How colours guide the player in video games

Abstract

The goal of this thesis was to gather information on how colours can guide the player in video games. The two main aspects researched were emotional and navigational colour guiding. This thesis also included a summary of accessibility regarding colour-blindness.

The beginning of the thesis delved into the basics of colour theory for the sake of understanding basic terms and theories, and some cultural aspects of them. The theoretical part of this thesis covered emotional and storytelling ways of colour including research on colour-emotion relations. This emotion part included topics of mood, tension, colour-grading and colour scripts. Game-related theory discussed was in form of talks from game developers, literature, articles and research studies. In the theme of navigation, topics of affordances, cognitive mapping, and UI were discussed. Throughout the thesis a variety of examples from different games with different aesthetics were provided.

The conclusions were that while there exist few research data on the impact of colour on emotions in gaming environments, its influence is still notable. Especially cultural differences affect the meanings of colour in many ways. The topic of colour is vast, and to completely understand its nuances a designer must research many different fields of expertise. The compiled information in this thesis could be used as a basic guide for developers to make more profound colour choices in game development, and to hopefully find new perspectives to the importance of colour in many phases of the design process.