Games Are Not Apps !

The line of real difference between games and apps is blurred. A game developer and an app developer both call their product “an app”, but the truth is games are not apps. A game maker is called a game developer and an app maker is called an app developer, then why an app and a game both are named as “apps” just because they both live at app stores.

Games and apps have lots of sub classifications that differentiate them from each other. Let’s take examples of graphics used by artists to decide the game’s look. Characters finalized to fit within the game. Materials like guns, cars, bikes, etc., are being designed depending on the game concept. You can’t find such a blend of things within the non-game app. With this example, we are also going to explore many other factors that will definitely prove you why games are not apps.

1. Screen Factor: Let’s start with the main interacting element when you first enter to the app or game: Screen. When you enter to the game, you are introduced to how to play, which keys to use to move up, down, right & left, which material to use and what you will get next once you complete the level. And when you enter to the app, you are introduced to the features list depicting the key purpose of app.

2. Story Factor: Game outlines a story but an app is all about performing some specific tasks. A game tells you a story like you are the player and you have to skip the obstacles on your way for example Subway Surfer, or it may tell you the story of how you can build a city by collecting necessary virtual game money for example City island.

3. Design Factor: It is an easily noticeable factor between a Game and an App. An app design is consist of some colours and fonts highlighting the key features of app, while a game involves lots of attractive designs including everything from street views to light effects and from characters to materials. Attraction matters more for a game and usability matters more for an app.

4. Content Factor: An app is loaded with features, maps, payment gateways, social integration, contact details, etc. A game is stuffed with characters, objects, material, obstacles, different views, levels, social integrations, etc. One common thing that you may find in an app and in game is social integration.

5. Concept Factor: An app concept is armed with users’ needs while a game concept is armed with users’ enjoyment. An app must be useful to stick users and a game must be enjoyable to attract users. While making an app, developers think about functional requirements first and experience later; for game developers, conditions are reversed. Game developers think for user experience first and requirements later.

6. Fun Factor: For app development world, fun factor is not a big focus. If an app solves the users’ problem, then no matter whether it adds a fun to user experience or not. Fun Factor is a big deal in game development world. If user can’t enjoy the game, no other reason remain there to stop user from getting distract from game.

Now you can evidently be sure that there is a vast difference between a game and an app. They are different in every manner described above. Chances of similarities are least, when it comes to compare an app and a game.

5 games that employed low poly art like a pro

In continuation to our previous post on low poly art, we have decided to look into a few games in the market that demonstrated clever use of low poly within the game art design. Low poly holds the future for mobile gaming and set for an evolution, very similar to game art meant for console and PC games these days. It is already happening with various mobile game development companies employing the art in an aesthetically pleasing and clever manner. Let’s look at a few of those-

1. ManuGanu

“Manuganu is a 3d side-scoller running game”. It is made with low poly art. Of course, it’s a 3d game with low poly art, but not all of its parts are 3d as well as not all parts are made with low poly. The whole character is made with low poly with some 2d images pasted at certain points.  Since the character movement is limited, players do not get close to those places and avoids them to see the anomalies of 2D image pasted on 3d models. Doing this, the art looks real and also fills in the gap for curvier elements wherever they are needed.

2. Subway Surfer

Subway Surfer is a great example of low poly and 3d. The characters, objects and the whole environment are created with low poly art. Next time when you play the game, put your focus on the character and the environment as well. There are fewer curves and the character’s face, cap, eyes, wardrobe, hands, etc., all reveal boxy polygons.

The road, trains, gateways on sides, trees, or even the skateboard is made up of low poly models as well. While playing this game, players are busy with collecting coins and skipping difficulties, so it’s rare that they had a deep look on the characters and objects of game. Now you know that they are low poly, just check out the images of Subway Surfer on Google to confirm it.

3. Clash of Clans

You can’t see the polygons in the look of Clash of Clans (CoC) as they are really smooth and sculptural with a perfect fill of colours. All the stripes of CoC are probably made using Max (3D) and they are implemented as 2D sprites which is the main reason why you can’t notify the shape of polygons here. Another reason is characters and objects are far away from your view. You can just notify them moving here and there, you can’t see them closely enough to observe their triangular shapes.

4. Gunship Battle

The helicopter, huts, train, mountains, tanks, and others objects of Gunship Battle are purely low poly 3D models.  The soldiers are always seen from a specific height by the player. This demands less details and extremely low polygons–making the game run glitch free.

5. Catdammit

Catdammit is a comical arcade game, revealing the story of a cat holding a chainsaw. Cat has a task to destroy everything with its chainsaw. Colourful low poly art style makes this game look really promising. Cat, its chainsaw, citizens, cars, benches, and all other objects are beautifully coloured in a way that no one could easily observe that it is a low poly art development.

Low poly art is very vibrant in appearance and rich in detailing colours. It is a unique way to showcase the characteristics of models and objects. With low poly art, an artist can describe lots of movements in objects and the above given games are live proof of its beauty.

Related: Low poly- the pixel art of mobile games

Some cool low-poly art types you should look at

Low poly is a technique, originated for creating 3d models, objects and scenes for mobile games, in order to make them look real. Low poly art is comparable to what a mobile game player is expecting from its mobile game like a real looking environment, characters, objects and much more. But how this low poly art actually gives a real shape to all things? No matter whether it’s a model, tree, water, clouds, mountains or any other object, low poly easily replicate them in animations.

Let’s take a brief look on the major factors that affect low-poly art and the basic art types that are churned out in common. If you are new to low poly art this post should be quite helpful.

Factors:

Shapes: Low poly uses various forms of shapes including triangular, rectangular, square, cylindrical, etc. The most commonly used by app developers is a triangular shape. It’s possible as well as extremely easy for developers to control the size of the shapes and their distribution in low poly art.

image by Sicaida http://sicaida.deviantart.com/art/Low-Poly-Planet-339431107

Colours: Low poly object is a collection of polygons in a well-defined shape that can be coloured in different manners to visualize the object better. Colours add realism to any character or an object. For low poly which uses a minimum number of polygons, in order to create an object compatible with mobile devices, colour is a crucial component. Most of low poly art is filled with bright colours which play a crucial role to make it look and feel real. Colour selection depends on the choice of the artist.

Image by Vitality Prusakov http://www.digitalartserved.com/gallery/Low-poly/10678293

Lights: Low poly art relies heavily on lighting. Light from specific directions are used to illuminate and exaggerate the game environment. Since low poly does not have a realism, light comes as a great tool to draw the attention otherwise. Just like instagram effects, which are enjoyable but not realistic-low poly art does that with lighting and colour.

Image by Will Zhang

Basic art types :

Faces: A face consists two eyes, eyebrows, nose, lips, cheeks, chin, head, and hair. If the face is stylish, it will add some extra components like earrings, cap, etc. Artists can differentiate various parts of the faces and their colours as well in low poly. For instance, a nose is small in size while cheeks are big; one can use small-sized polygons for nose while big sized polygons for cheeks. Regarding colours, low poly has an endless choice. Artist is free to choose different colours for hair, skin, eyes and even a different colour for the iris.

 

Trees and Vegetation: Depending on the shape of trees, leaves, grass and other vegetation, an artist can form numerous structures. A straight trunk of a tree with a cylindrical shape of a polygon, a bent trunk by reshaping the mesh, creating leaves by using bigger or smaller shaped polygons, etc. Likewise, a whole environment can be created with a few numbers of polygons for each object.

Image by GforGannon http://gforgannon.deviantart.com/art/Low-Poly-Tree-334877892

Landscape & Water: Combining low poly pieces with the water and you get a fantastic landscape. Polygons with the mixture of light blue and white colour forms a perfect shape of water that looks real and breathtaking. On other side, a landscape can be a mixture of many objects including mountain, water, waterfall, trees, routes, snow, grass, clouds, etc. Landscape also depends on the season and time like mid time, day time, winter, monsoon, etc. Low poly has numerous colours as well as special effects for different types of landscapes with seasonal waves.

Conclusion

These days, low poly art and its illustrations is a hot trend. Developers find it interesting to triangulate the mesh in low poly. Beginners as well as experts have put their amazing low poly game art development on web to show how far it has gone and how far it can go with the extreme feel of realism within the environment created under the low poly art.

Related: 5 Steps to Mobile App Remarketing through Google Adwords

Low poly- the pixel art of mobile games

Low-poly character creation was introduced in the middle of 1990s. At that time, due to underdeveloped technology, low-poly was not given that much importance. Till the end of 2010, low-poly achieved a dominant place in game art development world. Good amount of polygons can now easily be used to create the game characters and even the whole game environment.

What is Low Poly?

To understand Low Poly, you have to understand polygons first. Generally, polygon is meant to be a straight figure with 3+ sides or edges. A 3d model contains 4+ sided faces of polygons. For e.g. if a 3d model is said to be made up of 100 polygons, each of its polygon contain 3+ sided faces. And the art of creating such model is called low-poly art.

How Low Poly works?

3d models are made up of polygons. The more polygons a character contains, the more real it looks. Low poly is concerned with few polygons in a model or an object. It creates a simple looking abstract model, generally contains a low number of polygons, then the same is combined with render style which smooth out the facets of the model and give it an angular look.

Characters and objects of PC games are made of a high number of polygons and that is the reason why they are looking so real. Low poly art uses fewer polygons; it doesn’t mean that it has low-resolution. Smart and sophisticated rendering artistry, eye candy lightening effects, shadows, and many other things can be used to create a real looking object. And that’s why the low poly is also called a type of paper-craft or origami.

You can find the great live example of Low Poly in your favorite game named Subway Surfer. The runners, vegetation and other stuff , all  made with few polygons.

Why Low Poly is a Conscious Choice for Game Art Development?

It was the time when everyone was looking for a PC game consists of high-quality graphics and delivers a real experience. No doubt, game developers are there to meet the demand. PCs and consoles contain high-power interface, enough to run a detailed game with complex rigs. But today, demand for mobile games is more than PC games. And mobiles are not as powerful as PCs are. They are made up of small interface, consist of less capacity than the one needed for complex games.

Low Poly has proved to be the best choice for mobile game developers. It uses big, but fewer triangles to convert the real image into an animated image. There is a restriction to use a low number of triangles; otherwise it will get stuck in mobiles. An artist with sufficient knowledge and high creativity knows very well how to use the lower number of triangles without comprising the quality at the same time to achieve the acceptable results.

Animation of characters and the environment demands for realistic looks and realistic movements as well. While animating characters, a constantly moving body requires a specific attention, especially those moving hands and fingers which must seem fluid. Low poly makes such things easier to animate.

In Conclusion

Low Poly will stay there, no matter how many new technologies emerged in the future. It has improved a lot and it continues the same for a long time, giving you each time the more easiness to create and deliver a real experience to the game lovers. It allows high-quality games to be developed for mobile platforms which are why it is the today’s trend.

Related: Learn and download the free source code to create your own infinite 2D map.

7 Quick Unity Game Engine Facts

1. In Context menu icon of the inspctr find ‘Add Tab’. Select ‘Inspctr’ from the drop down menu. Use it along with the inspctr lock. Increase your productivity substantially.

2. While using WASD, right-click the mouse button to navigate the whole scene view. Use Q and E keys to move up and down.

3. Use shortcut keys to transform tools. Press Q for grab tool, W for transform tool, E for Rotation tool and R for Scale tool.

4. Instant prefab-Simply create your Game-object in the Hierarchy and drag it down to the Project panel.

5. A small icon named ‘lock’ is located at the top right corner of the inspector panel, used to lock the inspector of current selected object and also adds objects to arrays.

6. Set offset value ‘x’ in vector for infinite horizontal map and set the value ‘y’ for infinite vertical map in Unity3d.

7. A rigidbody component receives forces and torques to move your objects with or without using any code.

Related: Download Free Unity3d Scripting Tutorial