Fonts for your Game
Jul.18, 2008 in
Flash Development, Uncategorized
Let’s be honest, nobody wants to look at a bland default font while their playing a game. So stay away from the fonts that are already installed on your computer. Instead, find a good font online. Most can be used for free too. Here are a few good places to find fonts for your newest flash game.
This is one of the biggest websites out there for free fonts. It has numerous categories, ranging from fancy to techno to even holiday fonts.
Urban Fonts has over 8,000 fonts listed within 32 different categories, giving you a lot to choose from.
Simply the Best features over 50 categories of fonts. Once again, there is more than enough fonts on this site to give you a font that will match your game’s style.
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June 7th, 2009 at 12:46 am
I was just a bit curious about what you said “Nobody wants to look at a bland default font while their playing a game.”
I’m not sure I fully agree with that. If special and fancy fonts are used in moderation, then yes, of course. However, when reading long segments such as people talking in little speech bubbles or reading a tutorial or letter in the game, you really don’t want something ridiculously extravagant. It’s difficult to read, and gets annoying after a while. Also, unless you embed the font, it might not show up the same on all computers (meaning that a signpost might bleed over some of the text outside the main area, even if just slightly)
Here is my rule of thumb, as long as the main title of the game is readable, fancy fonts give it a fantastic effect, but for long segments of text, you really don’t want to be trying to read something written like this (I picked the first font I saw from the recommended site Dafont) http://www.dafont.com/holiday-home.font
I haven’t seen this problem a lot in games, but at in schools and such (or anywhere where you will find a beginner and a word processing program) you see sheets printed out by people who went crazy with the font and text size buttons. I must confess, when I was 13 I myself made these blunders all the time.
I have learned that often simplicity it what is the most appealing, at least for adults. Children might be different. In fact, that is the whole idea behind Feng Shui. The human mind feels more relaxed looking at a clear table than one that is filled with nick-nacks and bricka-breck. Although it looks fun at first and is mentally stimulating, it becomes wearisome after a while.
Just take a look at this site as a perfect example. ALL the text on the site (including buttons and text in banners) seems to be Arial or some simple, similar font, all moderately sized. The only things that use an original font are two brand names, Mochiads and Evony. Those names stand out, as they should, and any other text on the page is not overly distracting or annoying.
That’s just my 52 cents. I might be wrong. Any other opinions?
Anyway, love the really handy links as well as all your other really helpful posts.
Andreas J. Renberg
June 7th, 2009 at 8:50 am
This may be the most detailed comment I’ve ever had. :)
You had some good points. While some fonts could make your game look better, there are others that are going to detract from the gameplay (like unreadable fonts as you mentioned). For the most part, I try to keep custom fonts to menu design, as that is where it’s the most important to have them stay within your games theme. But as for instructions, perhaps a normal looking font would do better.
By the way, you just made me realize that I need to get a logo up on my site. I’ve had the bland text as a logo for too long. I need something that will stand out and have brand recognition for my site.
Thanks for the great comment, and nice site.