Game Art

Game Art is a collection of breathtaking concept art and behind-the-scenes interviews from videogame developers, including major players like Square Enix, Bioware, and Ubisoft as well as independent but influential studios like Tale of Tales and Compulsion Games. Immerse yourself in fantastic artwork and explore the creative thinking behind over 40 console, mobile, and PC games. A lone independent developer on a tiny budget can create an experience as powerful and compelling as a triple-A blockbuster built by a team of 1,000. But like all works of art, every game begins with a spark of inspiration and a passion to create. Let Game Art take you on a visual journey through these beautiful worlds, as told by the minds that brought them to life.

Is the art for your video game taking too long to create? Learning to create Pixel Art may be the answer to your development troubles. Uncover the secrets to creating stunning graphics with Pixel Art for Game Developers. The premier how-to book on Pixel Art and Pixel Art software, it focuses on the universal principles of the craft.The book provide

"This book supports my own 30-year crusade to demonstrate that games are an art form that undeniably rivals traditional arts. It gives detailed explanations of game art techniques and their importance, while also highlighting their dependence on artistic aspects of game design and programming.” — John Romero, co-founder of id Software and CEO of Loot Drop, Inc. "Solarski’s methodology here is to show us the artistic techniques that every artist should know, and then he transposes them to the realm of video games to show how they should be used to create a far more artful gaming experience ... if I were an artist planning to do video game work, I’d have a copy of this on my shelf." — Marc Mason, Comics Waiting Room Video games are not a revolution in art history, but an evolution. Whether the medium is paper or canvas—or a computer screen—the artist’s challenge is to make something without depth seem like a window into a living, breathing world. Video game art is no different. Drawing Basics and Video Game Art is first to examine the connections between classical art and video games, enabling developers to create more expressive and varied emotional experiences in games. Artist game designer Chris Solarski gives readers a comprehensive introduction to basic and advanced drawing and design skills—light, value, color, anatomy, concept development—as well as detailed instruction for using these methods to design complex characters, worlds, and gameplay experiences. Artwork by the likes of Michelangelo, Titian, and Rubens are studied alongside AAA games like BioShock, Journey, the Mario series, and Portal 2, to demonstrate perpetual theories of depth, composition, movement, artistic anatomy, and expression. Although Drawing Basics and Video Game Art is primarily a practical reference for artists and designers working in the video games industry, it’s equally accessible for those interested to learn about gaming’s future, and potential as an artistic medium. Also available as an eBook

An exclusive look at the art and creation of the PS4 exclusive videogame Marvel's Spider-Man. An exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Marvel's Spider-Man. The worlds of Peter Parker and Spider-Man collide in the action-packed Marvel's Spider-Man videogame exclusively on the PS4. Marvel's Spider-Man: The Art of the Game is packed with hundreds of exclusive full-colour images of Spider-Man, his suit and equipment, the allies he relies on like MJ Watson and Aunt May, and the deadly villains he battles. This wealth of material is accompanied by exclusive insight into the creative process from the talented developers, artists, and designers responsible for bringing Spider-Man's world to vivid life.

The next generation of fantasy is here! Go behind the scenes of Dragon Age: Inquisition, the most ambitious game ever created by legendary developer BioWare! Featuring hundreds of never-before-seen artworks and captions from the developers themselves, this volume offers revealing insight into the inspiration and creation of every facet of Dragon Age: Inquisition, from the heroes, to the wondrous weapons they wield, the powerful beasts that they battle, and the extraordinary world that they inhabit.

"Games are a unique art form. The game designer doesn't just create a world; they create who you will be in that world. They tell you what abilities to use and what goals to take on. In other words, they specify a form of agency. Games work in the medium of agency. And to play them, we take on alternate agencies and submerge ourselves in them. What can we learn about our own rationality and agency, from thinking about games? We learn that we have a considerable degree of fluidity with our agency. First, we have the capacity for a peculiar sort of motivational inversion. For some of us, winning is not the point. We take on an interest in winning temporarily, so that we can play the game. Thus, we are capable of taking on temporary and disposable ends. We can submerge ourselves in alternate agencies, letting them dominate our consciousness, and then dropping them the moment the game is over. Games are, then, a way of recording forms of agency, of encoding them in artifacts. Our games are a library of agencies. And exploring that library can help us develop our own agency and autonomy. But this technology can also be used for art. Games can sculpt our practical activity, for the sake of the beauty of our own actions. Games are part of a crucial, but overlooked category of art - the process arts. These are the arts which evoke an activity, and then ask you to appreciate your own activity. And games are a special place where we can foster beautiful experiences of our own activity. Because our struggles, in games, can be designed to fit our capacities. Games can present a harmonious world, where our abilities fit the task, and where we pursue obvious goals and act under clear values. Games are a kind of existential balm against the difficult and exhausting value clarity of the world. But this presents a special danger. Games can be a fantasy of value clarity. And when that fantasy leaks out into the world, we can be tempted to oversimplify our enduring values. Then, the pleasures of games can seduce us away from our autonomy, and reduce our agency."--

Good game design happens when you view your game from as many perspectives as possible. Written by one of the world's top game designers, The Art of Game Design presents 100+ sets of questions, or different lenses, for viewing a game’s design, encompassing diverse fields such as psychology, architecture, music, visual design, film, software engineering, theme park design, mathematics, puzzle design, and anthropology. This Second Edition of a Game Developer Front Line Award winner: Describes the deepest and most fundamental principles of game design Demonstrates how tactics used in board, card, and athletic games also work in top-quality video games Contains valuable insight from Jesse Schell, the former chair of the International Game Developers Association and award-winning designer of Disney online games The Art of Game Design, Second Edition gives readers useful perspectives on how to make better game designs faster. It provides practical instruction on creating world-class games that will be played again and again.

The Art of Game Design guides you through the design process step-by-step, helping you to develop new and innovative games that will be played again and again. It explains the fundamental principles of game design and demonstrates how tactics used in classic board, card and athletic games also work in top-quality video games. Good game design happens when you view your game from as many perspectives as possible, and award-winning author Jesse Schell presents over 100 sets of questions to ask yourself as you build, play and change your game until you finalise your design. This latest third edition includes examples from new VR and AR platforms as well as from modern games such as Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us, Free to Play games, hybrid games, transformational games, and more. Whatever your role in video game development an understanding of the principles of game design will make you better at what you do. For over 10 years this book has provided inspiration and guidance to budding and experienced game designers - helping to make better games faster.