Please keep in mind at the time of writing this blog post Hyper Light
Drifter is currently in development, set for release in mid 2014 so I
could jump to incorrect decisions or ideas about this game.
Hyper Light Drifter is a pixel based indie game, currently in development by Heart Machine. The game was successfully kickstarted on October the 12th, achieving their set goal of $27,000. The kickstarter for this game was incredibly successful for this five man indie team, receiving funds of $645,158 from 24,150 backers, earning 23 times more than they anticipated[2].
What originally attracted me to the game was word of mouth via the Co-Optional Podcast[3], hosted by John Baine (TotalBiscuit, the Cynical Brit) with his co-hosts, Jesse Cox (OMGFCata), and Dodger (Presshearttocontinue), featuring Josh Mattingly (Indiestatik) as their guest one week. Mattingly’s job during the streaming of this podcast, involved him being the CEO and founder of the website, Indiestatik[4]. A site devoted to finding new indie games on Kickstater, the Greenlight System on Steam and other such websites, to give them coverage that they might struggled to get between the triple A releases. Conversation during the podcast moved to his job and this game was brought up during the talk.
Video off the Kickstarter Page for the Game.
When I reached the Kickstarter I was greeted by the colourful painting above. Its bright and vivid colours drew me in, intriguing me, standing out from the recent plethora of games which feature a saturated or neutral colour scheme. I clicked the play button and what was shown to me invoked an emotional response on par with the Dead Island announcement trailer[6]. The exploration through bright, vivid, wondrous worlds, shrouded in technology, forgotten past, and darkness. Along side the music and gameplay instantly sold this game for me, much like the Dead Island trailer I spoke of above.
Having seen the art for a short amount of time, it struck me that the game was partly influence by the art direction of Journey. Coming through with the simplistic depiction of the elements, such as the environments and the characters as well as the usage of colours. The trick of additional simplistic shapes helps to add detail to minimalist environments, making them feel more complex and fuller[7].
The surroundings helps to tell the story with decaying machinery, left over skeletons of previous Drifters, broken platforms and fallen buildings descended into disarray hinting at the world’s technological past that fell into ruin. The halls are full of monsters, mixed with areas with little life, helping to add to the feeling of loneliness which appears to be a theme in this story.
The two leads feature a similar art style through the usage of minimalistic elements in the design. This comes through in the clothing depictions of minimalistic patterns and using colour to reveal changes in clothing. The faces in each protagonists is extremely minimalistic only featuring the eyes, meaning that the person can identify more with the protagonists as they do not have any obvious personality to dislike.
I decided to look closely at the protagonists colour schemes, discovering the original colours by manipulating only the saturation and brightness level in order to see if there is a link between the character's overall colour theme and the environment's colour theme.
On the left is the Drifter from Hyper Light Drifter clothed in a split complimentary colour scheme. The red in this colour grouping is the dominant colour, the light blue is the tonic, while the darker blue is the mediation, giving a overall colder feel to the character.
To the right is the Pilgrim or Journeyer from Journey featuring a analog colour scheme from yellow to red. These tones give a warmer appearance, matching the start of the game which occurs in a desert. The environment in this game, also uses a prominent analog colour theme.
The colours mixed in with the darkness and ruins, creates and holds up a eerie atmosphere, goes away from the typical horror genre appearance of using reds and blacks to promote fear and danger. But the colours also promote the opposite feeling, producing and carry the feeling of wonder, maybe even hope for the future in the abandon hallways. Everything has the air of energy produced by the vivid colours, giving the appearance that everything is alive, brimming with unreleased power.
I’ve noticed via screenshots of the game and videos, the colours in the bright places compliment one another, while the in the darker areas use an analogous colour scheme. The picture on the left show the complimentary colours of blue and orange, while the picture on the right shows the analogous colours starting with the primary colour of blue, coupled with indigo and aqua which are beside one another in the colour wheel. The analogous colour scheme was used a lot in Journey as the main colour scheme of the environments.
Analysing this game's art direction I feel that it successes in something I struggle with, the understanding and implementation of colour, especially the bright and vivid ones, using them to produce amazing colourful pieces filled with emotion. While it’s simplistic use of shapes, produce a detailed environment without needing to describe every small bit of detail. As someone who wants to add detail to every little thing, knowing that a few strategic pixels or a few critical lines could show an equal amount of visual information as a highly rendered piece.
Bibliography
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