Welcome-Orientation

Welcome to this educational Color Theory blog. You are currently reading the last post; please move your cursor to the right, select the folder labeled "May" for May posts, and then navigate/scroll down to the first post entitled "Thesis." The blog reads from the Thesis to the end here. Enjoy your stay.

-Brian Shafer

Color Associations Examination 2

Game Examined: Monster Hunter Freedom 2.

Color Associations/uses examined: Food, Tactility, Sound.

Please note: The camera's reproduction of the images from a LCD PSP screen has created a loss of chroma and color accuracy.

Monster Hunter 2 is a portable game played on a small PSP screen. Color is important in games such as these because due to portable gaming platforms being less capable of big details, color serves as an immediate indicator of things; color is used to associate the player with familiar objects, such as food for example.

Green and Yellow are used in this case by the game developers to indicate the presence of healthy, natural, earth grown foods. These colors are used in the game to mark gardens, select shrubs, and similar spots of edible vegetation.

Red and Orange are used in the game to indicate meats and other fleshy foods (depicted in the image above).

Blue and violet are used in MH2 to attract players to edible fungi such as mushroom and other quaint delectables.



Sound: The loudness of a color, as stated before, depends on its chroma.



Tactility: Monster Hunter 2 has a myriad of landscapes and an assortment of varied tactile surroundings.



In the image above, the low chroma rocks may seemed solid but the vibrant high chroma red, orange, and yellow colors of the lava flow speak otherwise. Unstable, melting hot to the touch, and bubbling, the environment that the video game developers created is not a place that you might want to bathe in.

Playing it safe with earthen colors, Monster Hunter 2 uses green for grass in most landscapes and for textures of growth. Blue and violet are used to depict cold, crunchy snowbanks and brittle environments, with blue being used again for crisp, airy skies.

Symbolic Color cont. 3

Lastly, the main character Jeanne D'Arc and the colors chosen for her appearance is symbolic as well. Yellow is spiritual color, this color helms the character's head due to it being used for her hair. Her eyes are also used as a symbolism of religion. Blue is heavenly and a symbol of faith; intentional or not, the game game developers created the perfect color scheme symbolically when creating their version of their god's messenger.

Symbolic Color cont. 2

Of important note is the game's power/magic hierarchy system. What appears to be a simple triangle of color/symbols is, on the contrary, a very complex and highly symbolic representation of religion. The image above is not only the games magic system but rather is also an order and depiction of spiritual rank. At the bottom left of the shown pyramid is a green star. The natural, earthen green reinforces the symbolism of the star shown. The green star is symbolically Earth. Above Earth, (determined by following the arrow to right of the green star) is a blue moon. The color blue symbolically reinforces the astral and celestial placement of the moon. The blue moon is symbolically Heaven. Following the arrow higher than Heaven, the yellow sun is reached at the head of the hierarchy pyramid. Yellow is spiritual, the color of truth, and the color is a reinforcement of the radiant sun. The yellow sun is God.

Symbolic Color cont. 1

Orange is loud, boisterous, and symbolically courageous. The game uses orange symbolically for the personality of the lion warrior La Hire. Orange is pinned between the color red, the color of fire, and yellow, the color of the sun; for La Hire it retains much of both symbolic attributes as it meshes power in with radiance.

Symbolic Color cont.

The game repeats these symbolic spoilers. Enter Gilles De Rais. Before the player learns anything about this character his hair color and attire alone imply what social rank he is of; (See image above) violet is the symbolic color of royalty and the game developers waste no time in silently conveying that their creation is nobility indeed.

However, there are other symbolic uses for violet than as a simple social status/hierarchy marker.

There should be no surprise based off of the past analysis of the game developer's use of violet as a symbol of royalty that the pale fellow in the image above is also nobility. The Duke of Bedford in the game Jeanne D'Arc does stretch the symbolism of violet a bit further however. Violet is a color of mystery, secrets, and the occult. The duke above is the game's main villain, one who uses witchcraft as his main mode of assault.

This stretch away from violet as a symbolism for nobility is extremely short lived. The game is heavily reliant on this indicator. There is even a violet frog in the game, which eventually at the end of the story, it is revealed that the frog is actually the "real" Henry VI, true royalty, who was turned into the squat amphibian by the violet clad Duke of Bedford.

Symbolic Color

Symbolic Color is when color is used to symbolize or represent an idea, concept, topic, or thing. The following posts will examine how symbolic color was used in the video game Jeanne D'Arc, a strategic fantasy parody of the legend Joan of Arc.

Symbolism can be used to strengthen contrast and the battle system within Jeanne D'Arc does just that. Blue is an airy color, a sky color, one that is associated with the heavens and astral workings. It is a peaceful, soft color that symbolizes purity. In the left white oval in the image above, Jeanne D'Arc's HP (life essence) is shown. The game developers used for their parody of the legendary "messenger of god" a sky blue; this color symbolically links her life force to the heavens. Directing one's attention to the far right, a Dark Elf's (the opponent of Jeanne D'Arc) life force is shown. The video game developers chose in this case the color red, symbolically linked to evil, blood, and sin. The contrast of the game's symbolism is quite clear when examined; based off of color alone it can be determined that Jeanne D'Arc is good and the Dark Elf is bad.

The game repeats this red=evil symbolism, even with the main characters. Roger, a pivotal character in the game is shown wearing red at all times; in this case red is a subliminal symbolic indication of his personality. Although he is a "good" character for most of the game, Roger eventually, uncontrollably due to a demon trapped within him, turns evil, becomes driven by hate, and enters into the role of a martyr, attempting to suffer for a cause.