Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
requiring scaling up or down the UI you already designed. In such cases, you just
need to scale the template in vector graphics and then recreate the rasterized assets
from that template. With raster graphics, on the other hand, you would be forced to
re-design every interface component altogether.
Whether to use vector or raster graphics also depends on the artwork styles you
chose for your game. For example, vectors rarely suit realistic graphics. As the hand-
held technology advances, players generally expect more realistic-looking games. In
such cases, you should prefer to produce the graphic assets for your interface as
bitmaps.
On the other hand, vector art allows creating perfect stylized graphic artworks for
those titles with a strong characterization, in terms of creative direction. Kid Vector is
one such title: a platformer with excellent controls and vector graphics, as you can
see in the following figure:
Designing icons
Icons are a very important element of any mobile game from the very beginning of
its commercial life. When you upload your new game on the App Store, it's mainly
the icon you provide that will convince potential customers to try your game. Badly-
designed and crafted icons won't attract many players in the sea of potential apps to
download!
Creating the perfect icons for your game is not to be overlooked. But which are the
best techniques to create nice, crisp icons? In the previous section of this chapter,
we discussed the differences between raster and vector graphics. Now we will apply
those concepts to the creation of game icons.
