Notice This: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|''"Experience has taught me to investigate anything that glows."''|'''[[Sonic the Hedgehog|Sonic]]''', ''[[Sonic Colors]]'' }}

[[Video Games]] are ''[[Nintendo Hard|hard]].'' Thankfully ([["Stop Having Fun!" Guys|and contrary to common wisdom]]) game developers would rather they be [[Rule of Fun|fun]]. One area in which players tend to suffer is finding items on the screen, especially if a game is all in [[Real Is Brown|brown palettes]], scaled to realistic proportions, or [[Scenery Porn|full of so many dang colors/foliage/visual distractions]].

 

 

 

Commonly, developers will make these items more noticeable by:

* Turning the item a different color from the rest of the scene, like an [[Invoked Trope|intentional]] [[Conspicuously Light Patch]].

* Turning the character's head toward said object.

* Making the item [[Everything's Better with Sparkles|sparkle]].

* Making it emit a sound.

** ''[[Crysis (series)|Crysis]]'' does the same thing when tagging hostile targets.

* The obscure, but good Horror action-adventure game ''Veil of Darkness'' normal settings can be a pixel hunt (especially for the crowbar that's almost the same color as the floor), but it has an option to invoke the trope.

* In the N64 ''Zelda'' games [[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time|Navi]]/[[The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask|Tatl]] will flit to any important area nearby, often turning a different color depending on what sort of item/action is required. For example, if she flits above you and turns green, it means you can summon a scarecrow to use as a hookshot anchor.

** The Zelda games will also occasionally take control of the camera to pan from you to the item you need to collect.

** Speaking of Navi, this trope can backfire. There are times Navi flits off to a location that the player KNOWS doesn't mean anything. No item or song in the game will make anything happen.

** In the later games, if the camera is to Link's face, he'll occasionally look at something to the side. Occasionally, there is an enemy hidden where he's looking. This can range from turning his head, to just simply moving his eyes in that direction.

* In ''[[Mirror's Edge]]'', things such as pipes, boxes usable as springboards, and ramps are highlighted in bright red, called "Runner Vision". It also highlights doors in red that you can go through, and guards you have to pass (instead of avoid).

** It does not, however, change the color of all doors, some of which are red by default and ''cannot'' be opened. And on Hard mode and time trials, Runner Vision is disabled.

* In ''Shadow Complex'', the flashlight will make destructible things glow different colors according to what can destroy them.

* In ''[[Okami]]'', a varity of things are used, including [[Exposition Fairy|Issun]] hopping in front of something, whilst glowing yellow, an item sparkling (or having a strange haze around it, as in the case of the keys), and the camera perspective changing (often indicating the need to used the Celestial brush).

* In ''[[Tomb Raider]]: Underworld'', there's a distinctive "jingle" sound effect when Lara is near a treasure or a relic. The sound only plays the first time she approaches it, though.

* ''[[Castlevania: Symphony of the Night]]'' features the Imp familiar suddenly taking interest in two breakable walls/pushable levers. "What does THIS switch do?!" The hundreds of other secrets in the castle don't seem to catch his interest.

** ''King's Quest V'' uses the "sparkly" method several times (a coin on the street, a locket in a giant bird's nest etc.). It's one of the incredibly few times the game is somewhat forgiving (of course, missing them anyway will ultimately result in you being stuck forever and the game being Unwinnable).

* In the various LEGO games, any objects that can be collected, destroyed, or otherwise interacted with are appropriately made of LEGO pieces, while the rest of the background is a standard non-LEGO environment.

* Some [[Jak and Daxter]] games will mark your next [[MacGuffin]] or checkpoint with a pillar of light that goes all the way to the sky. Notice This, indeed.

* Objects that are interactive but would not otherwise be obvious glow in the video game ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]: Dark Corners of the Earth.''

** ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'', with it's low key setup, often uses lighting cues to direct attention to places you're supposed to go. They use car headlights a lot. This is a great solution because with few other light sources competing, the low-angle headlights are bound to be eye catching. And as a bonus, abandoned cars with headlights still on fit really well into the atmosphere of the game.

** The safe room doors also glow. If you're on your last "life" (got downed twice, the third one will result in death), items and the safe door are displayed in red, probably trying to tell you to find a med kit and heal up. The game tells you how to do certain commands the first time you encounter them (item pick ups, healing others, etc.) but will stop displaying them once you manage to do these several times on your own.

* The fundamental reason for the cartoony art style of ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' is to make the classes, teams and weapons as distinctive from each other (and from the background) as possible. Is a realistic game, like say, ''Counter-Strike'', you can't easily distinguish one soldier from the other, because soldiers wear uniforms and uniforms are well... uniform. The cartoony style gives TF2 the freedom to do whatever they want to let you know about important events and objects at a glance. It also lets them get away with outrageous humour and politically incorrect characters.

** A semi-recent update added a glowing team-coloured outline around the Payload Cart and the Intelligence briefcase that also can be seen through any obstacle, so now, no matter where you are on the map, you know exactly where they are.

** ''Portal'' includes many instances of this trope. Another example is the level where the player first acquires the Aperture Science Hand-Held Portal Device. Chell is forced to wait in front of a closed door next to a window through which the portal gun can be seen (and heard via [[Cutscene Power to the Max|its self-charging noise]]), to ensure that it's noticed. The excuse is that GLaDOS needs to acquaint Chell with the possible side-effects of the Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grill.

** The developers also said on the commentary about the portal gun that they had to find a way to tell players what portals do without straight out telling them. They say that they added in a few levels before you acquire the gun, in order for players to grasp the concept of "go in one, walk out the other", seeing as how many of the test players found themselves believing that the portals sent them to different versions of a room or "auto warped" you somewhere. In actuality, the portals work on a basis of "what goes in must come out".

{{quote|"When passing through a activated portalic warping point, its like you never passed through anything at all. So when falling, you fall through the floor and could end up flying out at the same speed through up another spot on the floor, into an endless loop. In layman's terms: speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out."}}

** Portal2 has a part in the final confrontation in which the player has to fire a portal onto {{spoiler|the surface of the moon, which as just been revealed in the night sky thanks too the roof of the room getting a hole in it}}. The developers on the commentary noted how players would either not realize that there was a hole in the roof, or if they did, they didn't think of shooting the {{spoiler|moon}} with the portal gun. For this reason, they made the camera automatically turn itself upwards towards the {{spoiler|moon}} through the hole, too give an indication to players that the {{spoiler|hole/moon}} was meant to be used for something. They however also faced another problem...Due too how players had become used to instantly appearing portals, they expected the portal shoot at the {{spoiler|moon}} to appear instantly as well, even though of course, due too the {{spoiler|speed of light and how far the moon is away from the earth}}, it would take at least a few seconds before it appears in reality. Due too this reason, many test players ended up thinking that the portal could not be placed as it did not appear instantly. So the developers ended up locking the players view onto the {{spoiler|moon}} once they had successfully shoot the {{spoiler|moon}} with the portal gun, to solve this problem.

** In ''[[Mega Man 7]]'', using Rush Search may lead to him barking at seemingly nothing, indicating hidden items of great value or secret passages.

 

* In ''[[City of Heroes]]'', relevant items or objectives in a mission will both glow and emit a pulsing noise to indicate that it is nearby. This means that occasionally, when the object is well-hidden enough that the glow isn't visible, players will find themselves in the position of ''listening'' for crates of drugs and so on.

** And if you're on one of those "<s> kill</s> defeat everything" missions, the final group of enemies will appear on the mission map. This was initiated because players would have to search every nook and cranny for the final few [[Mooks]], which could get infuriating at times.

* [[World of Warcraft]] uses sparkles to indicate slain enemies that still have items on them. The same sparkles were added to many quest item pickups to make them easier to see, aswell as herbs and veins if you are able to gather these. In addition, all characters are able to track most vital NPCs, seeing them indicated on the minimap. In some cases with larger view distances, large red arrows are also used.

** ''[[The Lord of the Rings Online]]'' does things similarly, with quest objects having their own (overly obvious) sparkle as well.

** The Infinity Engine D&D games (''[[Icewind Dale]] 2'', ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'') did something very similar with the left alt key, highlight dropped loot, door and containers. A loading screen tip recommended keeping one's left pinky over the key while exploring and pressing it whenever nothing else was happening. There were also a handful of secret stashes that were flagged not to light up this way, the only clue to their existence being the mouse cursor changing to the 'loot' icon if you happened to cross the couple-pixel hotspot.

* ''[[Dragon Age]]'' lets you hold down a key to make every item you can interact with glow, sparkle, and display its name.

* ''[[Solatorobo]]'' marks the location of hidden rings and P-crystals with [[Everything's Better with Sparkles|blue sparkles]].

* ''[[Pandoras Tower]]'' shows anything Aeron can pick up as a flashing sparkle, white for sundry goods, red for books and texts. The manual actually uses this trope indirectly to explain why Aeron can occasionally find new things in the Observatory's cellar despite being the only one who goes down there: there's so much miscellaneous junk crammed down there that another perusal with fresh eyes is sometimes enough to spot something useful he previously overlooked.

 

== Racing ==

== [[Survival Horror]] ==

* ''[[Resident Evil]]'' games have important items stand out through [[Sparkles]]. Hand waved in the official books in that they are well-used and thus cleaned items that show up against the filthy-un-used corridors, battle debris or blood-smeared walls.

** ''[[Silent Hill: Shattered Memories]]'' doesn't have Harry looking at hotspots, but it does have the Shadow Girl, who will run in the direction you need to go when approached; this is extremely merciful on the developers' parts in some places, because indoors, the flashlight is your ''only'' light source, and without the Shadow Girl, the player is reduced to scouring the walls for subtle doors outside the flashlight's illumination. Also, when running around in the Nightmare, doors, climbable ledges, and fences are laced with gently glowing blue frost, so you can find your way even if you turn your flashlight off.

* In [[PlayStation 2]] games ''Clock Tower 3'' and ''[[Haunting Ground]]'' items appear as shining objects, much like the Resident Evil series.

[[Category:Video Game Difficulty Tropes]]

[[Category:Suspiciously Convenient Index]]