The Language of Color in Games | Semi-Ramblomatic
Added 2024-04-25 15:02:18 +0000 UTCThis week's episode of Semi-Ramblomatic is now available!
Comments
Fire is a weird one. Why is it always denoted with the colour red? Fire is yellow or blue usually depending on the fuel. Are game devs throwing lithium on everything?
Karajorma
2024-04-28 10:33:13 +0000 UTCYahtz forgot white, the color of flashbacks and "transparent" PNGs, and orange, the most unclear color. Also, yellow is definitely the utility/highlighter color.
John Smith
2024-04-26 22:48:04 +0000 UTCBlue is often associated with electricity (and a lot of energy projection that has a scientific grounding). A lot of the clips Yahtzee used shows a lot of blue being used this way. This then also couples in with his association because his examples are all associated with electricity (energy shields and power for your mechanized or science-fiction armour). This also can carry over into fantasy settings, with lightning or some sort of pure energy projection (being either blue or yellow), aside from 'water' themes in fantasy settings (which technicially is very good for conducting electricity, and mana (though this could also be seen as a pure energy for converting into other types for spells).
Daniel Craddock
2024-04-26 15:24:53 +0000 UTCI tend to think of "green as stamina" is a thing because green = "go." You run out of green, you stop. (You stop in mid-air, you've got problems.)
Kraken
2024-04-26 03:51:05 +0000 UTCTalking about Halo shield made me think of the shields in Reach which are Yellow. Making me think of yellow as a symbol for caution
Eating Pancakes Right Now
2024-04-26 00:37:46 +0000 UTCI thought red meant bad guys too (but yeah its health the most). Also does, green being "full health" and red being "low health" happen anywhere other than pokemon? or do I just not play enough games. Also surprised you didn't do white, that's the cleric / healer / support / piety color isn't it? or am I behind the times there. Orange got left out, but I can't think of a color trend for orange either.
IvyReed
2024-04-25 20:40:02 +0000 UTCThis might be a stretch but what about yellow as a way to signify imbalance or something being out of place? To use some examples in the video, you have the ledges as a way of saying "this is the bit of scenery you can interact with. It's different from the rest of the area." The energy in Half-Life opening the way to Xen is yellow because it's an anomaly and shouldn't be there. Likewise, the slowdown in RDR is something unique to the player. It's abnormal to the rest of the world. Then you have item rarity where the super rare stuff is yellow to say "this is different from the rest of what you'll find. This is going to fundamentally change some aspect of the experience." Yellow is eye catching so it's often used to say "This is important. Pay attention!" Hence road signs, lines on the road and warning signs in general. So maybe that's the intention in a lot of the games too? Except the Jedi Sentinel class in KOTOR has a yellow lightsaber by default and that was more of a balanced, skill-based class and was probably the most subtle of the three options. So this theory may not hold up.
FancyShark
2024-04-25 19:59:57 +0000 UTCI tend to associate red with explosive barrels in video games.
LifeIsStrange
2024-04-25 18:13:26 +0000 UTCTHAT'S NOT HOW YOU SPELL COLOUR, THAT'S NOT HOW YOU SPELL COLOUR, THAT'S NOT HOW YOU SPELL COLOUR, THAT'S NOT HOW YOU SPELL COLOUR. jk love the content ❤️
RETSOF
2024-04-25 17:29:36 +0000 UTCI love how Yahtzee went from Game Theory to calling me out with lines like "Oooh surprised he didn't mention..."😅😆☺; Love you Yahtzee💖😊
Lil' Cass
2024-04-25 17:11:14 +0000 UTCBe good to yourself!
Michael Poirier
2024-04-25 16:44:01 +0000 UTCRegarding yellow and its universe-distorting properties, that might go all the way back to The King In Yellow. Or maybe just an association with sunlight, brightness, and energy.
Max Goldstein
2024-04-25 16:20:46 +0000 UTCYes, sorry, was on vacation this week and had most of these pre-scheduled. Adding all to the Playlist as we speak.
Nick Calandra
2024-04-25 16:05:39 +0000 UTCbut is there an ad-free version?
Michael Poirier
2024-04-25 15:21:34 +0000 UTCLove it! Thanks, Yatz! I have seen red associated heavily with, “this is illegal” specifically in games that have a stealing component, come to think of it, that may just be a Bethesda thing… Also, you didn’t dig into the weapon color origin like I’d hoped. I have been wondering about this for decades.
Garry
2024-04-25 15:18:50 +0000 UTCFinal Fantasy games have used a slightly yellowish green for air-aspected aether for quite a while now, and could have been involved in the idea spreading.
Dave Van Domelen
2024-04-25 15:15:12 +0000 UTC
