Grimdark aesthetic

[Dogmeat]

Both Wasteland and Fallout are set nearly a century after the Apocalypse.

...
My point was that if it's about a nuclear apocalypse, it should show. Otherwise it's just an apocalyptic world, where nature reclaimed most of the land where humans lived and no one could tell what caused it.

ps: even the name of the game -wasteland- suggests a barren land, not very pleasant to the eye. The general feeling should be one of dread and despair, and this sentiment should be reflected in the game's visual tone. I don't think this can be achieved by showing how nature took over, inevitably in a beautifully way. The more life, the more hope you have, and this is the opposite of what someone should feel in a post apocalyptic world, imo.

[Woolfe]

Grimbright perhaps

I just think it should be normal.

Las Vegas after 100 years, if no one was keeping the sand out, should be looking much like the surrounding countryside, deserty with sickly scrub that can't grow well because of the ground etc.

On the other hand a lush fertile area, should be overgrown with green, the city there gradually being broken by the trees and grasses as they reclaim it.

Our buildings are not designed to last without maintenance. Nature can and does regularly destroy stuff. This is what I want to see.

The Wasteland aspect comes about because of the "irradiated" zones where people can't live. But they don't have to be dead and brown, they could be alive and full of mutated animals.... Evil bunnies indeed.

[homeslice82]

Grimbright perhaps

I just think it should be normal.

Las Vegas after 100 years, if no one was keeping the sand out, should be looking much like the surrounding countryside, deserty with sickly scrub that can't grow well because of the ground etc.

On the other hand a lush fertile area, should be overgrown with green, the city there gradually being broken by the trees and grasses as they reclaim it.

Our buildings are not designed to last without maintenance. Nature can and does regularly destroy stuff. This is what I want to see.

The Wasteland aspect comes about because of the "irradiated" zones where people can't live. But they don't have to be dead and brown, they could be alive and full of mutated animals.... Evil bunnies indeed.

I <3 this.

[paultakeda]

ps: even the name of the game -wasteland- suggests a barren land, not very pleasant to the eye. The general feeling should be one of dread and despair, and this sentiment should be reflected in the game's visual tone.

I'm sorry, but you really need to at least look at the Let's Play vids on YouTube to get a view of the post-apocalyptic world of Wasteland. It is not the same as Fallout's. You are talking about Fallout, here, and that's fine. I love Fallout, too. But Wasteland is far more optimistic about the survivability of civilization after a nuclear war and it definitely shows. A military base not only survived but thrived to the point where they begin to exert their brand of law and order across the now teeming land about them.

I don't think this can be achieved by showing how nature took over, inevitably in a beautifully way. The more life, the more hope you have, and this is the opposite of what someone should feel in a post apocalyptic world, imo.

Nature took over and it took over in an outlandish, fantastic and beautiful fashion. In Fallout, it took over with ghouls and deathclaws. In Wasteland, it meant some of that but it also had gigantic broccoli, armored bunnies and three legged prostitutes. That's Wasteland's setting.

[Drool]

it also had gigantic broccoli

Everyone focuses on the broccoli, but there's so much more at the Ag Center. Oranges the size of basketballs, giant carrots, enormous peas, massive grapes, tomatoes bigger than your head... there was a wide variety of fruits and vegetables growing there. Honestly, it's worth it to explore each row. The Ag Center has some wonderful writing:

In the shadow of an enormous satellite tracking dish stands the old man. Over 100 years old, he is still vigorous and bright of eye, although he rambles incoherently at times. The farmers remove their hats as they approach and wait for him to speak. Frowning, deep in thought, he stares at what appear to be the remains of a 15-foot tall carrot. He holds a long shaft of broken metal in one hand and mumbles something about wascally wabbits that he had to beat away with his best rake.
Miguel explains that you have come to help. The old man studies your weapons, and tells you that he doesn't think your peashooters will do any good against the armored varmints, but that you're welcome to try. If you succeed, he wants you to come back and see him. There is something he would like to show you.
Free to roam the veggie field, you head towards the carrot patch. From a distance, your hear the old man warn you, "Watch out for Harry, the Bunny Master!"

[paultakeda]

Everyone focuses on the broccoli

That's because Arne did such a great job illustrating them (and capturing the Wasteland's pulp scifi/fantasy sensibility).


Edit: Back to the point. Let's take a current movie, John Carter, which was based on a pulp fantasy series, John Carter of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. In the series (and I suppose in the movie), you read/see what you would consider a wasteland. Yet it is teeming with life, is populated with both primitive and advanced technologies, and by and large shows several civilizations that fell on hard times but were now on the road to consolidation and recovery.

[Drool]

Yeah, but look in the upper left. Giant pears!

[paultakeda]

Yeah, but look in the upper left. Giant pears!

Yeah, but come on! The focus is broccoli! Anyhow, bleak it is not.

[homeslice82]

BROCCOLI IS BETTER THAN PEARS

Let's start a faction war about this.

[Tanglebones]

BROCCOLI IS BETTER THAN PEARS

Let's start a faction war about this.

I reject your broccoli and pear hegemony, and throw my full support behind giant man-eating peas.

[Cruxador]

Just saw the header and skimmed the thread, but I want to point something out: Grimdark is a setting descriptor, it has nothing to do with aesthetic. A game can be grimdark while still being bright and colorful. And Wasteland was pretty grimdark.

[BlackGauntlet]

[Plasmablaster]

Just saw the header and skimmed the thread, but I want to point something out: Grimdark is a setting descriptor, it has nothing to do with aesthetic. A game can be grimdark while still being bright and colorful. And Wasteland was pretty grimdark.

I'd agree with that. I'd also add that since the argument of "realism" has popped up from the backers of cartoon-style graphics (which is cartoonish graphics or palette are more realistic than dark & gritty) I'd say that real reality actually gives a number of options as to what kind of aesthetic you can follow and still be "realistic". Here's some pictures of Pripyat (the town right next to Chernobyl):









which as far as mood is concerned are directly contrasted by those which are in the same exact place:







Remeber also that Pripyat wasn't a city destroyed by a nuclear blast, it was only abandined because of the radioactive fallout. Here's a picture of the destroyed reactor:


Destroyed cities produce lots of debris which in general is mostly grey so a post-apoc city would realistically be greyish with some tones of brown and some spots of green for the spots where vegetation made its way througgh the asphalt or pavement.

So in general it's a matter of choice, in which my own view is that I prefer the grey & brown option because that evokes the feelings of desolation and destruction in more profound way than the oversaturated palette of the cartoons. That doesn't mean that the whole game world needs to be like this but the general mood should indeed be.

I'm really going to be disappointed should the game have lots of purples, pinks and bright greens.

[Hadar]

http://www.flickriver.com/photos/kliza/3867944900/

One of my problems with FO3 was the constant recycled grays. The area around Chernobyl is full of woodland and wildlife, so everything being dead 200 years after the bombs was just plain making sure no-one accidentally saw a tree and called it oblivion with guns.

[Dogmeat]

So in general it's a matter of choice, in which my own view is that I prefer the grey & brown option because that evokes the feelings of desolation and destruction in more profound way than the oversaturated palette of the cartoons. That doesn't mean that the whole game world needs to be like this but the general mood should indeed be.

I'm really going to be disappointed should the game have lots of purples, pinks and bright greens.

This. I'm looking for realism, not stylized graphics. In this case, as everyone can see, realism also includes some bright colors, like the green of new vegetation or the red and yellow of old paint on cars and such. But this should be where it's logical to be, not because of a stylistic decision (ie: to avoid grey and brown at all costs).

ps: as you can see, i didn't played Wasteland (i was too young back then and didn't have a pc), but played Fallout 1&2 (didn't liked part 3) and loved them to death. Also played all the cRPGs that fallowed, including Arcanum and Planescape Torment, but the Fallouts are my favorites because of the theme, mostly. So yes, i don't really know how Wasteland was and played, but i know that Fallout was declared (by Brian Fargo) as the spiritual successor of Wasteland, so i imagine W2 should be the same. Or maybe that's what i hope it to be and that's that.

[ButchinMelancholy]

I am personally looking for "realistic" graphics and stylized design, like it looks on the Dominus' artworks on page 2, and how it was on Fallout too (which I posted some artworks below as well) actually.

And it's true for all the objects we would encounter in the game, I want it to look different from reality:



(and everything here)

Etc...

It's all inspired by reality, and looking credible, but has a unique style.

[homeslice82]

Just FYI:

It's only been 26-ish years since the Chernobyl disaster. If the game is going to be set a hundred or few hundred years later, the vegetation will have a lot more time to take over in non-desert areas.

[DethRaid]

Plasmablaster, thank you for posting that image of Chernobyl. I really think that the designers should look at real-world examples like that when designing the game.

I understand the nostalgia everyone seems to feel towards that bright colors of the 80s, but I really don't feel like those help to create a dead, decaying, post-apocalyptic world. Playing the original Wasteland, everything's bright yellows and greens and blues. Maybe it's because of the limits on graphics power back then, but those colors really don't give me the idea of a post-apocalyptic world.

Consider the real world, if you will. Humans build things out of concrete, glass, brick, and wood mostly (at least they do where I live). Now, what happens when things are left to their own devices? Plants grow. Mold grows. Things get dirty and grimy. Glass becomes dull and dirty, various vines grow in brick within a few years, and on concrete if you let them. For me, the sign of a place that no one takes care of is plants growing where they really shouldn't be.

That's buildings, but we have other things than buildings, like cars and plastic everything. Plastic decays when left outside, becoming faded and brittle. Cars get dirty, as does everything, and they rust, as do most metal things. Paint peels. Linoleum curls. When you end up with, assuming no plants grow, are pale, dull plastic things, rusted metal things, and probably lots of small debris of the same type.

So, my personal opinion on the color palette that should be used is lots of greens, some brown and red, pale colors in general, and (depending on how long after the apocalypse this game is) a fair number of grays. We shouldn't use pastels because they were used in the 80s. If pastel colors make real-world sense, by all means use them, but please don't use them just to use them.

[krellen]

those colors really don't give me the idea of a post-apocalyptic world

Then maybe you should play one of the other post-apocalyptic RPGs. Wasteland had more hope.

[ButchinMelancholy]

Hope is not necessarily a matter of giving things a certain look.
And I am agree with DethRaid, things should basically look "realistic" but then, characters and the rest should have its own temper, to give the game its personality.