ATLAS / IDEAS

Game design atlas

Find a mechanism, understand its tradeoffs and smallest useful scope, then build your game with a design card and sample project.

192 Mechanisms32 Mechanism domain48 Art styles12 Genre guides

Art styles My research shelf Rain Canopy Workshop · Try the complete prototype Pixel toolkit

A traveler, island and lighthouse built from consistent cubes with stepped outlines.

Art styles

Voxel

Small volumetric cubes build forms with stepped outlines. Consistent scale and readable large shapes matter more than dividing every surface into extra blocks.

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A coherent cube scale connects near objects, distant objects and characters
Large color groups separate walkable tops, sides and hazards before details
Light may be soft while outlines retain their cubic steps
Check occlusion from the chosen camera so foreground blocks do not hide a landing

Reference gamesBonfire Peaks · Teardown

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Faceted floating islands with a miniature golf path, angular pines and mountains.

Art styles

Low poly

Volume is built from a few flat faces. Each face has one color, light is the difference between faces, and edges stay faceted.

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Allocate faces to the main silhouette and keep a consistent simplification near and far
A highlight can be a brighter face rather than a soft glow
Without textures, routes and large landforms stay clear
Hills, trees, and buildings can be generated by rules

Reference gamesASTRONEER · AER Memories of Old

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A cel-shaded robot courier leaps between rooftops with crisp outlines and hard shadows.

Art styles

Cel shading

Form is reduced to a few deliberate light steps, like an animation cel. Color stays clean, and the shadow edge is a designed shape.

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Two or three light steps are enough; shadow shapes are drawn, not left to a lamp
Outlines keep a steady width, or color blocks separate layers with no line
Character and background sit on different values
Hits read through a freeze or speed lines, not extra texture

Reference gamesHi-Fi RUSH · GUILTY GEAR -STRIVE-

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A cyclist among terracotta hills, simplified pines and a river made of clean flat shapes.

Art styles

Flat vector

Shapes are simple, edges are smooth, and fake depth is almost absent. Size, color, and position carry the information, so a rule can be read as a diagram.

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An object is one complete geometric shape, with little interior detail
A shadow, if any, is a shifted flat color
One job keeps one color
Corner radius and stroke weight stay consistent across world and interface

Reference gamesMini Metro · Florence

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A handmade clay snail, mushroom cottage and garden with tactile sculpted surfaces.

Art styles

Clay-like forms

Rounded masses, tool marks and tangible surfaces suggest modeled clay. Physical stop-motion and digital 3D can both achieve the look through different production routes.

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Character: clay masses with sparse tool marks; Scene: coherent handmade scale; UI: clear text and clay-like symbols
Choose continuous 3D motion or deliberate stop-motion holds; mixing them needs a clear rule.
Are tool marks/material scale consistent, and do details shimmer in motion?

Reference gamesArmikrog · Claybook

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Covers are original AI-generated style illustrations. Game names reference publicly visible design choices and remain the property of their owners. This atlas does not supply screenshots or assets from those games. Prompts and combinations are original drafts for new games.