What's The Deal With Yellow Paint?
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2024
- [a] • Why Are Explosive Barr...
[b] / yellow_always_means_cl...
[c] / 1756276112462627119
[d] • Resident Evil VII: Pho...
🎙 Written, Edited and VOed by @hotcyder
💰 Supported by / hotcyder
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I knew to click on the thumbnail because it had yellow paint on it
I think there's something incredibly funny about how it went from more detailed and realistic visuals for the sake of believability, then end up with less visual clarity and to then have the "solution" be to add very artificial signifiers to the diegetic game world.
I think it shows that visual clarity should probably be the priority even when going for immersion.
In five minutes and change, you just made me stop in my tracks and think extensively about paint. I'm a grown ass man with taxes and lower back problems, and here I am saying to myself "Damn, yellow paint is nuanced".
I love you so very much
God bless you 🙏
Well researched and edited my guy. It is fascinating this shared inherited language we feel compelled to use. Why Health is often green or red or why poison is often purple or green.
It's that expectation and association we have with various real world elements which makes it fascinating to see translated into game development language.
Thank you 🙏
Thank you for giving Naughty Dog some props in this with how they handled Part 2’s amazing visual language. I wanna say they only really used yellow as a big signifier in U2 and 3, but by 4 they started experimenting with new ways to guide a player’s eye. Namely with light and contrast, like you mentioned here. U4 and Part 2 giving you a partner through bigger stretches of the game also helps with a dialogue cue for progression or pointing out a unique asset to press triangle on that helps ease players into familiarizing themselves with these elements. Twitter discourse is dumb, but thank you for making something positive of it and showing, once again, that problem solving in this medium often has to account for many things beyond the game itself starting with the mind behind a controller in one’s hands 😌
All I know is that Mario Paint must be at fault for the rise of yellow paint in games.
Nice one
fun fact: shigeru miyamoto actually invented the color yellow for mario paint, because he felt the current color palette "had too much noise"
Checking social media this month has made me feel like Homestar Runner in that one really old cartoon
"🕶 Cool! Everything's yellow and drippy"
I like it when I find the right thing to interact with in a game just because my character turned its head to look at it, indirectly bringing it to my attention :)
I just want less realistic games to be made with high budgets. It feels like every 60 or 70 dollar game apart from the obvious exceptions all play and look the exact same. Just be over the top and like a video game, enough with the endless interpolation animation, and easy batman style combat, and the open worlds that look so realistic that they can't help but paint everything yellow to stop you from getting lost! It's just insane to think that there was an age were 3d platformers was the dominant genre, and ever since that wasn't the case the mechanical substance has dropped in quality across the board for the sake of appealing to the most amount of people all at once. I couldn't name the last big budget game to be made for a hardcore audience that wasn't just trying to be a soulslike, a genre that by miracle has a big fanbase. Thank god for indie games or else I would consider gaming a completely dead and uninteresting medium.
I think this debate is a bit silly because there's probably better things to be angry about (like how more and more AAA games have been buggy on release) but I do have a side and that side is the pro-yellow. A few years ago I would've been neutral but in these past two or so years, I found a video series where a non-gamer plays a lot of popular AAA and indie games (by Razbuten here on youtube). Being able to experience things that she, his girlfriend, found frustrating, and recognizing that I would only know what to do because of my experience with games previously, put things into perspective. I will always advocate for accessibility because we've all been at the point where we pick up our first game, try it out and get frustrated we don't understand what's going on.
Even small indicators, like you showed in the video, were missed by her because there was just too much on screen. Could you imagine trying to play a game with 8 things on the HUD all telling you different things, while also in combat and also trying to look for a small indicator you don't even know exists?? Hell, even I've played games that had no yellow paint but did have different contrast and still got lost on what to do. If I remember correctly, one of the Batman Arkham games didn't have any indicators on where you could climb, and sometimes had dead-ends if you were just trying to go straight across. This required me to sit for a decent amount of time, trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. Everything looked pretty much the same in my eyes. Another example is in Little Nightmares. The context to be able to climb something is severely lacking, especially in the second one, so often times I would watch people get stuck at the same spot. All of those people obviously being extreme gamers, and still not understanding what the game wants. Some might like that type of gameplay, but climbing sections are boring in my eyes and I don't want to be stuck on them for 30 or even 15 minutes.
I feel like as a community, we aren't pushed to try and understand what other people may be feeling. Something that could be a slight annoyance to you, could make a big different to someone else. It's always brushed off as "skill issue" and the topic moves on. That was my soap box and I hope you enjoyed it.
When you clear a screen in Rocket Knight Adventures there's a big flashing GO! arrow with an alarm sound. Games have just been downhill ever since. 😔
I'm fine with yellow paint when it's something that could feasibly exist in the world (yellow pipes, yellow signage on walls) but when it's literally just paint on a stark cliff face why even bother to try and justify it in world with a physical object. At that point it's just a floating arrow or quest marker trying to dress itself dietetically and just raises all sorts of questions that the game will never answer (who's going around putting paint on random ladders and cliff sides??). If the game actually answered why there's random paint on stuff I'd be fine with it.
Uncharted 4 also moved away from the yellow color leading to the contrasting leading, especially when you compare it to U2&U3.
I feel like it would be relatively easy to make the yellow paint as something switchable in difficulty and accessibility settings
Rise of the Tomb Raider does that!
Problem is that if you do that in a game that's designed with yellow paint in mind, it can be extremely difficult (even for seasoned players) to figure out what's interactable or not. In modern games it tends to be very arbitrary what you can jump over or climb on for example, and without some design element to make it clearer, even a "hardcore gamer" can get lost for no reason. Maybe having yellow paint on the wooden barrels in RE4R wasn't necessary, but remove it from other elements and it could become confusing. As much as I'd appreciate the option, I think the solution isn't as simple as this for most games.
@Diablon76
You see that quite often in game design. Elements introduced to help the player end up being crutches for the developer in terms of how they design a level. You see it all over open world game design:
You add a mini-map and quest markers, and the game itself stops being designed in a way where you can intuitively navigate it.
You add fast travel, and suddenly going from A to B is not that important to be engaging.
It ends up streamlining the actual gameplay out of a game.
I've always been a white paint kinda guy. I love imagining my platforming drake-mens getting a handful of bird poo between combats. Important for character development
Hand-holding guidance is the price gamers are having to pay after demanding ever better graphics for years.
Late 8th generation games and beyond have become just too visually noisy in my opinion.
tbh I'm not sure I really buy the "yellow paint spoils problems" thing, like these moments weren't intended to be problems to solve. Usually in these scenarios, if a player didn't immediately intuitively know here to go it would be seen as a design failing
Wow, so much info conveyed comprehensibly *and* concisely. Teach me your ways haha! Absolutely nailed the voicover here, great little video overall 🙏
been seeing this discourse everywhere, this was a great analysis of it!
Having JUST replayed Last of Us Part 2, there were still MULTIPLE instances of me not knowing where the hell I was supposed to go, which is all the more frustrating when playing on Grounded difficulty and trying to stealth through large areas. I also accidentally died a few times trying to jump to places that *looked* like they were where I was supposed to go. For the most part, the game handles this stuff much more elegantly than other games with paint, BUT I never had any of those problems with RE4 remake, for example. And both are among my fav games of all time. It’s a tradeoff. If even a hardcore gamer like me can get lost in visual clutter sometimes, I think features like yellow paint are all but necessary for wider markets for games aiming for realism. You COULD do the “click the right stick to add UI telling you where to go” like Dead Space or the Arkham games, but the issue there is you’re almost constantly tempted to do it, thus being way more intrusive than some paint.
Hearing “yellow paint” and “video games” in the same sentence always makes me think of the Stanley Parable Adventure Line.
It’s funny how that game was making fun of yellow paint so hard with that and AAA devs have doubled down on it
Also, don’t forget the fern.
I legit have never seen any social media discourse about yellow paint. Guess I'm the lucky one!
You're not missing out 🙏
Gotta hand it to the thumbnail, it got me to watch it!
I don't give a sh*t about yellow paint, I'm here just for "baba is you"'s music.
Gotta love the hamburger/sandwich menu. It’s always fun describing to people that an overflow menu looks like a snowman ⛄️
I found out the other day that the three dot menu is sometimes called a Kebab
@@hotcyder oh that’s awesome 😂
Yeah, this has been a pet peeve of mine, but you know what? It ain't gonna ruin my gaming experience in the long run. I do appreciate their inclusion, especially since yellow has usually been the universal color to be used to indicate anything, from construction to caution to directions. Plus, I guess the colorblind appreciate that if the visual noise is not beneficial to them.
it's good when a video game looks like a video game actually
I feel like so many games are able to make their worlds easily navigable through other more believable in-world means, the simplest example is just lighting, making the intended path brighter than the alternate paths. However games that enable this "yellow" paint should use both those believable means, then have an option to disable the extra yellow paint for people who do have a lot of gaming experience.
The reason I find it important is because atmosphere might be my MOST favorite thing when a game gets it right, and seeing those very "video-gamey" things might ruin it for me. There's a reason I love the Half-Life series and Dark Souls 1 so much, because the atmosphere is among the best to me, along with Valheim
Even a game as good as Undertale has yellow paint within the first 5 minutes.
Oh now I wish all these games had a higher contrast option instead of the paint.
As Blaze explained in his video on the topic, the real problem is not the handholding itself, but the fact that it makes no sense for yellow paint to be there in the first place
and that breaks the immersion, which also makes people fully aware they are being held by the hand
In uncharted, the highlighted stuff was often random man made stuff. Which could conceivably just be painted yellow.
Funnily enough, the yellow paint is contextualised in Resident Evil 4 Remake
@@hotcyder Then I guess the context wasn't good enough to convince people to not complain on Twitter...
Tbf it's a really high bar lol
@@hotcyder What was the context? Were the locals doing it so they knew where their valuables were?
@@EGRJ spoilers for RE4 and Separate ways…
Luiz was painting stuff in yellow to point Ada and Leon in the right direction
ive joked abt the yellow paint thing on my twitter sayin that the yellow paint is for the silent majority of gamers who turn off the game audio and skip cutscenes and are blasting music and are half watching something on their other monitor while they play and i dont think its bad that that guy can still get somethin out of games
Too much yellow paint splatters and absence of variety in signposting.
(*) When it comes to spray-painting points of interest and loot stashes IRL, saving up paint is a priority; In that sense marking down the lid of a container with a single stroke is enough to grab the attention; For wall-scaling challenges, let's say, somewhere in the wild, highlighting the lowest or top-most ledge would be a sufficient stimulation for behavior switch.
[**] You know where abundance of yellow paint could be justified? A chase sequence. The same reason why players hate intrusive, out-of-place QTE; At times, it takes away the significance of the explorable area the moment a path to progress is found; Reveal it too soon, and players would question why you've designed extension the area in the first place.
{***} It looks gross; When it comes to interactable signposting in yellow, it is done through uniform, distinct shapes. You may try to convince players follow a trail someone's piss stains, JUST DON'T MAKE THEM TOUCH IT WITH THEIR CHARACTER'S HANDS!! Your game isn't Conker's Bad Fur Day, or MediEvil, nor Jersey Devil - where gross-out IS a context behind the design; There's no doubt an amorphous yellow stain hits its resemblence to bodily waste quite close; And you expect players touching a cartoonish urine for entire playthrough.
Lastly, there no need to mark every single ladder, doorway or breakable object once players learned how to interact with them; Players would gladly automate learned actions themselves rather than letting devs doing the job for them.
I honestly don't see why it can't just be a texture toggle. Would it really be that hard to have a high contrast mode for players that need it and a more natural mode for players who want that level of immersion? Would that just eat up dev time and skyrocket the cost? To me it sounds like a simple solution
When I see "yellow paint" in a game's ledges, it signals to me that yellow ledges and *only* yellow ledges are climbable. That tells me I'm going to be in for a rather shallow climbing system without any room for player expression. A game that doesn't use it can show the devs went through the effort to make something deeper, or at least mask a shallow one for a bit
Personally I'm all for accessability. The solution however is simple. Give us the option to turn it off should we desire to.
2:55 Am I supposed to see a collectable in the 2005 version?
Ah yeah that was my bad on the video end - I went with the image of the enemy because it still illustrated the point of having better contrast from the background
@@hotcyder Great video! Just wondered if I missed it.
Isn't this a thing since early PS4 games?
It's been a thing since the PS3
I really don't like the yellow paint. There's a tone of ways to make the player find where he must go. If you want me to make an effort to find the way, let it be difficult and adjust the difficulty with some lightning and level design. If you want me to not struggle, then narrow the path and i won't need to be backseated while playing...
Honestly, complaining about the yellow paint is just a trend with no good argumentation.
As you mentioned, it works as the red explosive things, and no one ever complained about the red explosive things. So why complain only about yellow ones?
"It takes away my freedom to solve problems on my own" These moments of escalation are not puzzles... "Removes realism from the game" The main character is holding a 200kg gigantic sword...
It's astethically lazy.
Like I don't mind what it represents, but I HATE that this has now appeared in multiple games in the exact same form. Red barrels at least make sense, IRL barrels with hazardous chemicals are brightly colored, and red is inherently linked with fire I.E. Explosives, theirs a clear logic in that and its not TOO outlandish.
Like I don't mind "Yellow paint" the concept It's the idea that gaming industry is quickly assuming this one size fits all, non diegetic, honestly gaudy way of doing something that I use to appreciate the variation in how it was done. When I say "I hate Yellow paint" I mean very literally "I HATE YELLOW PAINT." It appearing In two games is one to many and represents either a rushed dev team, or one not give the time to find a more visual unique and diegetic solutions to the issue.
@@daltonrussell3357 it's a patterns. Games are filled with them, and that's what patterns are, it's much different from ~laziness~.
And to say that hazard barrels have bright colours, just show that you've never seen a barrel out of a video game, as most of them are simply black.
But, ok. Since you don't think that's a diegetica or good approach, what's your suggestion? Leave the players jumping from one side to the other until them find out by luck where them can or can't grab?
@@ZizoMass Well first off Scan modes and taps that briefly can instantly reveal intractables in outlines works pretty damn well but also falls into the "This is part of the UI" sorta mentality. Also just having your object stand out in like a less one note way, light beams and having them colored slight differently. Honestly though even the literal 'mark it' can work if the marks are done in the correct way, hell I think even the yellow paint WORKS just don't slather it not the object. Also the diegetic aspect wouldn't matter if these games weren't all going for hyper realistic graphics. Also my main issue with this 'pattern' is that it's got no variance from game to game. Grab ten red exploding barrels and while yes a lot of them will look alike, most will have at least some stand out features. This isn't "Yellow placed prominently on intractable objects and along the crucial path." This is, at least in some cases, literally taking the yellow substance painter and painting over the texture.
Like part of the reason this irks me is a feel like people are in a stupid "we don't want to be hands held at all even thought games have been doing it for years" Camp and a "All forms of guiding the player and communication are equal and any sort of critique of the technique is idiotic" camp, and I feel like going like. Also 'explosive barrel' is intently more specific and deserving of it's own patterns, compared to something as open ended as intractable objects and the critical path. I just don't see how you can think the two are remotely similar.
@@daltonrussell3357 well, if you need to activate a scan mode, is because you didn't find it in the first place, right? The idea here is exactly guiding the players without them noticing.
And about having the object standing out, isn't that exactly what the yellow color achieves? It subtly catches the eye without breaking immersion, serving as a nudge rather than a shout for attention. The use of light is indeed a creative solution, but it may not be as effective in brightly lit or outdoor environments where natural light can overpower artificial cues. In games like Horizon Zero Dawn, the yellow paint not only meshes well with the natural landscape but also serves a practical purpose by guiding players through complex terrains and structures, ensuring that exploration feels rewarding rather than frustrating.
Furthermore, the criticism of yellow paint for being too on-the-nose ignores the balance it strikes between being visible and blending with the environment. It's a visual shorthand that players quickly learn to associate with interactivity, which is crucial in vast, open-world games where not every object is relevant to the player's journey. This method respects the player's time by guiding them towards meaningful interactions, rather than leaving them to aimlessly wander.
As for the argument against uniformity across games, it's worth considering that consistency in design cues like this can actually benefit players. Just as red barrels universally suggest explosiveness, yellow markings become a language of their own, one that players can intuitively understand across different titles. This doesn't stifle creativity; rather, it sets a foundation on which games can build their unique elements.
Critiquing the use of yellow markings-or any guiding technique, for that matter-as overly simplistic overlooks the challenge of designing games that are accessible and enjoyable for a wide audience. Game developers strive to balance difficulty and guidance, ensuring that players are challenged but not lost or frustrated. The "yellow paint" is just one of many tools in their arsenal, tailored to achieve this balance in specific contexts. Dismissing it outright ignores the thoughtfulness behind its application and the varied ways it can be integrated into a game's world without diminishing the experience.
Consider the alternative methods of guiding players. High contrast colors or lighting effects can work well in some contexts, but they can also feel jarring or out of place, especially in games that aim for a more naturalistic aesthetic. The goal is to avoid making the player feel like they're being led by the nose, which is where the nuanced application of something like the yellow paint excels. It's there when you need it, but it doesn't dominate the visual landscape or detract from the overall aesthetic of the game.
In the broader debate over player guidance, it's essential to remember that not all players have the same level of experience or patience. What might seem like hand-holding to a seasoned gamer could be a critical aid for someone less familiar with gaming conventions. The challenge for developers is to design their guidance systems to be as inclusive as possible, offering help without compromising on challenge or engagement for those who seek it. The yellow markings are just one tool among many, but their widespread use and the fact that this discussion is restricted to the design field (it's not a debated topic among players) is a testament to their effectiveness in striking this balance.
Ultimately, critiquing the use of yellow markers (or any specific guidance method) should take into account the broader context of their use. It's not just about whether they're used, but how they're used, and whether they contribute to a cohesive and engaging player experience. Dismissing them outright ignores the thoughtful design considerations that go into their implementation, as well as the diverse needs of the player base.
Okay I am going to give some take on yellow paint but also add some things that hotcyder didn't include.
The 1st one is something NO ONE MENTIONS:
"Color blindness"
Yellow is one of those colors that always POPS out if you are color blind. It's one of the brightest colors and thus if you are color blind, it will be the brightest color to go to.
Do I think yellow paint is good? Not really. As said.. this is because realism is making us unable to make platforms and interactable stuff seem to blend in.
Uuh yea.. that's one reason I hate realism in games. But.. this was never a problem before.
The reason we accept exploding barrel "RED" is because... exploding barrels KILL US if we stand next to it. While an interactable barrel or ledge, will not kill us if we miss it. It will make us look for sullitions.
The biggest problem is that yellow paint just... takes me out of the expirence while RED EXPLOSIVE BARRELS don't. Both seem out of place, but with Barrels it's like: "Well they have explosive chemicals wich we have in our households as well." But yellow paints... it's litterly the developers shouting: "THIS IS RIGHT!"
Marking a barrel that COULD EXPLODE as RED makes sense in a realistic world, where as painting a ledge yellow or a barrel yellow is not.
The last thing I like to add is "Why isn't this an option?"
When games litterly add options I do NOT care if a game becomes easier if you can toggle it. I do notice a lot of games are adding more easier and accesible games wich is great.. but some remakes (mostly nintendo ones) been removing harder functionalities and forcing easy modes (think pokemon's forced XP share.)
People will mostly say: "imagine dark souls but whenever you die, the enemy gets weaker since it's not healing propperly." Soul's fans will hate that forever and ever! Cause now dieing means the game becomes easier slowly but surely.
Yellow paint in that aspect is the same..but that's not all.
If yellow paint means "this ledge is interact able" or "this means go here" or "this means this contains loot"
Why add it at all? What's the point of it at that moment? Normally you get button prompts in older games when you get closer, but that breaks immersion more then litterly telling gamers: "GO HERE AND PRESS X TO CLIMB?"
This is why games like Breath of the wild are applauded, cause that ledge you thought you could stand on, didn't and you fell off and died.. but you get back up and find another way. but since these huge games aren't breath of the wild and cannot GIVE ANOTHER WAY and are basically big boxes with corridors (wich is still a main triple A approach of games to make it cinematic), they want to make sure the players don't spend time looking for the flaws or such.
Yellow paint is indeed a bandaid sullition.. a way to hide the flaws of the game by taking away "looking and figuring it out" and by just saying: "Nothing to see here, just grab this and that's all."
That's right... devs are using yellow paint to force players to get out of an area before the flaws start seeping in.
Overall.. Yellow paint needs to be an option. Options never kills games, they enhance it.
Look, my niece played and finished both The Last of Us 1 and 2 in, 2021 and 2022, when she was 11. Those were her very first games after having played only a few mobile games. She finished them both by herself (with my making her company to make her feel safe, not too scared, and only for the first play of the first game; her subsequent games and the second game, she played by herself. She got stuck several times, but she always found her way in less than 10 minutes. Yellow paint is a solution if you (you, the developers using it, not you Hotcyder) think your audience are stupid.
My point is, my niece was a child, playing games more or less made for gamers with a little experience, definitively not for children. But a child was able to finish them both, and in all difficulties on top, without a ghost paternalistic developer holding her hand.
I wish it was treated like an accessibility feature, being optionable in the settings.
I feel like ive seen this before, I think a puppet was involved
It's a popular topic!
@@hotcyder lol yep
Pazos64 fans: 😑 suspicious 😑
Just kidding 😂😂😂
I feel like anyone claiming it's an accessibility feature are arguing in bad faith. If it were an accessibility feature it'd be in the accessibility settings lol. This is like forcing everyone to use audio visualisation subtitles or making all enemies bright red in a horror game
Most people arguing for it are arguing in bad faith anyways. Quick skim of their social media profiles usually shows an outright hatred of gamers and at least one post crying about the “gamergate.” Way too many people like this influencing game design.
@@higginswalsan Wow, from yellow paint to gamergate? Fella you gotta detox from social media or something because that's a wild ride.
@@PixelLitKevin I am! This discourse started before Lent tho so I still saw obnoxious people being obnoxious
If it ain't broke, don't need to fix it?
This is such a made-up problem. The people who talk about it don't care about the games, they care about Tweeting.
Pazos64 fans: 😑 suspicious 😑
Just kidding 😂😂😂
Pazos64 fans: 😑 suspicious 😑
Just kidding 😂😂😂