As I said in the previous post, where I looked at and analysed the various game icons, this is the follow up to that post, where I consolidate my findings. This will be a list of common traits that I picked up on when studying the icons. Once that's done I'll have the things I need to create my own icon.
Through analysing just those six icons, along with other ones that I see when I do play app games, I was able to find 4 conventions that either all or most of the icons shared with each other. Here they are, listed and explained:
1. Relevance to the Game's Title
What would be interesting to know is which came first; the title or the icon, but in any case this convention was by far the most common. Each picture had some relevance to the title of the game in some form or another.
In some cases it wasn't readily apparent, such as with Temple Run's icon, which is just a golden face or carving. The clues can only be found when looking hard at the icon. The temple reference comes from the carving's style, which bears resemblance to stereotypical aztec artefacts, commonly the hot topic in tomb or temple based games. The run part is referenced by the shocked expression portrayed by the carving's facial features, indicating shock and surprise. Even so it's difficult to guess what the game will actually be, which can work to lure people into playing and finding out.
In other cases, like the icon for Cut the Rope, the title says it all, and the picture shows it all, with the cut line present on the rope that the candy is dangling from. The monster below does however provide some clue into why you have to cut the rope, and here we come to the next key convention.
2. Images that Represent Key Elements in the Game
This convention was also present in every icon I looked at. Sometimes the element in question was a playable character. Angry Birds' icon is of its main star, the original Angry Bird, Red, and Flappy Bird's icon has the Flappy bird in all his pixellated glory as the centre of attention. There are games though that have a more prominent emphasis on gameplay, and sometimes have no playable character at all. Solitaire is a good example of this, as the game is a puzzle rather than a role player. In its case, the key elements shown as the images are the cards that you play with, arranged in a style known to solitaire the game. Candy Crush does the same thing, with its mouth watering candies on the front.
Carrying on from the previous example in Cut the Rope, this is an example of the game mechanics themselves being made readily apparent by the images on the icon. The candy hanging from a rope, with a cut line going across it, and the green monster waiting with mouth open and eyes fixed on the candy, it's made pretty clear what the gameplay will be like, and what significance actually cutting the rope has in the game, thanks to the monster.
The images can also be used to represent the art style of a game. Candy Crush for example uses vibrant colours and realistic, well drawn shading effects on its pictures, indicating an art style of a similar kind. The image for Flappy Bird uses block colours, and is drawn and coloured using pixels, which indicates that the game will use pixel art for its elements.
3. Drawing Elements Used to Emphasize Particular Images
Another extremely common convention I picked up on, although it wasn't used for all of the icons I looked at. When I was looking through the icons, I noticed some inconsistencies in the art style. The images weren't using exactly the same formula, some of them had strong black outlines whereas the rest of the images didn't.
The outline made the image stand out more boldly than the other images used for the icon, and consistently the images with the outlines were the ones depicting key elements in the game. Angry Birds incorporates this method of emphasis, outlining the image of Red the Bird in black, but giving no such outline to any of the other parts of the image. Cut the Rope does a similar thing, outlining the candy and the monster, but also adds an additional yellow outline to the candy to create an order of emphasis - the candy with two outlines, the monster with one, and the cut line without any.
It wasn't just outlines that were used to put emphasis on the images. The icon for Angry birds, as well as having the bird outlined in black, it was also backlit by presumably the sun, giving the bird additional emphasis. Flappy Bird's icon also made use of shadow to stand the bird out from the rest of the picture, further emphasising that the bird is what the game is about.
4. Icon Frames
This was the least common convention out of the icons I looked at. Even so the majority of the icon did possess some kind of frame, so I'm treating it as a convention as well.
I noticed certainly with the icons that did use a frame, that it contributed to the mood of the icon and helped to set the scene, what you might say. The best example of this is the frame of Candy Crush's Icon, which uses a pink and white striped border, reminiscent of candy canes, further indicating that candy will be the main feature of the game. Solitaire's icon does this to a lesser extent, using a basic silver border with a metallic sheen. Combined with the background colour uses for the icon it does bear some resemblance to a gaming table, the sort you associate with cards and poker and casinos, but joining the dots in that instance is slightly harder.
Secondly the border itself, can also be used as a form of emphasis. Normally frames are used to enclose an image, but that isn't the case with any of the icons. Each one of the icons, that has a frame of some kind, has one or more of the images spilling over the edge of the frame. The cards in Solitaire's icon, the hands in Temple Run's, the sweets in Candy Crush's, and the monster and candy for the icon of Cut the Rope, all do this, which puts further emphasis on the pictures still, and almost invites you to come and play by seeming to jump out of the icon.
So with that we have the key conventions to work from. I have my tools, now its to time to get to work. The next post I put up for this section will show the completed Game icon, along with some notes on the process of making it.
Look forward to that. Hope you enjoyed reading and stay updated!
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