Polishing Your Game

Even the most thrilling and satisfying games can be improved with attention to the appearance. Make sure the overall look of your game reflects your goals, and you will immediately attract the kind of players who will want to play your game.

Visual polish not only attracts players, but can also make your game more fun to spectate. Games that are enjoyable to watch even for those that aren’t playing make for great livestreams on Twitch and YouTube, and give players an experience of community while playing.

Colorscheme

Defining a specific color palette is one of the fastest ways to create a unified look for your game. In Core, the Colorpicker tool allows you to save colors by dragging them to the top of the menu, and use them again on any other object.

There are numerous places to look for inspiration. Lospec has a collection of retro-inspired palettes used primarily for pixel art, but that can also be used for ideas on the color theme for your own game. Colormind uses artificial intelligence to generate color schemes.

Choosing a Palette

Game Context

If your game takes place in a particular realm or time period, you can use the colors to help suggest this. An homage to games from the 1980’s could use bright neon colors, and a Wild West-themed game could stick with warm earth tones.

Using Colors Already in Your Game

Taking the time to walk through your game world and notice the colors that are already there can help inform your polishing decisions.

With colors in mind, notice what elements seem to be part of the scene, and which objects seem to separate themselves by their color. Paying attention to the colors that do blend in to the scene will also help give you an idea of what is important to keep, and let you choose your other colors based on what complements this.

Lighting and Post Processing

Lighting and post processing effects are tools that can also be used to support the color palette, but are also essential to making gameplay clear and enjoyable.

Directing Attention

Lighting, fundamental, determines what a player is able to see in your game. Use this power consciously, and you can make sure that players notice the important elements of the game, and don’t waste too much time on the less important ones.

Game Feel

Post Processing effects can change the entire art style of your game. Take, for example, the toon shading effect in Farmer’s Market in Core.

The key to good post processing effects is to think about how your game should feel, and use them to help achieve this effect. Let players feel the heat in the desert using lens flares, or add motion blur to make players feel the thrill of speeding through space.

Check out the Post Processing Effects lesson of the Visual Effects course to see some more examples.

Audio

Audio is another easy way to create a single cohesive feeling for your game, when chosen wisely. Core includes complete musical compositions for you to use in your game, as well as the possibility of synthesizing more from midi files. Learn more about audio in Core documentation

Ambiance

Ambient audio is like a post processing effect for your ears. Musical choices will determine the mood of your world. You can change the ambient music for different spaces, or throughout the sequence of the game.