2D And Aesthetics vs Graphics

3D graphics arguably first became mainstream with the fifth generation of gaming consoles, featuring among its lineup the Sony PlayStation and Nintendo 64. Graphics became a talking point for many games, and polygon counts a significant measurement of prowess. Pioneers of 3D gaming included Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie, which brought platforming, arguably the bread and butter of any major video game console at the time, into the next generation.

With a good thirteen years since the release of the first Sony Playstation, one could have been forgiven for thinking that with 3D graphics being achievable in most modern games for so long we would have seen the death of 2D graphics. Those old days of pixels would be looked back upon with a sad nostalgia where we would wonder how we ever could make anything out on such old technology.

Of course, many gamers know that this is definitely not the case. 2D gaming stands now as a stylistic choice rather than a limitation. Indie games are always coming out with pixel-styled graphics to pull us in on the charm of nostalgia. On top of this we have all kinds of video games where the gameplay is on a 2D plane including, yes, 2D platformers.

The reason for this is because, while graphical capabilities have multiplied, so too has the artistic merit of videogame creators. We’re no longer content with ever-more photo-realistic textures but we also want our games to have an identity, to have colour and to be aesthetically pleasing. Some may even argue that we want our games to be artful. One look at how beautiful Breath of the Wild looks, despite being on under-powered hardware, tells us all we need to know about the importance of aesthetics over graphical fidelity.

With that, the use of 2D graphics has become a valid creative choice with thematic and gameplay implications that have their own useful circumstances. Most platformers haven’t really benefited from the extra dimension, and have instead resorted to the collect-a-thon style gameplay touted by Banjo Kazooie many years ago. Instead, 2.5-D games, videogames with 2D gameplay but an extra layer of 3D graphics, seem to be stylish in the platform genre. Looking at Yoshi’s Woolly World, or New Super Mario Bros., it is clear to see why such a look would be charming. The use of the graphics in these games have helped towards creating a distinct visual style.

In 2017 we have Cuphead to look forward to; an interesting 2D platformer that uses modern-console capabilities to craft an eye-popping tribute to golden age animations. The levels look like they’re pulled right out of an old Disney cartoon and look stunning in motion. It seems that choosing to craft a 2D rather than a 3D experience was vital here to achieve the exact look and feel that the developers were going for artistically, and hopefully the end result will be enjoyable to play when it comes out later this year.

Don’t Starve is another example of a game that uses 2D graphics to its vast advantage to craft a cohesive visual narrative that is striking and interesting. Here the art is meant to evoke a kind of Tim Burton storybook style, with the bold black outlines and the creature designs themselves looking like something out of an Alice-in-Wonderland book. Oxygen Not Included, Klei’s next outing, looks to be utilizing a similiar art style but with more of a utilitarian Fallout Shelter overtone.

Instead of slowly going by the wayside as 3D capabilities have continued to evolve, the use of 2D gameplay has instead become an interesting and valid creative choice in gaming that a developer can use to great positive effect for their games.

It is interesting that the 2D style still hasn’t disappeared, and I think this shows that for all the graphical bombast that the latest and greatest modern titles throw at us, what is most important is the artistic choices in developing the game, and how the end result looks. We don’t need the next big graphical powerhouse with more skin pores per inch of character skin, what we do need as gamers is aesthetic; beautifully designed games made not with lofty eye-popping graphics in mind but instead made to look beautiful on their own merit. As console power hits the point of diminishing returns with graphical fidelity, we will begin to see more focus on the aesthetic and visual design rather than the power behind the game itself.

Oxygen Not Included: Early Impressions

Having played Oxygen Not Included for more than a few hours (I’ll face it, I’m a bona fide addict), I have a good few thoughts and impressions on the game as it currently stands.

Oxygen Not Included's title screen fittingly captures its premise as a moleman colony sim,
Image captured in-game.

Designed by Klei Entertainment, Oxygen Not Included is an Early Access release, following a similar pattern to Don’t Starve before it. Given the reputation of its developers for its previous Early Access games, one can certainly be forgiven for feeling optimistic about the game’s future direction.

My first impression of the game so far is that it seems to be a fair progression from Don’t Starve in both its gameplay and stylistic choices. The art style is very similar to the previous game; the character models are a little cuter but overall the cartoony, Tim Burton-esque aesthetic makes a welcome comeback. Instead of being a survival game at its core, this time Klei Entertainment have taken on the genre of colony management.

The world generation screen captures the dark humour of the game well. It also makes good use of the 'reticulating splines' tropes made famous by The Sims.
Image captured in-game.

The progression in the gameplay themes of Oxygen Not Included from Don’t Starve is noteworthy; while the former tasked players with overcoming the scarcity of food, this new title instead tasks players with overcoming the scarcity of the very air they breathe. It seems that Klei Entertainment have focused on the formula of looking at the player’s relationship with their most basic needs in extreme environments. The end result of this is that this game makes a fitting thematic followup to the previous title in the series.

The cartoony aesthetic of Oxygen Not Included makes for a fitting followup to Don't Starve.
Image captured in game.

There are many other areas in which this progression is evident. Particularly the sound is of note here, where the Duplicants (the colonists that the player is tasked with to survive) make noises not dissimilar to those uttered by Don’t Starve characters. The music is thematic for the environment but harder to notice than its preceding title, probably a deliberate decision, given that player agency is stepped back to an oversight and management role.

The main gameplay loop of Oxygen Not Included, however, stands on its own as a colony management sim. Still in early access, the gameplay nonetheless seems to work well; it is easy to figure out what the player needs and how to get it. In comparison with its contemporaries, Oxygen Not Included stands out from Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress in its instant accessibility. For better or for worse, one can play Oxygen Not Included right away without consulting an extensive wiki page, though the experience is certainly made better by taking an occasional look at a guide.

The game offers useful suggestions to get started and it is fairly easy to get up and running after just a couple of sessions. Familiar ‘it’s fun to die’ tropes are in full swing in Oxygen Not Included; there are many intriguing situations that can and will happen. One standout moment for me was when a Duplicant was tasked with digging a cave section, only to accidentally dig herself into the other side of an impassable chasm, leading to her untimely death by (stupidity) suffocation.

This is the sad fate of Mi-Ma, a Duplicant who trapped herself on a simple digging job.
Image captured in-game.

Oxygen Not Included’s thematics seems to take the flavouring of Fallout Shelter, with a darkly-humorous take on the grim circumstances faced by its in-game characters. Doomed to a life of underground scavenging, the Duplicants’ facial expressions are downright cheerful and cute. On top of this, many of the item descriptions and character biographies, offer jokey yet deadpan descriptions of a bleak existence.

The character select screen captures perfectly the deadpan, darkly-humorous character biographies featured in the game.
Image captured in-game.

As a colony sim, so far Oxygen Not Included has pulled me in. Its systems may be under development but the game itself is more than playable. With the reputation of Klei Entertainment having already gotten a game past the Early Access period, and the excellence of that previous game evident, this moleman-civilisation simulator gets off to an optimistic start.

A Game To Watch: Oxygen Not Included

Klei Entertainment, makers of the popular and excellent survival sim Don’t Starve, have turned their attentions to base-building with Oxygen Not Included. The game has just been released on early access today (18th March), and looks to fuse the Tim Burton-esque style of Don’t Starve with Rimworld and Fallout Shelter.

In the announcement for Oxygen Not Included’s Early Access release, the news is admittedly sparse. However, it describes the style of the game fairly well, from what I can gather in the trailer. It looks like this may be one of those games to keep your eye on as it develops:

“Oxygen Not Included is a space-colony simulation game. Deep inside an alien space rock your industrious crew will need to master science, overcome strange new lifeforms, and harness incredible space tech to survive, and possibly, thrive.”

Oxygen Not Included certainly looks like an interesting game; the graphics and the trailer clearly show Klei’s stylistic pedigree. I have enough faith in the developers, given their stellar previous offerings, that I hope the gameplay will prove to be an engaging survival experience.

Expect to see a lot of coverage on this game in the future as I am downloading it on Steam, and will be keeping up with it as it develops through the Early Access period. You can pick it up yourself on Steam for £18.99 as of today.

Don't Starve Review

Don’t Starve is a triumph of both aesthetics and gameplay. All of the aspects in the game are perfectly tuned for its theme of survival, and its style is undoubtedly influenced by Tim Burton and goth-chic. Overall, it’s an experience that can swallow you up for hours, that pulls you in with its style and keeps you there with the gameplay.

At first, my experience with Don’t Starve was a rather mixed bag. Similar to Minecraft and other ‘survival’ indie games, one of the game’s primary elements is that there is no direction at first. You are literally placed on an island and told ‘Don’t Starve’. At first, the gameplay is an exercise in uncomfortable experimentation, gathering things you’re not sure if you need.

Another reason my first experience with Don’t Starve was rather mixed is because of the style. From the get-go, the game is clearly made to appeal to those who love Tim Burton and all things goth-chic. The creepy-cartoony style is certainly unique, but for some people this could be a turn off. I myself was unsure how to feel about the style, feeling that cartoony-creepy has been overdone for many of the wrong reasons as of late. However, as my hours with the game stacked up, I ended up loving the game for its stand-out themes and aesthetics. The graphics do grow on you and eventually I started to love the game’s hand-crafted, animated feel.

Thanks to the aforementioned initial confusion, when you first start playing the game you will probably die a lot. However, each death in the game feels meaningful, not least thanks to the XP system which awards points on each death, points that reward you with new characters to play and experiment with.  With each death, you can change the game, you are making progress. You definitely feel a process of learning and growth coming along. Thanks to an in-game Morgue, you can see the reasons for your death and how long you lasted, giving you a sense of progress. Some credit should also be offered to the game’s procedural generation, which creates a different island each time for you to play in, which allows for every playthrough of the game to feel new in some way or form. Thanks to the clever use of procedural generation, this game never quite feels stale. It always feels like it could offer something new.

Success in Don’t Starve is determined by experimentation and study. Playing this game is useful with a wiki, to try and understand the ins and outs of the game’s systems, which are surprisingly deep for a game that looks like this. Thanks to the systems, the game feels like it could be mastered, it feels like you can find a better way to survive. However, a tutorial or two, with maybe some quick tips may not have gone amiss, but on the other hand, it can be argued that this goes against the very style of the game.

One of the main positives of this game is the value proposition. Given the right attitude, you could sink hundreds of hours into this game and still find enjoyment. My fiancé plays this game religiously, having herself spent over 200 hours in this game. Thanks to procedural generation, the game doesn’t ever feel old and if you get bored of a world you can easily generate a more interesting one in a matter of seconds.

The game’s style also wins you over in this respect. The graphics are painstakingly well-done to appear hand-crafted and it’s clear that the art style was a labour of love, making the worlds of Don’t Starve a place you want to be.

Gameplay wise, the controls work fine. There is gamepad support, but I prefer keyboard and mouse. Sometimes there can be a few issues, such as when you’re trying to perform an action on a specific object that is obscured by other objects in the game mode, which can lead to a frustrating experience. Still, the controls are solid and work well overall, with no real complaints.  

In terms of sound design, the game shows even more commitment to the Tim Burton aesthetic. Some of Don’t Starve’s style really shows through strongly here; each character is given a different ‘theme instrument’, that plays when they talk in game; text shows up showing what the character is saying, and an instrument plays to give the impression of their voice. The first character, Wilson, is ‘voiced’ by a trumpet, Wolfgang, a strongman character, is ‘voiced’ by a tuba. This works to give interesting personality to the characters without even needing voice work, which was a stroke of stylistic genius on the part of the developer. The music is good and fits in well with the style and the ambient noises are wonderful. At night, you really do feel the terror of unspeakable horrors hiding in the dark thanks to genuinely spooky ambient noises, and the sound effects all work perfectly in the context of the game. Sometimes, the sound design can frustratingly throw you a curveball, however, many times I’ve mistaken an ally in the game for a terrifying enemy thanks to him making a sudden unexplained sound, but this adds to the paranoid and phobic essence of the game; making you distrust your senses.

One negative to the game is that when you’re playing mid-to-late game, things can take a turn for the boring. You can get trapped in a rhythm of doing the same things to keep yourself from starving and you can really feel like you’ve hit a routine that’s gotten boring. The game world stops surprising you and you just hit a kind of purgatory at this moment. However, this is addressed by the fact that you can always regenerate a new, and more interesting world in seconds thanks to the game’s clever procedural generation, at the cost of starting anew without late-game items. Furthermore, there is a certain joy and contentment to be found in having felt like you’ve ‘mastered’ your world, and you certainly feel the achievements that you get in the game.

Another negative is that Don’t Starve is punishingly difficult, sometimes to the point it can cause a definite rage in even the calmest of gamers. There is a lot of frustration in some of the deaths which can feel quite cheap and sudden, and the fact that the game is permadeath, you lose everything including your world and items whenever you die, only makes it more rage inducing on occasion. This is all central to the game’s design, yes, and you can certainly see the attraction that such difficulty has for the theme, but its frustration factor definitely is one of the harder pills to swallow.

One of the biggest positives to this game is that it runs really well. I have a fairly poor laptop for gaming and it runs no problem. There is usually no struggle with performance issues in this game. It loads fairly quickly, runs smoothly and there are no complaints to be had. It’s not an intensive game by any means but the gameplay rewards you can reap make it far, far more than worth its feather-light weight in terms of performance.

There is no argument that if you can enjoy the love-it-or-hate-it Tim Burton style and can get past the occasional frustration, when you buy Don’t Starve, you are buying a game you will be coming back to for hours. The game is a veritable triumph of style and of gameplay, where the different aspects of the game just work well. 

I would recommend this game for those wanting a fun survival game experience, and for those who enjoy the Tim Burton art style. If you are like me and don't have a next-gen computing machine, a game like this makes for a lot of fun that's easy on your computer as well!