作者：Anjin Anhut

在电子游戏这样栩栩如生的媒介中，处理颜色要素是设计的关键。通常大家会觉得颜色设计最好留给游戏美工完成，但其实游戏设计师可通过合理颜色管理创造杰出故事和清晰玩法。许多书籍都有谈及此内容，关于这方面的研究也很多，我的文章无法覆盖所有内容。但我依然希望你们能够从中有所启发，在阶段、关卡、空间、截面或区域设计中更有效地运用颜色元素。下面就来谈谈电子游戏中的颜色要素。（请点击此处阅读第二部分：色彩运用惯例)

Pic from howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com

颜色的两个沟通层次

在本文中，我将从两个层面着眼颜色沟通，即显著颜色和颜色情境。

Pic.1 from howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com

显著颜色是指大家熟知的颜色。颜色描述清晰即时，在沟通上与话语或文字同样重要。从小我们就通过父母、儿童书籍、老师、游戏和玩具获悉简化认识和谈论颜色的方式。虽然我们身边存在众多色彩、亮度和混合颜色，但在口头交流中，我们已学会锁定最突出的颜色，以最简单和通俗的方式描述它们。天空是蓝色，消防车是红色，青蛙是绿色，鸡蛋是白色等等。也许会在必要时候加上“浅”或“深”。若你不是以设计、艺术或式样角度切入，这就是你潜意识里对事物的颜色概念。

在颜色轮盘中，我们能够轻松说出主要和次要颜色，因此它们属于显著颜色（游戏邦注：红、蓝、黄、绿、紫和橙）。第三色和复杂混合色可通过其色谱进行描述，但没有特定名称。复杂混合颜色由显著颜色要素构成，缺乏自己的独立身份。在沟通中，这些颜色是通过相关主要或次要颜色进行描述。包含2/3黄色和1/3红色的颜色通常被形容为橙色。其他常在对话中谈到的颜色有褐色、粉红色、肉色、银色、金色、蓝绿色、彩虹色（主要和次要颜色依次呈现）、深褐色和卡其色。有些显著颜色在特定情境下失去颜色含义：黑、灰、白和黑白（这就媒介而言）。

Pic.2 from howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com

我们通过其他简化方式进行潜意识的颜色描述。也就是颜色情境。混合颜色、纹理亮化和不规则化、以及实际颜色以复杂方式映入我们眼帘都属于同个能够控制的颜色情景。这些情境都会给观看者带来潜意识影响，同我们的原始颜色联系起来。在动物和早期人类眼中，颜色是生存的工具。丰富绿色植物代表充满水资源、水果和动物生命的宜居环境。而不饱和亮棕色则代表相反意思，表示环境非常恶劣和糟糕。亮红斑点代表危险、物理伤害和痛苦，因为这就是血液所呈现的态势。这些联系已变成下意识模式，使颜色情境变成引发情绪和情感的有效工具。

Pic.3 from howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com

从儿童时期开始，我们就学会如何下意识辨认和描述颜色情境，但这更多涉及陈述颜色情境的情感冲击，而非陈述颜色本身。为清楚陈述我的观点，我归纳如下内容：

Pic.4 from howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com

各个击破

要彻底理清脑中思绪，你需在自己的色彩构图中将显著颜色同颜色情境区分开来。如下原则能够帮助玩家辨认显著颜色和颜色情境。当然若把它们结合起来，效果更好。

目的

玩家清楚有些元素是出于特定目的而被赋予特定颜色。交通信号灯以红绿颜色向我们呈现信息，衣服的着色也有特定目的，颜色也能够充当标签。玩家还清楚有些内容的颜色没有特殊含义。火箭呈现灰色是由于它本来就是灰色，天空呈现蓝色是由于天气。自从人类开始将颜色运用至交流中，玩家就从现实生活中学会给予颜色更多关注。若你希望玩家留心墙上红色标记，你就会以刻意红色呈现（游戏邦注：而不是呈意外飞溅血色）。这是获得玩家关注的最大原则，他会觉得是你刻意赋予其这种颜色。

Pic.5 from howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com

对比

这关乎控制玩家关注焦点。强烈对比能够可以是深&浅、高饱和&低饱和、红&绿和红&青。这些对比常被运用到现实生活中。想想鲜艳而饱和的黄色警带，或警示灯，这里的显著颜色通常通过自己的光源呈现。视觉感知在颜色要素和顺序上形成反差。玩家能够发现颜色存在的差异（颜色此时和下秒出现的颜色变化）。

Pic.6 from howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com

独特性

这点很简单。若你希望玩家下意识发现蓝颜色内容，就要确保其他内容不是以蓝颜色呈现。这就是《战争机器》所遵循的原则，其蓝颜色专们描述COG装甲和武器。Gear装甲的灯光、弹药箱信号、投掷手榴弹的瞄准点和狙击步枪的目标都以显著蓝色呈现，而与COG无关的内容就不是如此。

Pic.7 from howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com

结论

本文我们已就显著颜色和颜色情境进行区分。接着我们将就如何有效发挥二者作用进行详细描述。

游戏邦注：原文发布于2011年1月13日，文章叙述以当时为背景。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

GAME AND SWATCH – COLOR THEORY FOR GAME DESIGNERS PART 1

by Anjin Anhut

In a medium as visual as video games currently are, working with color is a key element of design. It might appear that color design is best left to the game artists, but in fact game designers can use proper color management to their advantage, to create strong narratives and clear gameplay. There are many books about this subject, many observations to make and there will be a ton of stuff unmentioned my article here. But still I hope you get some inspiration and arguments for a more conscious use of color in whatever stage, level, world, section or area your are creating. Here is a rough write down of stuff I discuss with my game design students at Games Academy, when it comes to working with colors in video games.

Two Levels Of Communication With Color

In this article I’m going to tackle communication with colors on two levels, which I labeled distinct colors and color situations.

Distinct colors are colors that have a commonly known name. As simple as that. Colors, which can instantly and without ambiguity be labeled, are as powerful in communication as any spoken or written word. From an very early age on we are told by our parents, children books, teachers, games and toys to simplify the way we recognize and talk about colors. While in fact there are many variations of hue and brightness and complex mixtures of colors surrounding us, in verbal communication we have learned to settle on the most dominant colors and describing them in the most simplistic and general way. The sky is blue, fire trucks are red, frogs are green, eggs are white and so forth. Maybe adding the quality of “light” or “dark”, if necessary. If you are not thinking in design, art or styling terms, this is how you consciously process how things are colored.

On the color wheel, primary and secondary colors are easily named and therefore distinct. Red, blue, yellow, green, purple, orange. Tertiary colors and even more complex mixtures can be described by their color recipe, but lack distinctive names. Those complex mixtures of color are stuck between their distinct color components, with no identity of their own. In conversations, those colors are usually labeled with the name of a related primary or secondary color. An orange color, with 2/3 yellow and 1/3 red is usually still simply described as orange. Other distinct colors, commonly used in conversations are brown, pink, flesh color (or skin color), silver, gold, turquoise and rainbow color (primary and secondary colors in sequence), sepia and khaki maybe. Then there are distinct colors, that are often described to be colorless, depending on the context: black, grey, white and black-and-white (which is a simple term to describe the absence of colors in media).

To process colors on a subconscious level, we use another simplification. Color Situations. The mixture of colors, the lighting and irregularities due to texture, just the actual colors that hit our eye in all their complexity are summed up into one manageable overall color situation. These situations have a subconscious impact on the viewer, connecting to our primal instincts. To us as animals/early humans color was instrumental for survival. Rich green plant life signals an inhabitable environment with plenty of water, fruits and animals life to live from. Low saturated greasy and browns suggest the opposite, making environments harsh and hostile. Spots of bright reds signal danger, physical damage and pain, since this is how blood looks like in the open. These kind of associations are branded into our subconsciousness and make color situations an effective tool to trigger moods and emotions.

Of course as kids we also learned to identify and describe some color situations verbally and on a conscious level. But this is more about naming the emotional impact a color situation has, instead of naming the colors themselves. So for the sake of clear argumentation in this article, I’d like to make the following hard split:

Divide and Conquer

To effectively aim at the brain oar aim at the guts, you need to clearly separate distinct colors from color situations in your color compositions. There are a few principles, that work quite fine to help the player recognize colors as distinct or as color situations. They of course work best, when used in combination.

Purpose

The player understands, that some things have been given a specific color for a specific purpose. Traffic lights are red or green to tell us something, clothing is colored for a purpose, colors are used as labels and so on. The player also understands, that there are some things that just happen to have a certain color without a purpose behind it. A rock is grey, just because he is and the sky is blue because of the weather. The player learned from real life to give more attention to colors, when they have been put there by humans for the purpose of communication. If you ask for the player to watch out for red markings on walls, he always will prioritize the purposely placed red graffiti over the accidental blood splatters. This one is actually the strongest principle to make the player recognize, that he is suppose to consider the distinct colors you throw at them.

Contrast

This has something to do with controlling the focus of the player. Effective contrast can be light vs dark, low saturation vs high saturation, reddish vs greenish, reddish vs blueish. Those contrast are commonly used in real life. Think of the brightness and high saturation of yellow police tape or of warning lights, where distinct colors are often displayed by an own light source. The eye registers contrast in compositions and in sequences. The player can recognize the contrast between a color, which the object currently has and the color, which the object will have next.

Uniqueness/Rarity

This one is simple. If you want the player to consciously process everything that is blue, make sure that nothing else is actually colored blue. That’s how it is done in Gears Of War, where the color blue is exclusive for the COG armor and weaponry. The silly lights on the Gear’s armor, the signals on ammo boxes, the aiming aid when throwing grenades and the sight of the sniper rifle all appear in distinct blue, while everything not COG related consequently isn’t. Epic even goes as far as giving blue lights to now “friendly” hijacked Reavers and Brumaks. Of course the strong saturation contrast to the environments comes into play also.

Conclusion Part One

Now that we got the two buckets of colors separated and cleared up, let’s check on how to utilize them to full effect in part 2 soon. （Source：howtonotsuckatgamedesign）