Visuals
Video game theme
Tags describing things that are primarily visual elements.
Alternate name: Graphics
This is a container group; its children are:
| Angular | Uses visual style that employs mainly straight lines and sharp angles. (too short) | 2013 / 2016 | 25 games |
| Barrel bodies | Characters have barrel-like torsos with thin twig-like legs at farthest edges of it causing abnormally large gap to be seen between them, and possibly similarly thin arms as well. | 2011 / 2019 | 26 games |
| Blocky | Designed to be very blocky in appearance, with heavy use of square/rectangle/cube shapes. Likely as an attempt to make the game seem older than it is and/or to reduce resources needed to produce graphics. | 2002 / 2019 | 118 games |
| Bright | Uses mostly bright colors, giving a happy, shiny, clean and/or energetic outlook. (too short) | 1986 / 2013 | 34 games |
| Bulky characters | All characters are depicted as excessively bulky/sturdy all around but not necessarily fat. (too short) | 1988 / 2013 | 21 games |
| Caricature | Characters' certain personal traits are greatly enhanced or simplified. (too short) | 1993 / 2019 | 53 games |
| Cartoony | Characters' physique distorts as necessary beyond what would be possible in reality. (too short) | 1991 / 2018 | 11 games |
| Chibi | Characters appear child-like in terms of proportions despite their actual age. (too short) | 2012 / 2023 | 12 games |
| Chromatic aberration | Simulates the distortion effect of a flawed camera lens where colors separate visibly. (too short) | 2012 / 2020 | 72 games |
| Colorful | Uses a wide variety of strong and distinct colors. (too short) | 1980 / 2022 | 157 games |
| Color schemes | Any heavy uses of certain choice colors. (too short) | container group | |
| Contrasted | Uses heavily contrasting colors, making itself look brightly colorful but also dark at the same time. | 1988 / 2015 | 19 games |
| Crepuscular rays | Simulates light rays seen at edges of light and dark areas of air, essentially caused by light scattering from air particles. | 2002 / 2016 | 69 games |
| CRT Effects | Visuals simulate realistic, rare, or even imagined aspects of CRT displays. (too short) | 1992 / 2019 | 30 games |
| Cutesy | Excessively employs visuals, designs, etc. that primarily would be described as [i]cute[/i]. (too short) | 1990 / 2022 | 26 games |
| Dark | The environs are unusually dark, either because it's a perpetual night, you're stuck in a structure with limited light sources or anything else, forcing you to use any light source(s) you can find or cope with what little you can find in the env (too long) | 1973 / 2024 | 423 games |
| Depth of field | Simulates the depth of field optic effect, blurring things that are out-of-focus. (too short) | 1999 / 2020 | 177 games |
| Desaturated | Colors are tinted towards gray or are neutral-ish with each other. (too short) | 1999 / 2018 | 30 games |
| Dilapidated | Gives the impression of worn down and/or poorly (or not at all) maintained habitats and such. (too short) | 2003 / 2018 | 23 games |
| Dingy | Gives an image of dirty, rusted and old world in state of constant decay. (too short) | 1993 / 2018 | 63 games |
| Dust motes | Dust motes or similar float about in the air, sea, or space. Usually they try to impart a sense of motion in places where seeing it otherwise might not be so clear, or simply for atmosphere. | 1994 / 2015 | 25 games |
| Epileptic Visuals | More than most, these games pose a higher risk of seizures due to flashing, specific contrasting patterns, or other known visual factors. | 1986 / 2017 | 4 games |
| Visual exaggeration | (too short) | container group | |
| Fiery | Extensive use of flames/fire for visual effect. (too short) | 2011 / 2014 | 5 games |
| Film grain | Depicted as if through some old or poor quality film by overlaying film grain or other effects that simulate deteriorated film over the whole screen, possibly muting or tinting colors as well. | 2001 / 2018 | 33 games |
| Flat shading | A shading method that lacks smooth gradients and rather uses noticeably stepping with shades or completely lacks shades altogether. | 1991 / 2014 | 16 games |
| Gigeresque | Uses graphics similar to H. R. Giger's works. (too short) | 1988 / 2015 | 19 games |
| Gloomy | The art style is gloomy, dark but not in a way that obscures visibility. (too short) | 1991 / 2018 | 40 games |
| Gothic Arts | Draws inspiration from Gothic art and fiction. (too short) | 1996 / 2017 | 23 games |
| Gouraud shading | A shading method that linearly interpolates the color between each point of a triangle (polygon) producing a gradient fill instead of single flat color. | 1992 / 2019 | 21 games |
| Visible Grid | Notable shows a grid even for a game that is not grid based. (too short) | 1983 / 2013 | 3 games |
| Hand-drawn | Has the look of something drawn by hand (non-digitally). (too short) | 1983 / 2021 | 125 games |
| Heat haze | (too short) | 2005 / 2015 | 24 games |
| Heavy specularity | Heavily uses graphics effects that gives almost everything a glossy, plastic appearance. Usually from overuse of certain kinds of specular lighting or bump mapping. Especially if there's complete lack of matte surfaces. | 2000 / 2015 | 19 games |
| Hourglass figures | Characters, though mainly females, have consistently a hourglass figure. (too short) | 1 game | |
| Inconsistent style | The art style is inconsistent within the game, either on purpose, by lack of or poor art direction, or lack of resources. | 1992 / 2016 | 10 games |
| Limited palette | Uses intentionally limited color palette, with certain primary colors (including additive primaries) seemingly missing altogether (and/or any variation of them). Not for flat shading (limited hue) or platform/hardware specific limitations on color. | 1999 / 2020 | 56 games |
| Monochromatic | Uses only shades of single color. (too short) | 2016 / 2017 | 6 games |
| Motion blur | (too short) | 1992 / 2018 | 142 games |
| Neon | Gives the impression of things in the game world being made of lit neon sign tubes, or like materials. Dark backgrounds enhance the effect. | 2006 / 2021 | 133 games |
| No shading | Uses a visual style that employs no shading. (too short) | 2012 / 2013 | 4 games |
| Papercraft visuals | (too short) | 2001 / 2015 | 12 games |
| Papery | (too short) | 2004 / 2018 | 31 games |
| Picturesque | (too short) | 1988 / 2012 | 4 games |
| Pixelated | Intentionally runs with pixel doubling, tripling, or something - such as the graphics are designed to look like it - that brings out the pixels to visible levels as they used to be in old games. | 1986 / 2024 | 492 games |
| Psychedelic Visuals | Metaphysical, surreal, kaleidoscopic, fractal, paisley, extremely contrasting, detail stylization, morphic, phosphenes, spiral, concentrics, diffractions, entoptic, untypography, hand-letter, and/or warped visuals | 1990 / 2019 | 20 games |
| Radial blur | An effect that blurs vision the farther away from the center of your screen (the focal point) you look. | 2010 / 2017 | 10 games |
| Color scheme: Red | The color red is used a lot. (too short) | 2004 / 2018 | 23 games |
| Retro | Reproduces the appearance (and possibly audio) of an old game, though likely enhanced with modern graphics techniques. | 1999 / 2024 | 492 games |
| Artificial scanlines | Reproduces a certain type of retro look by introducing scanlines to the display, where every other line or column is dimmed or even completely blanked. | 2012 / 2020 | 18 games |
| Scenic | The scenery has received extreme attention to detail and depth, and player has numerous chances to admire it. | 1989 / 2019 | 83 games |
| Screen noise | Simulates analog video noise, usually seen as random interference all over the screen that at extreme end is just rapidly changing black and white dots ("snow") all over the screen. | 1 game | |
| Selective color | Most of the visuals are (gray) monochrome or otherwise desaturated with few select things in the scenes having normal color to draw attention to them. Does not necessarily have limited palette. | 2006 / 2018 | 33 games |
| Silhouetted | Graphics consist mostly of silhouettes of everything rather than more precise depictions of them. (too short) | 1991 / 2015 | 54 games |
| Simplistic visuals | Uses simple visuals with extremely low amount of detail. (too short) | 1998 / 2019 | 36 games |
| Slobbery | Gives off an unusually wet/slimy impression, especially if the various characters (or even places) drool, ooze or otherwise secrete liquids or slime a lot. | 1993 / 2014 | 27 games |
| Stained Glass | The game world is visual presented as if it were stained glass. (too short) | 3 games | |
| Stick figures | (too short) | 1985 / 2013 | 11 games |
| Stylized | Uses non-specific stylized graphic outlook. (too short) | 1985 / 2020 | 127 games |
| Subsurface scattering | (too short) | 1 game | |
| Super deformed | When animanga goes the cartoon way, exaggerated limbs and humongous head. Often confused with chibi. | 1987 / 2016 | 129 games |
| Transparent Solids | Visual style where solid objects that one would expect to be opaque are instead transparent. This can be by intended design or due to limitations. | 1974 / 2013 | 2 games |
| Tunnel vision | A condition where person sees only the center (focal) part clearly or sees only that part with everything else indistinguishable. | 1999 / 2014 | 9 games |
| Variable visuals | Has multiple visual styles available built-in that are selected either by player choice, or cycled randomly, in sequence, or in any other manner. | 1999 / 2016 | 29 games |
| VCR effects | (too short) | 2009 / 2016 | 6 games |
| Vibrant | Uses unnaturally pure and bright colors, or artificially produces the appearance of such by having added bloom effect to them. Effect is similar to (but not the same as) increasing saturation. | 1988 / 2018 | 71 games |
| Watercolor | Has the look of a watercolor painting. (too short) | 1 game |