Integrating Visual Effects into 2D Platformer Games to Enhance Play Experiences Hao Tian Game Science and Design Northeastern University [email protected] Thesis Presented by Hao Tian to the Department of Art + Design In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Game Science and Design in the Graduate School of the College of Arts, Media and Design Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts May, 2020 Abstract This paper offers an experimental result of how to design visual effects in the 2D game to enhance play experience by offering visually appealing graphics and helping players understand the game. Visual effects in the video game industry were used as set decoration because they can attract players from an aesthetic aspect and even help players understand the game better. More than just making the game visually appealing, they can also be used to guide the players on how a game's mechanics should work without using text-based instructions. By integrating appropriate visual effects into a 2D platformer game, the game mechanics become easily understood by the player, and the appropriate visual effects can also help players immerse into the game from both narrative perspective and interactive perspective. In this research project, the development team applied game design concepts and art knowledge to design visual effects based on the principle making them appealing and informative. The visual effects are applied to the game objects or shown with other elements. This paper uses the data collected from the playtest to iterate the design. The result from playtests shows the game designers and graphics designers need to relate visual effects to core game mechanics to help players to understand the game mechanics and the game theme, which can help players to be more engaged in the game. Keywords: 2D game, visual effects, play experience. Table of Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Background 3 2.1 Visual Effect in Games and Play Experiences 3 2.2 Apply Visual Effects in the 2D scene 5 2.3 Example of 2D game visual effect 6 3 Study Methodologies 7 3.1 Project and Research Method 7 3.2 Human Subject and Recruiting 7 3.3 Testing 8 3.4 Data Collected and Analyzed 9 4 Design Visual Effects 10 4.1 The Game Theme 10 4.2 Project and Visual Effects Design And Development 10 4.2.1 Full-screen visual effects 11 4.2.1.1 Blurry borders 12 4.2.1.2 Floating Broken Mirror Pieces 13 4.2.1.3 Mirror transition effects: Fly in-and-out effect 13 4.2.2 Partial Visual Effect 14 4.2.2.1 Mirrors 15 4.2.2.2 Parallel Mirror Transportation 16 4.2.2.3 Stars 17 4.2.2.4 Interactable Items 19 4.2.3 Real-time lighting effect on Interactable Items 21 4.2.4 Other Visual Effects 23 5 Result 25 6 Discussion 27 7 Reflection 29 8 Conclusion 30 References 32 Integrate Visual Effects into 2D Platformer Games to Enhance Play Experiences 1 Introduction This thesis study is based on an experimental game which was developed by two Northeastern University Game Science and Design (GSND) students. I am the programmer and the visual effect designer of the team, another team member is Sidan Fan, the project idea founder and lead designer of the team. This thesis studies how to design visual effects in the 2D ​ game to enhance play experience by offering visually appealing graphics and helping players understand the game. Sidan’s research focused on whether or not the game changed people's ​ attitudes about bullying. In video games, the game world environment and atmosphere are becoming very important for game evaluations. When it comes to game evaluations, the hard standard score that a game receives from game communities and players' opinions is just the beginning. Game ​ evaluations not only represent what players and their communities think of a game, but they also represent the evaluation of the game as a whole, whether it be from players, or news sources like IGN. Advances in computer graphics and game engines have provided a number of tools to develop appealing game graphics in 3D games. 3D games usually have light sources and spatial perspectives which makes players feel as though the game is closer to the human eyes’ perspective (Mattila, 2018). According to Mattila, the visual effects of 3D games can ​ ​ ​ significantly improve the quality of the game because visual effects provide and enhance the expression of actions such as explosions, smashes and vaporizations. Game graphics’ appearance ​ is also an important factor that could enhance play experience by creating the right atmosphere and helping players to immerse themselves into the game. Different combinations of color, Hao Tian Thesis, Game Science & Design, 2020 1 Integrate Visual Effects into 2D Platformer Games to Enhance Play Experiences shape, light and other visual effects could generate an astonishing game world that players would fully engage in. (Geslin et al., 2016). Creating such an attractive game world is easier in 3D game worlds because human eyes have a natural depth perspective, so 3D graphics create more detailed and immersive experiences (Kim et al., 2016). However, it is fairly hard to create a similar environment in a 2D game. Fortunately, there are some great examples of 2D games that have visual effects that could create such immersive experiences that only use 2D visual effects. For example, Hollow Knight is a 2D ​ platformer game that contains many spectacular lights, shadows and other visual effects in the game scene, which generate a dark and dampened dungeon. The game has dungeons with glimmers, vapor and mirror reflections, which enhance players’ experience instead of the gameplay mechanics itself (Figure 1). Figure 1. Hollow Knight Screenshot In this thesis study, a 2D platformer game with various visual effects was designed and developed by a graduate student team. The game serves as an experimental tool in order to study Hao Tian Thesis, Game Science & Design, 2020 2 Integrate Visual Effects into 2D Platformer Games to Enhance Play Experiences how visual effects impact player experience. To make an adequate immersive experience, the thesis study would focus on designing various visual effects. Hence, the study is about designing visual effects and combining them into the game. In order to study people's opinions and judgements on several visual effects, the playtest will be creating different visual effects to understand how players feel about them. Then, by adjusting the visual effects and their combination through multiple playtests, we can capture/collect people's perception to make the game visually attractive and help players immerse themselves into the game. 2 Background According to Crawford et al. (2018) a study about player experience and sport-theme games, immersive games usually make players fully aware of what they should do in the game. Using solid game mechanics and appealing graphics can help achieve that goal. I have studied some successful commercial 2D games, which is helpful to do the thesis study. The background research of this thesis has three parts: the first part shows current research about the relationship between game visual effects and the player experience. The second and third part study some researches that explain how to integrate the visual effects from 3D into 2D from design perspectives and use survey data to discuss how to make the visual effects become visually appealing. 2.1 Visual Effect in Games and Play Experiences Current studies about how game visual effects influence the player experience are not adequate to help this thesis study’s design section, especially since they do not have a lot of Hao Tian Thesis, Game Science & Design, 2020 3 Integrate Visual Effects into 2D Platformer Games to Enhance Play Experiences research about the relationship between different visual effects in the game environments and player experience. However, research exists that provides evidence that game environments could affect the player experience. According to Knez and Niedenthal’s research (2008) , the color theme of the environment can directly influence the players’ feelings and even performance in the game. For example, players in warmer-color FPS games environments usually report feeling more relaxed and can also play the game better; in a cooler color environment, they feel just the opposite. Furthermore, Totten (2016) mentioned that there are many classic colors and visual effects combinations used in game production that help game makers to evoke certain feelings, such as black and green to imply horror and ghosts, and shadows at the corners plus glimmers to represent dark and underground spaces. More than that, Geslin et al. (2016) studied 24 high-quality games in order to find out the relationship between different color combinations and player’s emotions. They claim that different color combinations can shape a harmonic and unified environment, which can influence players’ emotional experience significantly. In addition, some studies also found some mistakes that a game can avoid in order to be more visually appealing. According to Hölttä (2018)’s work about the relationship between art styles of the game and the game narratives, the non-unified art styles in the game can influence the players’ evaluation of the game significantly. Together with Geslin’s study in 2016, it is fair to say the color combinations of a game are crucial to the game theme, especially to game narratives because the game theme is an important part to evoke players’ feelings and enhance the effect of the narrative parts. Furthermore, Maureira et al. (2015) studied how much ​ subliminal visual prompts in horror games could influence players’ experiences. Maureira Hao Tian Thesis, Game Science & Design, 2020 4 Integrate Visual Effects into 2D Platformer Games to Enhance Play Experiences concluded some subliminal visual effects are usually ignored in games and cannot enhance ​ players’ experiences.