bringing up Tifa is that gloves identify themselves across a variety of genres. Your position seems to be you need a game genre first because you think certain looks belong only in certain genres. That's not the case. Maybe you don't have a very large visual library from gaming history. And my criticism of your edit is that it just didn't make sense in relation to archetypes from video game and design history. A knife doesn't even relate that well to her sporty outfit.

Are you sure you aren't just disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing?
Character design wise there is no difference between beat em ups and fighting games, heck almost every single character from final fight is present the street fighter series: Guy, Cody, Poison, Hugo, Rolento, Sodom, probably lots more. How is saying that those two genres are different add anything to the discussion of character design?

Seriously, could you guys just agree to disagree instead of disagreeing about stuff that is just a matter of opinion at this point?

My point is an archetype can transcend genres. Gloves can mean something on their own. A knife also means something.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

re~ this discussion. You guys got me interested again by debating game art trends. I acknowledge that my tone was blunt/hostile initially, and put you on the defensive, but I hope you take this post in the light of genuine curious discussion:


I would like to see ~subtlety is obfuscation~ forked into another thread, because I think it deserves discussion (& i think these last several pages are a mess.) It's a prevalent dogma that gets passed around in modern game art scenes and finds its way ingrained in the heads of otherwise knowledgeable artists. It's limiting, color by numbers, and bad design.

The attack on subtlety in game art comes from I believe a really misguided conflation of character design ideas (communicate the character!) with the realities of art assets (things can be visually unclear) into this weird mantra that you have to communicate everything explicitly in a design. That is blatantly untrue and any serious thought will make it obvious.

It's worth noting that there's definitely truth to the idea that there is such a thing as bad, obfuscatory game art -- a platform that blends with the background, an attack animation with unclear differences from another mechanically distinct attack, etc. But there's very much a minimum threshold of clarity that, once met, stops effecting your art very much.

Tf2, a game with a very specific style with very specific thematics in a genre that has no expectation of either one of those things, is frequently held up as an example of 'clarity' in game art, and while tf2 looks fucking awesome, it's insane to imagine that its design goals are universal. Even the same studio (and same artists) depart greatly from the clarity angle on their other games.

If we fork the thread I'd be happy to argue/elaborate on this a lot more, but I want to briefly touch on the example games Geti brought up to establish his point (that characters should show weapons/roles clearly.) I'm not doing this to criticize Geti's fact checking, but rather to establish that these characters are deeply associated with visible/clear roles and weapons, despite... Not having visibly clear roles or weapons.

Link does not have a visible sword except when attacking. Interestingly, in all the early zeldas he DOES always have a shield visible. Which frankly I tend to forget about. Does anyone else associate link with his shield?
no whip in castlevania 1, 2, 4, or, ever.

[ink.inc]

split

[Geti]

I'm glad this took a turn for the more amiable.

Re: Link - in a lot of the 3d games he does keep his sword out after it's been used, and all his items help convey what your current equipment is. In promo art he's almost universally drawn with sword or bow drawn, or at least included. In the 2d games (along with in castlevania) the weapon is added during attack animations.

Association with his shield: less so than with his hat tbh.


I'd argue that the omission of weapons/props on idle/walk frames on old systems was partly to avoid too much detail density/noise, and partly due to memory restrictions for all the animation combinations, but of course I can't speak for the artists involved, only speculate
I observe that it seems to be more common nowadays to keep continuity where possible with props, though of course it's hardly universal.

have to communicate everything explicitly in a design

I'm not arguing for this mantra at all; only that explicit is better than implicit, and a design that communicates more (while remaining consistent and self contained) is better than a design that communicates less.

I don't see how deliberately being subtle about what traits a character might have, or what abilities or attacks a character might have is ever advantageous - unless the traits to be conveyed are "hard to read", "neutral", or similar, and even those can be conveyed explicitly with masks or tropey "minor npc" clothing, which is its own form of communication.

I argue that the ultimate goal of game art should be to communicate as much as possible about the game system visually to the player, and then to look pretty. Do you disagree with that?