Outer Wilds Review — IGN
Legitimate discovery is a difficult sensation to simulate in a video game. Countless worlds smother us with lore and histories, giving us the opportunity to understand them better if we choose to stop and smell the roses, but that understanding is usually optional, and often feels superficial as a result. That’s a problem that Outer Wilds, a space-exploration sim laced with puzzles and a mystery story, sidesteps by putting the storytelling that normally litters the background of games front and center. That makes it feel vital. By turning lore into puzzle elements into progress, into the meat of the experience rather than the dressing, it elevates the process of learning about these worlds to heights rarely seen in games.
You control an alien astronaut/anthropologist exploring your own solar system to uncover and unravel the mysteries of the Nomai, a mysterious and ancient race whose ruins lie scattered across every planet. Before too long, you figure out that you are trapped in a surprisingly helpful Groundhog Day- (or Majora’s Mask)-style time loop, so it is up to you to figure out how to break out of it. That process leads to a long, convoluted puzzle which you solve by exploring each of the system’s five planets, along with a handful of moons and other points of interest. The simple premise gives way to the interesting story (stories, really) you uncover in your travels: The Nomai, like Metroid’s Chozo, Mass Effect’s Protheans, or any of a handful forerunner races seem unknowable at first glance, but as you become acquainted with them through diaries and other notes they feel both distant – they are dead, after all – but relatable.Loading
Revealing the whole story seems like a daunting task, but once you jump in your spaceship and set out on your expedition things start to fall into place. Without any real tutorials – there are a few practice areas on your home planet, but they’re entirely optional – learning the rules of the world takes time. I specifically had some issues learning to fly the spaceship, which is a small shuttle guided by directional thrusters. While there’s no math involved, Outer Wilds takes a physics-minded approach to space: You need to keep track of your momentum relative to the planet you where you plan to land, adjust for its orbital trajectory, and so on.
Everything controls well once you get used to it, but the sink-or-swim approach makes the first few runs more aggravating than they need to be because of time wasted by under or overshooting planets. Sometimes that leads to a fatal crash, which – a la Groundhog Day – resets you back to the beginning.
Every 22-minute run is both exciting and a bit terrifying.
“
That lack of understanding makes every run, from blasting off for the first time to exploring a previously hidden place, both exciting and a bit terrifying. Though the solar system is small enough that you could conceivably touch down on every planet in a single 22-minute run, you are smaller and insignificant by comparison. It feels like anything could come out of the deep black void at any time – and there are some surprising moments in store. If you, like me, are mildly unsettled by swimming through underwater levels in a lot of games, you may find the experience of floating in space instills some existential dread.
If you’re willing to work through it, though, that fear is almost always unfounded and the thrilling feeling of discovering a new place is always rewarding.
Since exploration is the centerpiece of Outer Wilds, each of the five planets serves as a mechanical and aesthetic showcase. Each planet has a unique look and feel, not to mention a mechanical concept that complicates traveling and creates “natural” puzzles out getting from point A to point B. Each place feels unique and meticulously crafted, from the largely aquatic planet of Giant’s Deep, whose rising green seas and sky-high whirlpools can disrupt you at any time, to Brittle Hollow, a dying planet with a black hole at its core that’s pulling in chunks of the surface as time goes on, potentially blocking your path or even sucking in and destroying your destination before you can reach it.
Outer Wilds Review Screenshots
The time loop also plays an important role in traveling the world and solving puzzles because certain areas only become accessible at specific times.
For example (a minor spoiler!) one of the planets appears to be a giant desert if you head straight there at the beginning of a run, but over the course of each loop the sand level gradually lowers and reveals new places to explore. Stumbling upon a new area because you were in the right place at the right time leads to some of the best discoveries: Each planet has the capacity to truly surprise you, even after you thought you’ve figured everything out.
Your understanding of the world and its stories is your progress, and each step forward feels like a genuine eureka moment.
“
Again, “figure out” is the operative phrase here. You do not find gear and there are no clear-cut missions spelled out for you to perform. You simply explore, finding and reading as much as you can, then using what you find to find and read more and more until you eventually know what to do. For example, while exploring a lab on one planet, you may read that there’s a lab on another world that with information that would allow you to access a new area, so off you go to find it.
There is definitely structure to it, in that each piece of info helps you find one or two other specific pieces, but doesn’t explicitly tell you how to use each fact or where to go. You have to process the information yourself, and the act of piecing the story together step by step is the beating heart of Outer Wilds. Your understanding of the world and its stories is your progress, and each step forward feels like a genuine eureka moment.
That all sounds very abstract, but there are some visual cues and other means of helping you feel like you’re making tangible progress. From the start, you have a language translator which allows you to conveniently convert the picturesque Nomai writing into legible text. Like a used textbook, every subsequent reading comes with the keywords highlighted, indicating that you are reading about something important that factors into some portion of your quest. And the most salient details get summarized and stored in your ship’s log and stay there even after time resets.
The ship’s log is very useful – I got into a rhythm where, at the start of each run, I would check the log for new details I’d found and rumors of places I hadn’t, presenting open threads that could inspire my next adventure.Loading
That said, your actual progress is not quite so obvious. The ship’s log saves the bullet points, but you often need more information than that to make the logical leaps from one piece of information to the next. For example, in one area you find giant bones and some ancient notes from the Nomai explaining a detail about the species that left them. That information becomes very important later on, but your ship’s log will not tell you when or why. Moreover, once you know, it’s on you to apply that knowledge to allow you to navigate a hazardous area. Though I never found it difficult to make the connections, it is rewarding to think critically about everything you read and remember what’s going on every step of the way.
No one’s going to tell you if you’re missing something.
“
It also means that no one’s going to tell you if you’re missing something. This is where things can get complicated and frustrating. If you find facts out of order, or approach ruins from the wrong direction, certain tasks may seem impossible. In some cases, it’s easy to look around and find what you missed, but other times, especially late-game locations whose entrances are obscured, puzzles can get obtuse. The puzzles, when you have all the information you need to solve them, are generally pretty, clear, but when a piece is missing, it’s impossible to tell where to even begin: For example, one area on Brittle Hollow is only accessible via a series of crystals that let you walk along the underside of the planet’s hollow crust. If you haven’t found the area where the crystal path begins, you may try to wander the planet blindly looking for an entrance or try to fly to it, which will inevitably get you sucked into a black hole. There’s an order of operations that is easy to ignore if you stumble into the right place at the wrong time.
It was also in my lowest moments that I really understood the genius of the time loop as a gameplay mechanic. While the 22-minute cutoff seems prohibitive early on, the loop forces you to break your exploration down into more digestible tasks and allows you to reset when you hit a wall with a specific place or puzzle. It won’t necessarily help you solve a head-scratcher or finish the story, but it absolutely forces you to take things in at a somewhat leisurely pace, giving you room to breathe and enjoy the ride.
I don’t hold the frustrations raised by those obtuse puzzles against Outer Wilds, though. Given the nature of how you process the information that reveals the solutions to these puzzles, I expect people will start sharing knowledge online as they find it, as they did with games like Fez, Dark Souls, and The Witness. I’ve chatted with a couple of other writers about their experiences, and there’s something really fun about sharing stories and, in particular, hearing about things you haven’t discovered yet and going in search of them.
Outer Wilds’ tricky exploration and puzzle solving is definitely an acquired taste. Its very specific brand of active storytelling differs wildly from highly guided open-worlds that many of us think of when we talk about non-linear gameplay. Though it can be confounding at times when events don’t unfold in precisely the right way, the feeling of discovering something new about the story, or following a couple of facts to something totally unexpected on a faraway planet far outweighs those hiccups.
Hades Review — IGN
In the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus, a poor soul is doomed to forever push a boulder uphill without rest. Each time he’d push it up, it would roll back down again and he’d have to start anew. But what if that Herculean climb uphill was actually awesome combat against a randomized variety of enemies as you fight your way out of Hell, with a wide range of godly powers that grow and combine in interesting ways as you progress? And what if, instead of going back to zero, you got a little stronger each time with some help from a colorful cast of allies and enemies who remember each of your attempts? That’s Hades’ premise, and the Greek mythology-themed rogue-lite that developer Supergiant has built around it makes going to Hell a joy.
The journey of Zagreus, son of Hades, through the labyrinthine Underworld toward the freedom of the mortal realm unfolds from an isometric perspective as you take on hordes of colorfully animated undead that fill the screen with danger in every randomly ordered room you pass through. Fortunately, Zag is a skilled warrior capable of wielding six different weapons, each with four different variants. Each of these Infernal Arms is geared to complement a certain playstyle. Want to get in the thick of it and wreck some demons? Then consider the straightforward Stygian Blade. Prefer to peck at foes from a safe distance? Then channel your inner Artemis and use the bow. Later you’ll unlock a bashing shield, a spear, and more, and each plays significantly differently, creating one of many layers of replayability for Hades.LoadingRegardless of your weapon of choice, Zag can use a dash to dart out of trouble or to get into a more advantageous position. And let me tell you — few things in life are as satisfying as a successful last-second dodge that sets you up for stabbing an enemy in the back for bonus damage.
Almost inevitably, the forces of Hades will overwhelm you.
“
The final mechanic in Zag’s moveset is the cast: a skill-shot based projectile that fires a red jewel into an enemy for a quick burst of damage. The jewel embeds itself into a target, disqualifying you from firing another cast until you kill the enemy and retrieve your ammunition, so shooting it at the biggest, meanest enemy in the room isn’t always the best idea. As with each one of Zag’s moves, using it well involves a delicate balance between risk and reward.
Almost inevitably, though, the forces of Hades will overwhelm you eventually, and every death sends Zag back home to start over from scratch, save for persistent currencies and progress in relationships with the wonderful cast of characters who inhabit the Underworld, from lord Hades himself all the way down. So you’re going to be spending a lot of time getting to know everyone — and it’s time very well spent.Zag is a rebellious heartthrob trying to find his place in the world between Hades and Mount Olympus.
His sympathetic coming-of-age story brought me in, but I fell in love with his tongue-in-cheek musings on the world around him and snarky back-and-forth with the disembodied voice of the Narrator.
Each personality feels like an authentic reinterpretation of a classic Greek myth, and they’re all a joy to behold.
“
But the heart and soul of Hades, outside of its combat, lies in Zag’s interaction with various deities and mythic figures from Greek myth, like Achilles, Orpheus, and more. It turns out that adding a dash of dating simulator mechanics to a rogue-lite was the secret sauce in making good use of a large cast of interesting characters. Each personality feels like an authentic reinterpretation of a classic Greek myth, and they’re all a joy to behold. For instance, instead of painting Sisyphus as a tragic character, he’s an optimist who you encounter on a break while the gods aren’t watching. Even his boulder (affectionately known as Bouldy) sports a carved smile that reacts in silence upon interaction.
Investing in Zag’s relationships with each character paves the way for interesting backstory reveals, world-building, new sidequests, or even items to assist on your future escape attempts.
Not only are conversations and side stories actively engaging — attempting to reunite Achilles with his life-long partner, Patroclus, or Orpheus with his long-lost muse Euridice, are genuinely moving and hearken back to the kind of melodrama the ancient Greeks were so good at — there are also gameplay benefits! Advancing these relationships far enough grants you persistent keepsakes and companions, which are both invaluable tools in aiding Zag’s quest to run away from home. Of course, not all keepsakes are as useful as others; given the choice between the Lucky Tooth that grants you an additional chance at life if you’re killed or Olympic keepsakes that increase your chance at better drops, I’m going with a second life every time.
Hades Screenshots
Something that’s truly special and unusual about Hades is that Supergiant Games uses these persistent relationships to travel the difficult path of marrying story to gameplay, and in doing so elevates the simple loop of Zag’s escape into something more than the sum of its parts.
Within the world of most rogue-lites, a failed run is not typically seen as part of the story (with apologies to Rogue Legacy). But in Hades, a death leads to Zag returning home to mockery (usually from Papa Hades). This transforms something as fundamental as death from a video game-y failure state into in-game world building. Characters remember your triumphs and failures with a staggering amount of incidental dialogue that made me feel like I was constantly chipping away at new content within Zagreus’ story even when I failed. After a while I no longer feared death, I embraced it as an opportunity to learn and revist friends back in the House of Hades to see if they have something new to say.
I no longer feared death, I embraced it as an opportunity to learn and revist friends back in the House of Hades.
“
Losing the fear of death is important, because you’re going to do a lot of dying. I didn’t manage a successful escape until attempt 31 (which I hear is roughly the average.
..I hope). Fortunately, while things with the citizens of the Underworld might be complicated, Zag’s aunts, uncles, and cousins up on Olympus are eager to assist his rebellion thanks in equal part to genuine familial care and wanting to rub Lord Hades’ nose in it if you eventually succeed. Their aid comes in the form of boons (run-specific tokens from the gods that grant Zag godly power-ups) that modify to Zag’s abilities, making every run feel new and unique. Some are smaller, min-max stat-worthy benefits that often feel like a daily vitamin — you’re not sure you notice the difference they make as you play, but they stack up over time and make all the behind-the-scenes numbers larger in your favor, so it’s probably a good thing.
And of course, during each run you also build your relationships with the Gods of Olympus by offering them tokens of appreciation in the form of nectar and ambrosia that you collect, which also grant you access to their own collection of keepsakes and up the chances of receiving rare, epic, and heroic variants of their boons with progressively better stats.
Those familiar with Greek myth are already aware of the fickle nature of the gods.Every now and then, treks through Hades present Zag with a Trial of the Gods, a chamber that allows you to select one of two different deities to commune with. Poseidon may be your bestie early on in your quest, but choose Dionysus over him in a later Trial and he won’t hesitate to make your life a living hell in this particular chamber. Your reward, should you survive, is possessing two different boons at once as opposed to the typical one.
Sometimes the gods play nice together. Say, for example, you have the Curse of Agony from Ares, a boon that allows you to inflict doom status (which inflicts an additional burst of damage after a brief period of time) on an enemy with normal attacks. But if, upon clearing another chamber you find Athena’s Divine Dash (which upgrades your dash move to deflect incoming attacks) a rare duo boon will activate, combining the strengths of both into one convenient package.
In this case it creates Merciful End, which inflicts any enemy hit with a deflected attack with doom status. These combinations of powers are wonderful surprises.
And let me tell you, that rabbit hole runs deep.
“
And let me tell you, that rabbit hole runs deep. There are a ton of different boons and combinations to earn, and you’ll still be seeing new ones after dozens of runs. Like any good roguelike, Hades forces you to make difficult decisions that either complement your current build or throw caution to the wind and attempt a riskier build that could pay off four chambers down the line…if you survive long enough and luck into the boon you’re hoping for.
All of that feeds into Hades’ impressive replayability. Once again, I’m blown away by the staggering amount of content within Hades. While you may face the same bosses over and over again, they too will adapt to your increase in power level. Whether it be in the form of Street Fighter-style assists from siblings, sprouting new heads, or fancy new armor, repeated encounters with bosses felt fresh because of these clever modifications to how they fight.
It makes sense within the fiction as well, considering the bosses remember their past failures and successes against you. Each fight is like a rematch between rivals rather than a repeat.
Top 25 Nintendo Switch Games
Like me, after a couple of successful escapes you may find yourself thinking, “How can I make subsequent attempts harder?” Enter the Pacts of Punishment, a challenge board that allows you to activate a number of modifiers to make Hades even more challenging. Toggling one on adds allows you to earn new rewards, making every playthrough fresh and exciting. You’re constantly given incentive to shake up your playstyle, whether it be through rewarding you with a currency buff for using weapons you don’t normally use, or completing objectives within a scroll known as the “Fated List of Minor Prophecies.” (Get it? The optional objectives known as prophecies will eventually come true, it’s just a matter of time.)
You’re constantly given incentive to shake up your playstyle.
“
I rolled credits on Hades at approximately 48 hours and I’m still met with new storylines, challenges, and side stories to tackle — and a peak at the achievement list teases an epilogue I’ve yet to discover how to unlock.
Supergiant Games is known for its musical craft: Bastion’s somber tones of a world lost, Transistor’s lounge-singer popstar lyrics soaked in sorrow, and Pyre’s epic poem-esque melodies are a constant in my Spotify playlist. It should surprise no one that the music of Hades is unlike any of those, but still of the same caliber as composer Darren Korb’s memorable compositions. Hades is a blend of Rock n’ Lute, a melodic partnership between old and new that always pumps me up for my next journey through the Underworld. A lot of the music is diegetic, meaning it exists within the world of Hades, in that it’s usually sung as a hymn from the legendary musician Orpheus.
At the same time, Hades’ score is decidedly understated relative to Supergiant’s previous games, but it all comes together to serve the tone and characters of the underworld.
I think the highest compliment I can pay to the Hades soundtrack is that it simply belongs. I didn’t know what Euridice the Muse sounded like, but hearing her sing a lonely tune in an alcove of Asphodel just felt right.
Hades is a one-of-a-kind rogue-lite that sets the bar for creatively combining wildly different genres together and using their strengths to complement each other in unexpected ways. Its blend of satisfying, twitch-based action with countless modifiers to build replayability, dating simulator-esque character interactions, and turning failure into a thing you look forward to as a means of progressing the story coalesce to an experience that is more than the sum of its parts. Hades skillfully navigates the millenia-old baggage of ancient characters, reinterpreted through a contemporary lens that feels like they’re straight out of some animated series that’s way ahead of its time. I’m now over 50 hours in, 70 escape attempts deep and I can’t stop thinking about my next trip to Hell.
Hades is an experience I never want to end.
Graphics for computer games — higher education for a game designer at MIDIS
Register for an open day
Learn more
Download Curriculum
Compulsory examinations:
drawing
35
Russian
36
painting
35
Elective exams:
Upon admission, you can submit the results of exams in one of the following subjects of your choice
history
32
English
22
literature
32
social studies
42
Future
profession
Learning and earning is real
Digital graphics is a rapidly developing and demanded direction.
MIDiS provides knowledge and skills so that every student, starting from the 3rd year, can earn.
Digital graphics is a rapidly developing and demanded direction. MIDiS provides knowledge and skills so that every student, starting from the 3rd year, can earn.
Create characters and new worlds
Turn your love of games into a highly paid profession. You will be able to create iconic heroes and diverse worlds that can adapt to any gaming platform.
Turn your love of gaming into a highly paid profession. You will be able to create iconic heroes and diverse worlds that can adapt to any gaming platform.
You will study here
The technical equipment of the classrooms and the skills acquired during the training will allow you to perform tasks of any complexity. And the internal design of the institute is able to inspire creative projects that will go into the portfolio.
You will study here
The technical equipment of the classrooms and the skills acquired during the training will allow you to perform tasks of any complexity.
And the internal design of the institute is able to inspire creative projects that will go into the portfolio.
You will learn:
Our team
-
Odnoshovina Yulia Vladimirovna
Candidate of Cultural Studies, Associate Professor of the Higher Attestation Commission, Head of the Department of Design, Drawing and Painting, Member of the Union of Designers of the Russian Federation
-
Dedkova Anastasia Alekseevna
Senior Lecturer of the Department of Design, Drawing and Painting, Designer of the Marketing and Development Department, WS Expert in Graphic Design
-
Artemasov Aleksey Igorevich
Lecturer of the Department of Design, Drawing and Painting, bronze world champion of the WorldSkills Kazan 2019 championship in the 3D Modeling for Computer Games competency, coach of the Russian national team in the 3D Modeling for Computer Games competency
-
Zaripov Sergey Mikhailovich
Lecturer at the Department of Design, Drawing and Painting
-
Ketova Svetlana Anatolyevna
Associate Professor of the Department of Design, Drawing and Painting, member of the Union of Artists of the Russian Federation (VO, SPO)
-
Ostrovsky Dmitry Yurievich
Lecturer at the Department of Design, Drawing and Painting, Head of the Creative Laboratory of Dmitry Ostrovsky (photo studio, photo laboratory, photo school in Chelyabinsk
-
Paiko Dmitry Sergeevich
Lecturer in the Department of Design, Drawing and Painting, member of the Union of Designers of Moscow
-
Turkovsky Alexander Vyacheslavovich
Lecturer of the Department of Design, Drawing and Painting
-
Fedorova Elena Eduardovna
Senior Lecturer of the Department of Design, Drawing and Painting
-
Filatov Andrey Igorevich
Lecturer at the Department of Design, Drawing and Painting
-
Yakovleva Marina Vitalievna
Lecturer in the Department of Design, Drawing and Painting
Professional modules
Design Basics
Plastic anatomy, digital sculpture
You will learn how to create digital sculptures with high detail.
You will learn how to properly build muscles, skeleton, skin and correctly apply the rules of proportions, as well as create three-dimensional concepts and implement them into completed works.
Fundamentals of drawing, painting, sketching
You will gain knowledge and skills in building the body shape of people, animals, fantastic creatures and characters. You will learn how to correctly apply knowledge of anatomy, composition, perspective.
Typography, coloring
You will learn how to correctly visualize your concepts and 3D projects, master the skills of working with color and composition correctly.
Implemented in the disciplines: academic drawing and painting, propaedeutics, typography.
2D graphics
Character development, environments
You will learn how to create images of characters, objects and locations from scratch, correctly convey the idea, visual attributes and details in graphic form.
Mobile games
You will gain knowledge about visualization and creation of game content for mobile games. You will be able to develop your own graphics for a 2D game and release it immediately.
Modern graphics editors: Photoshop, Illustrator, CorelDRAW
Learn how to creatively use 2D graphics programs to create concepts and illustrations. You will be able to independently develop the interface and visualization for your own game projects.
Implemented in the disciplines: computer technology in design, academic drawing and painting, fundamentals of graphics in design
3D modeling
Concept Art
You will learn how to independently develop ideas, functional design and turn it into a finished concept. You will learn how to competently place characters and objects in a digital environment, how to correctly present them.
You will learn how to follow the style of visual content throughout the project.
3D graphics: modeling, texturing, rendering
You will be able to visualize any kind of objects in 3D, work competently and professionally in programs for 3D graphics, master all the tools and functionality for working with 3D.
Modern technologies: 3D Studio MAX, Maya, Blender, ZBrush
You will learn how to work with up-to-date 3D graphics editors, correctly follow the technical requirements when managing a project.
Implemented in the disciplines: 3D modeling, digital sculpture, computer technology in design
Team Game Development
Game design
You will master the skills of creating the concepts of a computer game and setting tasks for the creation of individual components of the project, you will be able to assemble your own computer game from the plot, game mechanics, graphics and sound.
Visualization in games
You will gain knowledge about transferring the created models and textures to the game. You will be able to competently apply references, work on concepts in a team.
Scrum project management framework
You will learn in practice how to build processes, team development of a computer game using Agile, Scrum and Kanban methodologies. You will be able to properly distribute tasks and motivate the team.
Implemented in the disciplines: basic design in design, 3D design, design workshop
Promotion of games on the market
Interface design based on UX research
You will learn how to use user experience research tools JTBD, CustDev, Customer Journey Map and design interfaces in Figma.
Digital Marketing
You will master the technologies for promoting design services in social networks: targeting, retargeting and the basics of contextual advertising in Google and Yandex.
Fundamentals of entrepreneurship in the gaming industry
You will get the basics of creating your own business: from an idea through testing hypotheses to your own startup.
Implemented in the disciplines: basics of project management, development and management of a product based on user experience, marketing in design
Professional modules
Design Basics
Plastic Anatomy, Digital Sculpture
You will learn how to create digital sculptures with high detail. You will learn how to properly build muscles, skeleton, skin and correctly apply the rules of proportions, as well as create three-dimensional concepts and implement them into completed works.
Fundamentals of drawing, painting, sketching
You will gain knowledge and skills in building the body shape of people, animals, fantastic creatures and characters.
You will learn how to correctly apply knowledge of anatomy, composition, perspective.
Typography, coloring
You will learn how to correctly visualize your concepts and 3D projects, master the skills of working with color and composition correctly.
Implemented in the disciplines: academic drawing and painting, propaedeutics, typography.
2D graphics
Character development, environments
You will learn how to create images of characters, objects and locations from scratch, correctly convey the idea, visual attributes and details in graphic form.
Mobile games
You will gain knowledge about visualization and creation of game content for mobile games. You will be able to develop your own graphics for a 2D game and release it immediately.
Modern graphic editors: Photoshop, Illustrator, CorelDRAW
Learn how to creatively use 2D graphics programs to create concepts and illustrations.
You will be able to independently develop the interface and visualization for your own game projects.
Implemented in the disciplines: computer technology in design, academic drawing and painting, basic graphics in design
3D modeling
Concept Art
You will learn how to independently develop ideas, functional design and turn it into a finished concept. You will learn how to competently place characters and objects in a digital environment, how to correctly present them. You will learn how to follow the style of visual content throughout the project.
3D graphics: modeling, texturing, rendering
You will be able to visualize any kind of objects in 3D, work competently and professionally in programs for 3D graphics, master all the tools and functionality for working with 3D.
Modern technologies: 3D Studio MAX, Maya, Blender, ZBrush
You will learn how to work with up-to-date 3D graphics editors, correctly follow the technical requirements when managing a project.
Implemented in disciplines: 3D modeling, digital sculpture, computer technology in design
Team game development
Game-design
You will master the skills of creating the concepts of a computer game and setting tasks for the creation of individual components of the project, you will be able to assemble your own computer game from the plot, game mechanics, graphics and sound.
Visualization in games
You will gain knowledge about transferring the created models and textures to the game. You will be able to competently apply references, work on concepts in a team.
Scrum project management framework
You will learn in practice how to build processes, team development of a computer game using Agile, Scrum and Kanban methodologies. You will be able to properly distribute tasks and motivate the team.
Implemented in the disciplines: fundamentals of design in design, 3D design, design workshop
Promotion of games on the market
Designing interfaces based on UX research
You will learn how to use user experience research tools JTBD, CustDev, Customer Journey Map and design interfaces in Figma.
Digital Marketing
You will master the technologies for promoting design services in social networks: targeting, retargeting and the basics of contextual advertising in Google and Yandex.
Fundamentals of entrepreneurship in the gaming industry
You will get the basics of creating your own business: from an idea through testing hypotheses to your own startup.
Implemented in the disciplines: basics of project management, development and management of a product based on user experience, marketing in design
Alexey Artemasov
“The first WorldSkills Championship was held in… Australia!”
Bronze medalist at WorldSkills-2019in the competence «3D-modeling for computer games»
Read
More stories
from spots on the screen to photorealistic worlds
The history of graphics in games has about 50 years of rapid development.
During this time, the visual possibilities have undergone tremendous changes. We will cover the main steps in this article.
How graphics began
0:59 Pong. Released by Atari in 1972. This is a tennis game using primitive black and white graphics.
One of the first video games — Pong
Despite its simplicity, Pong is associated with the emergence of the interactive entertainment industry.
1:20 Very soon there was a need for full-fledged graphics. At that time, color television already existed, but video games were limited to a monochrome display.
In order to somehow color the game world, some games used colored plastic overlays on the screen. The solution is not the best, but working and cheap.
First color games
2:23 Car Polo (1977) was the first color arcade game. But a more successful full color game is Galaxian (1979), an advanced version of Space Invaders. And after just 3 years, the well-known Pac-Man came out.
3:07 Pixels weren’t the only solution.
In the history of graphics, there were 2 paradigms for rendering an image: raster and vector. A raster is a more familiar way of projecting an image. The frame is drawn sequentially pixel by pixel, line by line. Thus, a grid of pixels is formed.
Vector graphics are currently unavailable. It was possible on screens like an oscilloscope. The electron beam directly drew a line and thereby formed a figure and an image. This rendering principle was used in the earliest games, such as Tennis for Two (1958).
3:52 The most famous vector game is Asteroids (1979). And let her graphics be uncomplicated, but the perfectly straight lines of the figures have a certain charm.
Asteroids is the most famous vector game
Vector graphics are much cleaner than pixel art (when it comes to slanted lines), but less versatile. While raster graphics can’t render perfectly straight lines, they can still render more complex scenes and filled shapes. That is why pixels won this battle.
Camera scrolling
Early games only had fixed cameras. The entire level was placed on the screen. Moving the camera, storing and processing a large game world required more resources.
4:49 Super Speed Race (1979) is one of the first games to feature camera movement.
5:29 Zaxxon (1982) was the first camera-shifting isometric game to simulate all 3 dimensions. This style was used in many later games.
Zaxxon — Camera Scrolling Game with Isometric View
Sprite Scaling
Image scaling has begun to add depth to a 2D game.
6:02 Radar Scope (1979) is one of the games that used scaling. Those objects that were far away — decreased. This created a sense of distance from them to the player.
Another example is the objects along the road in Turbo (1981). True, due to their detail, when scaling, strong image distortions occurred. With the advent of 16-bit hardware, the color palette has expanded significantly and the resolution of games has increased.
6:47 The appearance of Hang-On (1985) made a significant contribution to the history of graphics. This game has smooth sprite scaling thanks to the superscalar processor. At the same time, the frame rate was also on top.
Hang-On — game with smooth sprite scaling thanks to superscalar hardware
7:12 The most realistic graphics at the time were probably in Dragon’s Lair (1983). Thanks to the great potential of laser discs, this game was a real interactive cartoon. But the gameplay left a lot to be desired.
The beginning of the era of home consoles
The mid-1980s marked the end of the golden era of the arcade. Home consoles are gaining more and more popularity.
8:00 Sprite dominance has begun. Sprites are small images designed to move around the game board. They display any dynamic object: the player, enemies, bullets and everything else that cannot be tied to the background and environment.
Strider (1989) was highly acclaimed for its scale of work: detailed characters, huge swinging plasma swords, and many effects.
All this became possible thanks to the CPS-1 board. It could also run Street Fighter 2 (1991) is a benchmark in the fighting game genre.
9:33 Another camera scrolling technique soon became popular: parallax. To do this, the background was divided into several layers, which were displaced at different speeds. So it was possible to convey the depth of the background and show which objects are closer to the player and which are farther away. Moon Patrol (1982) was one of the first games to use this technique. This would later become commonplace in platform games and some other genres of 2D games. Parallax will surely be imprinted in the history of graphics and will be used even after decades.
Shadow of the beast — a game using parallax
10:40 Games based on cartoons and animated series began to appear on home consoles: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Simpsons, Aladdin. The finished cartoons provided an excellent visual basis for artists and developers.
12:06 But by the mid-1990s, sprites started to become obsolete.
Game development has shifted to 3D, trying to unleash the full potential hidden in the third dimension. Pixel games are not gone, but there are fewer of them.
However, some projects have made a special contribution to the history of 2D game graphics. One of them is Metal Slug (1996). In this game, there were no restrictions on the color or size of sprites, and the detail and animation of objects was simply amazing.
The evolution of animation and sprites
13:10 Animation is a vital part of creating realistic movement in games. And in a time when motion capture did not yet exist, artists used the technique of rotoscoping. It consisted in the fact that initially the animation is filmed in reality with live actors. Then, over the video frame by frame, the animation of the sprites themselves is outlined. The process is time consuming, but the only way to get realistic movement.
Note Rotoscoping has been used not only in games, but also in animation techniques.
13:53 There was a time when digitization of images was popular. Sprites were created directly from photos or videos. The very first game with digitized sprites was Journey (1983). It substituted photographs of members of musical groups in the players. 5 years later, Rarc came out — a 32-bit arcade game with thousands of colors and amazing digitization.
14:52 Well-designed animation and high-quality digitalization were often seen in fighting games. Of course, the winner in this genre was Mortal Kombat (1992). Photorealistic characters and crazy action made this game outrageous, which in turn ensured its popularity.
Photorealistic graphics in Mortal Kombat
15:35 With the development of multimedia technologies, there is more space for pre-rendered content and even full-fledged video. But nothing worthwhile came of it. It became clear that the future is not for interactive films.
Attempts in the third dimension
16:50 From the very beginning, the developers tried to master the three-dimensional games.
Due to hardware limitations, they had to make big concessions. The very first prototypes of games were «wireframe» (grid). The screen displayed only the contours of objects, in which it was difficult to navigate. An example of such a game was Battlezone (1980).
Battlezone is a game with 3D mesh graphics
17:36 The next step in the history of graphics was to fill these mesh objects with flat hatching. A simple and working way, but still difficult for early game systems.
The need for powerful hardware has made 3D games too expensive. But as computers evolved, more and more games adopted the flat hatch fill technique.
An alternative approach to 3D
18:45 Not everyone liked the dull and flat shading in these games. So some developers have started using hardware tricks to model 3D worlds. For example, Mode 7 on the SNES. It allows you to transform the texture so that a perspective effect is created. It remained only to impose on top of some sprites.
They did it in Super Mario Kart (1992). There were colorful and detailed graphics, while the frame rate did not suffer.
SuperFX is a coprocessor chip used in some SNES cartridges. He took over the rendering of graphics, which facilitated the work of the main processor.
Early PC games sometimes used a pre-rendered background or scene. Only players and enemies were dynamic objects. Thus it was possible to reduce the graphic requirement of the games.
20:35 Some games have started using a first-person camera. Ultima Underworld (19)92) miraculously transferred the role-playing game to the three-dimensional world. This, in turn, will soon influence the development of FPS (First Person Shooter — first-person shooter).
One method for rendering textured 3D games is Raycasting. This method is efficient in that it only renders and renders what the player sees. And if you use simple room geometry, you can achieve high game performance. This is what they did in Wolfenstein (1992).
It was possible to run it even on weak computers.
How raycasting works
Wolfenstein was the progenitor of 3D shooters, but Doom (1993) made a truly significant contribution to the history of graphics. It was developed on the Wolfenstein engine. It no longer had boring «grid» levels — there were full-fledged 3D locations. Doom has become a successful game and served as the starting point for many similar games and clones.
The legend of its time — Doom
Real 3D
22:06 Basically, all early 3D games were based on crutches that simulate a three-dimensional world: limited geometry and the use of sprites. Full 3D games with textures required a lot of processing power. Such games became popular only in the second half of the 1990s.
22:51 For example, Super Mario 64 (1996) — from a flat sewer into a colorful three-dimensional world. This game will be the first successful 3D platform game.
Super Mario 64 is the first successful 3D platformer
Full 3D games are no longer new.
24:34 id Software were the pioneers of 3D computer games. Despite the abundance of Doom clones, they decided to raise the bar even higher and released Quake (1996). She was in many ways better than her predecessor. It has a real 3D world and vertical aiming. Instead of sprites, full-fledged polygonal models appeared. This game was a kind of prelude to the next generation of 3D graphics.
25:06 In addition to traditional polygons in 3D games, there are voxels (volumetric pixels) — an alternative approach to building a polygon. Instead of triangular polygons, objects are made up of cubic pixels (just like in Minecraft). Voxels are great for creating terrain from a height map.
Emergence of video accelerators
It became clear that 3D games definitely have a future. But traditional computer architecture was not designed for this. Therefore, support for hardware graphics acceleration began to appear in games.
Note Hardware acceleration is the use of specialized hardware that can perform certain actions more efficiently than the CPU.
In this case, we are talking about video cards. The processor itself can also draw graphics (we are not talking about an integrated graphics chip, but about the CPU). But the graphics card is hardware designed to render graphics much faster and more efficiently.
27:19 As soon as the first video cards began to appear on the market, they immediately became an indispensable accessory for games. The modularity of the computer played into the hands of this and helped to easily install video accelerators in the PC.
First-person shooters attracted the most attention to graphics. In 1998, a wave of shooters using hardware acceleration began. Unreal (1998) made a special sensation at the time. With smooth frame rates, colorful lighting, detailed textures, and detailed levels, Unreal and its engine have become synonymous with cutting-edge graphics.
Unreal featured high frame rates and sophisticated lighting
Closer to 2000, the popularity of video accelerators was such that some games began to completely abandon software rendering (rendering on the central processor).
Any PC gamer without a video card could spend his time only in solitaire.
The evolution of shooters
In the early 2000s, first-person shooters became the dominant genre. Many games released franchises of the previous decade. And in each case, they were waiting for the appearance of excellent visual effects and improved gameplay.
29:10 In Half-Life 2 (2004), it was possible to combine modern graphics, a dark atmosphere and sophisticated physics.
Half-Life 2 — well-developed gameplay and dark atmosphere
29:30 id Software faced a difficult task. They needed to release a new Doom that would fit all the requirements of this time. Doom 3 (2004) no longer had the usual light graphics. The whole game was filled with a gloomy atmosphere, only filled with lighting in places.
Visual styles of games
30:19 The popularity of World War II shooters has left its mark on the history of graphics. The sandy and brown hues characteristic of these games became fashionable for a while.
At the same time, the developers discolored the colors, striving for realism.
The origin of this style can be traced back to Quake. Its darker tones add a gothic and industrial feel to the game. This rejection of colors would eventually permeate games of all genres.
31:19Brown tones have become a definite hallmark of this generation of games. Another such feature was the glow effect. Bright objects were overexposed and slightly blurred. This effect made bright objects even brighter. One of the first games to use this style was Ico (2001). And after the release of Tron 2.0 (2003), this technique became more popular. The neon glow perfectly complemented the visual effects of the original film.
Neon glow in Tron 2.0
32:32 While the muted tones and cinematic effects brought realism to the games, some used more stylized graphics. CEL shading is a graphic type that uses flat colors and black outlines. Such graphics gave the game a cartoonish style. Jet Set Radio (2000) and several other games brought this style to the masses.
This was proof that realistic graphics are not suitable for every game.
The current generation of games
The middle of the decade saw the seventh generation of consoles and the entry into the modern era of video games. 3D technology was mature and hardware performance grew like never before.
34:00 An important release of that time was Crysis (2007). Crytek was already known for their previous game Far Cry (2004). Its tropical setting and open gameplay carried over into Crysis. This game stood out for its visuals, detailed physics, weapon customization mechanics, and varied gameplay.
As with any game of its kind, Crysis was demanding on hardware. Got a new powerful computer? It doesn’t matter if it fails to run Crysis.
Breakthrough of its time — Crysis
35:35 Due to availability restrictions, such games were treated with distrust. Instead, the leaders of that time were games with simple graphics. For example, Wii Sports (2006) and Guitar Hero 2 (2006).
From a visual point of view, they were simple, but still became popular and profitable.
Do you think graphics are not that important in games? Share your opinion in the comments.
The emergence of indie games
36:03 The rise of indie titles has once again indicated that graphics may not be the only important aspect of a game. Some of them deliberately adhered to the style of a bygone era, relying on the experience of the past generation. Despite the high performance of computers, many games adhered to a minimalistic style and a limited palette.
Rogue Legacy with simple graphics and a platformer genre
37:47 Some games created a personality through their appearance. The block system and low-res textures are the hallmarks of Minecraft (2009). The simple visual style pays homage to retro culture. But an endless world, multiplayer and limitless possibilities are the features of modern technology. Minecraft is a kind of bridge between the old and the new.
All these moments allowed the game to become the best-selling game in the world (after Tetris). Over 200 million copies have been sold.
***
Despite the emergence of indie games, photorealism is not to be feared. Since the release of Crysis, graphics in games have undergone incredible improvements.
Lately there are more and more additional visual effects that are designed to increase the cinematography of the game and make it even more attractive: Because of this, a small silhouette of spectral color is created around the edges of objects;
***
This video was made in 2015. Since then, the world has seen many more leaps in graphics capabilities. First, VR was popularized. Many games have come out in which VR is not just technology for the sake of technology, but a new way to open up the game world. Franchises of popular games have appeared, ported to VR. Among them: Doom, Batman, Borderlands, Serious Sam, Minecraft, Eve, No Man’s Sky, Fallout, Skyrim and Resident Evil. But perhaps the most significant and complete VR game to date has been Half-Life: Alyx.
An undoubted breakthrough in the history of graphics was the emergence of RTX technology and DLSS anti-aliasing. This happened in September 2018, when Nvidia released the GeForce RTX 20 series of cards.
RTX technology allows real-time ray tracing, i.e. processing all the lighting in the scene. Previously, such a process was very resource-intensive, so the lighting in locations was usually baked and was not calculated during the game.
