The Majesty of Colors
Encyclopedia
The Majesty of Colors is a Flash
browser game
by Gregory Weir
. It is Weir's second full game and was released in December 2008. Weir described the game as "pixel-horror".
style. Said Weir, "What I try to do is fit the art to the game. Majesty is really a very simple game, with simple controls and a simple-minded protagonist, so I went for blocky pixel art, which is both easy to make and evokes a simpler era of video games." Although the visuals seem simple and low-tech, they are actually more complex than they look, making use of alpha blending and large moving textures. The most complex visual element is the creature's tentacle, which uses an inverse kinematic
system more commonly used in 3D animation.
Weir claims to have been inspired by a TIGSource competition themed around H. P. Lovecraft's
commonplace book. Says Weir, "I had the idea of an enormous creature from beneath the waves discovering the world above. When I think of the deep ocean, I imagine darkness and a lack of color. When I think of color at its simplest, balloons come to mind: floating spheres in primary shades."
In deciding on the art style, Weir drew inspiration from Daniel Benmergui
's Flash game I Wish I Were the Moon, "which had similarly surreal premises and simple gameplay". Weir decided that a similar "chunky, low-res pixel style" would work well for Majesty. Original designs involved a creature with two independently-controlled tentacles, but during development Weir cut the control down to a single limb, suggesting but not showing additional tentacles through the position of the creature's body.
The finished game presents some of the story through evocative prose. However, Weir has since stated he feels this was a mistake, saying without text it would have been a "cleaner, purer game". "In retrospect," he said, "I probably should have given the player more credit, and gone lighter on the narration text."
Weir claims that development of Majesty cost him nothing other than his personal living expenses. The game was coded in the Flex compiler
and IDE FlashDevelop
, which are freely available. The sounds used in the game were obtained from website soundsnap.com, which provides free sound effects and loops. The game art was created by Weir in the open-source graphics editor GIMP
. Weir obtained sponsorship for the game by posting it on the FlashGameLicence website and directly emailing potential sponsors. Weir stated that although he is pleased with his experiences with FlashGameLicence, most of the sponsorship interest in the game came as a result of his direct emails.
The game was first posted on FlashGameLicence on November 15, 2008 and a sponsorship deal with Kongregate
worth "several thousand dollars" was finalized by December 10 of that year. Weir claims the sponsorship money, when combined with advertising revenue and a secondary site-locked sponsorship, represents "over a hundred dollars for each hour [Weir] spent on the game".
to Penny Arcade
. Said Weir, "I think that Majesty’s appeal is that it provides a very unified aesthetic, and makes players feel what it would be like to be a titanic, tentacled horror from beneath the waves who really only wants to be loved."
Kotaku
's Maggie Greene called Majesty an "artistic timewaster" and "a weird, lovely little game". Penny Arcade
's Jerry Holkins
described it as "an electronic poem". Jay Is Games
noted Majesty's similarity to I Wish I Were The Moon, but thought that Majesty was more compelling because its interface was "more concrete and personal" and because of the strength of its narration. Jay Is Games also praised Majesty's pixel art and its strong focus on emotion and atmosphere, with the only criticism being a disappointment that the game didn't support more unscripted interactions between the sea creature and its environment. Play This Thing described Majesty as "a poetic exploration of alienation and social interaction" and a "precious snowflake of content that unfolds like one of those paper-folded fortune tellers kids play with", but complained that ultimately all decisions in the game result in one of only five endings, creating an incentive to game the experience.
The Majesty of Colors was nominated for "Best Game" in the 2008 Tank Awards at Newgrounds, and nominated for "Most Creative Game" at the 2009 Mochi Awards at that year's Flash Gaming Summit.. Daniel Kronovet of the Daily Californian awarded it a "Krony Award", calling it "beautiful".
As of January 2009, The Majesty of Colors had been played 700,000 times. By July 6, 2009, it had been played almost 1.5 million times.
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
browser game
Browser game
A browser game is a computer game that is played over the Internet using a web browser. Browser games can be created and run using standard web technologies or browser plug-ins. Browser games include all video game genres and can be single-player or multiplayer...
by Gregory Weir
Gregory Weir
Gregory Weir is an American game designer and writer. He is known for creating short Flash games. He currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States.-Early life and education:...
. It is Weir's second full game and was released in December 2008. Weir described the game as "pixel-horror".
Gameplay
The user is a tentacled sea creature and they interact with humans, creatures, and objects in and around an area of sea. The player's actions can be benevolent towards the humans and creatures, or destructive. The actions of the player determine which of five different endings will be shown.Development
The game is notable for its blocky pixel artPixel art
Pixel art is a form of digital art, created through the use of raster graphics software, where images are edited on the pixel level. Graphics in most old computer and video games, graphing calculator games, and many mobile phone games are mostly pixel art.- History :The term pixel art was first...
style. Said Weir, "What I try to do is fit the art to the game. Majesty is really a very simple game, with simple controls and a simple-minded protagonist, so I went for blocky pixel art, which is both easy to make and evokes a simpler era of video games." Although the visuals seem simple and low-tech, they are actually more complex than they look, making use of alpha blending and large moving textures. The most complex visual element is the creature's tentacle, which uses an inverse kinematic
Inverse kinematics
Inverse kinematics is a subdomain of kinematics, which is of particular interest in robotics and computer animation. In contrast to forward kinematics, which calculates the position of a body after a series of motions, inverse kinematics calculates the motions necessary to achieve a desired...
system more commonly used in 3D animation.
Weir claims to have been inspired by a TIGSource competition themed around H. P. Lovecraft's
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
commonplace book. Says Weir, "I had the idea of an enormous creature from beneath the waves discovering the world above. When I think of the deep ocean, I imagine darkness and a lack of color. When I think of color at its simplest, balloons come to mind: floating spheres in primary shades."
In deciding on the art style, Weir drew inspiration from Daniel Benmergui
Daniel Benmergui
Daniel Benmergui is an independent game designer from Buenos Aires, Argentina known for the creation of art games such as Today I Die, I Wish I Were the Moon, and Storyteller.-Awards:...
's Flash game I Wish I Were the Moon, "which had similarly surreal premises and simple gameplay". Weir decided that a similar "chunky, low-res pixel style" would work well for Majesty. Original designs involved a creature with two independently-controlled tentacles, but during development Weir cut the control down to a single limb, suggesting but not showing additional tentacles through the position of the creature's body.
The finished game presents some of the story through evocative prose. However, Weir has since stated he feels this was a mistake, saying without text it would have been a "cleaner, purer game". "In retrospect," he said, "I probably should have given the player more credit, and gone lighter on the narration text."
Weir claims that development of Majesty cost him nothing other than his personal living expenses. The game was coded in the Flex compiler
Adobe Flex
Adobe Flex is a software development kit released by Adobe Systems for the development and deployment of cross-platform rich Internet applications based on the Adobe Flash platform...
and IDE FlashDevelop
FlashDevelop
FlashDevelop is an integrated development environment for Adobe Flash application development.It uses the free Adobe Flex SDK in order to build ActionScript 3 and MXML applications, the free MTASC compiler to build ActionScript 2 applications, and the free HaXe toolkit to build ActionScript 3,...
, which are freely available. The sounds used in the game were obtained from website soundsnap.com, which provides free sound effects and loops. The game art was created by Weir in the open-source graphics editor GIMP
GIMP
GIMP is a free software raster graphics editor. It is primarily employed as an image retouching and editing tool and is freely available in versions tailored for most popular operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, and Linux.In addition to detailed image retouching and...
. Weir obtained sponsorship for the game by posting it on the FlashGameLicence website and directly emailing potential sponsors. Weir stated that although he is pleased with his experiences with FlashGameLicence, most of the sponsorship interest in the game came as a result of his direct emails.
The game was first posted on FlashGameLicence on November 15, 2008 and a sponsorship deal with Kongregate
Kongregate
Kongregate is an online games hosting website owned by Gamestop Corporation, which allows users to upload user-created Adobe Flash or Unity3D games. It features an API that Flash and Unity developers can integrate into their games which allows users to submit high scores and in some games, earn...
worth "several thousand dollars" was finalized by December 10 of that year. Weir claims the sponsorship money, when combined with advertising revenue and a secondary site-locked sponsorship, represents "over a hundred dollars for each hour [Weir] spent on the game".
Reception
The Majesty of Colors was critically well-received and gained endorsements on sites ranging from KotakuKotaku
Kotaku is a video games-focused blog. It is part of Gawker Media's "Gawker" network of sites, which also includes Gizmodo, Deadspin, Lifehacker, io9 and Jezebel. Named to CNET News' Blog 100, Kotaku is consistently listed in the top 40 of Technorati's Top 100...
to Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade may refer to:* Penny arcade, a venue for coin-operated devices* Penny Arcade ** Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, a series of video games based on the webcomic...
. Said Weir, "I think that Majesty’s appeal is that it provides a very unified aesthetic, and makes players feel what it would be like to be a titanic, tentacled horror from beneath the waves who really only wants to be loved."
Kotaku
Kotaku
Kotaku is a video games-focused blog. It is part of Gawker Media's "Gawker" network of sites, which also includes Gizmodo, Deadspin, Lifehacker, io9 and Jezebel. Named to CNET News' Blog 100, Kotaku is consistently listed in the top 40 of Technorati's Top 100...
's Maggie Greene called Majesty an "artistic timewaster" and "a weird, lovely little game". Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade may refer to:* Penny arcade, a venue for coin-operated devices* Penny Arcade ** Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, a series of video games based on the webcomic...
's Jerry Holkins
Jerry Holkins
Keith Gerald "Jerry" Holkins né Parkinson is the writer of the webcomic Penny Arcade and co-founder of Child's Play, a multimillion dollar charity that organizes toy drives for children's hospitals...
described it as "an electronic poem". Jay Is Games
Jay Is Games
Jay Is Games is a game review website that features daily updates and links to casual games, browser games and flash games of wide interest to casual gamers...
noted Majesty's similarity to I Wish I Were The Moon, but thought that Majesty was more compelling because its interface was "more concrete and personal" and because of the strength of its narration. Jay Is Games also praised Majesty's pixel art and its strong focus on emotion and atmosphere, with the only criticism being a disappointment that the game didn't support more unscripted interactions between the sea creature and its environment. Play This Thing described Majesty as "a poetic exploration of alienation and social interaction" and a "precious snowflake of content that unfolds like one of those paper-folded fortune tellers kids play with", but complained that ultimately all decisions in the game result in one of only five endings, creating an incentive to game the experience.
The Majesty of Colors was nominated for "Best Game" in the 2008 Tank Awards at Newgrounds, and nominated for "Most Creative Game" at the 2009 Mochi Awards at that year's Flash Gaming Summit.. Daniel Kronovet of the Daily Californian awarded it a "Krony Award", calling it "beautiful".
As of January 2009, The Majesty of Colors had been played 700,000 times. By July 6, 2009, it had been played almost 1.5 million times.