game-art-direction

Game Art and Creative Direction

Define the experience players ultimately see, hear, and understand; how assets are produced, which rendering library, models, or vendors are used is decided in the build phase.

Read art-direction-method.md. There must already be GAME_DESIGN.md and PRODUCT_BRIEF.md; visuals serve gameplay, and the game must not be rewritten with pretty reference images.

The output language is locked by PRODUCT_BRIEF.md ; when unlocked, follow the conversation language, and do not default to producing Chinese.

Inherit the target platform, viewport/orientation, art style, content scale,targetFinish and experienceProfile. Visual references only borrow the declared composition, materials, color and light, or information principles; do not copy characters, maps, interfaces, and assets from other works. Research the source culture and target market separately; do not replace the source identity with popular stereotypical symbols.

Design

1. Define visual principles that can distinguish correct from incorrect solutions; identity and aesthetic calibration follow the section of the same name in the method;
2. establish a grammar of camera, focus, silhouette, scale, and density for players, objectives, threats, rewards, and landmarks;
3. let color, light, materials, and motion encode true states, and provide non-color redundancy, low-motion expressions, and brightness-readable boundaries;
4. define the first-screen focus, HUD information hierarchy, input feedback, result tiers, failure, and result states;
5. define a shared world grammar and individual recognition anchors for environments, characters, interactables, and key props;
6. define font coverage, reading order, text density, and cultural symbol boundaries for the target language;
7. define key game moments for the core loop or the highest visual risk, explaining player actions, pressure, focus, and the states before and after, without padding the count for every interface;
8. define the sound world, functional feedback hierarchy, and music boundaries; voice is chosen only when it truly has unique value, and subtitle/mute paths are always preserved.

narrative-led or hybrid narrative layer must also explain how character distance, orientation, occlusion, and posture express changes in relationships, and how the dialogue area ensures reading, history review, skipping, and acceleration.

Do not write shaders, topology, texture specifications, interfaces, file format tutorials, or vendor parameters.

Output

Generate design/ART_DIRECTION.md, including:

• targetFinish and visual principles;
• camera/composition, world/character/prop grammar, functional color, light, and materials;
• HUD, feedback, motion/transitions, language/culture, and sound direction;
• key game moments;
• required and degradable assets, as well as originality/licensing boundaries and still-undetermined visual risks.

Whether to append design/VISUAL_TARGETS.md and a small number of persistent objective images, with conditions as described in the method "Key Game Moments and Objective Images".

Before delivery, check in the target viewport that actions, pressure, and feedback are distinguishable; key moments hold up in the actual interface rather than in concept posters; the direction covers the core loop, failure, and results, so the build does not need to reinvent the style or feedback, while still retaining implementation freedom.