Are you creating a new hit and want your characters to fit into the game? Many developers often experience problems in matching the proportions of individual characters and the relationships between the characters and the environment. You can use the approach described in the article.

Obviously, if there are no characters in your game, this post may be useless for you (but maybe it will be useful to you in the next project). This approach is not limited to humanoid pesonages and can be applied to anthropomorphic and inanimate objects.

Step One: Decide on Tile Size

Selection of the size of the tiles is a separate task that is solved in the early stages of game development. Tiles can be measured in world units (inches, meters, etc.) or in pixels.
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If your game does not have a grid of tiles, you can create a draft layout and use the aspect ratios for the initial project setup. In my examples, I will use an isometric grid, but the type of projection does not affect anything.

Questions to ask:

1. What will be the smallest object with which the player interacts? Is it a small chest on the ground, or a building, or a planet?
2. What will be the screen size, aspect ratio and resolution?
3. What is the scale of the game (in terms of themes and mechanics)? The most important thing in the game is the characters? Is it a game about insects or are you driving the city? How many objects should the player see (or interact with) during the game?
4. Does the game support camera movement? What is the default camera position?

Option “A” is suitable for claustrophobic horror (you can get even closer), “B” is better to use for RPG or RTS, option “C” is no longer possible to control from a mobile phone or tablet, but it can be suitable for large-scale military operations. “D” is too small for any interaction: with this tile size, it is impossible to select a separate tile (if your audience is not aliens with thin fingers). There are an infinite number of intermediate options between “A” and “D” . The choice depends on the type of game being created.

After selecting the most suitable tile size, you can go to the characters.

Step two: count by heads

How many heads fit in your character?


Illustration by Andrew Loomis (Andrew Loomis)

A little help: realistic adult characters are 7-8 heads tall. If 8 or more heads fit in your characters, they will resemble the Greek gods or superheroes.

But we will not discuss style or height. Growth is relative, two characters with the same proportions can be of different height.



Any style can be adapted to different proportions of the head and body.


Illustration of Garon Rossignol

The main thing that we need to take into account here is the ratio of the size of the character's head and the rest of it. For example, when creating a character with a height of 8 heads, one can say that his body is 7 times larger than the head. Most of the communicative information and details are transmitted through the body, and the head and face have a secondary role. I do not want to say that the head is not important: we usually always draw the first faces and hands (and some other prominent parts of the body). But in a silhouette with a height of 8 heads, the details and facial expressions will be superfluous.


"A" - the face and body are clearly visible.
"B1" - the body takes up more space when the characters are 8 heads tall. Details of the face are difficult to read.
“B2” - if in your game you need to show the emotions of characters with realistic proportions, you will need to take advantage of close-ups.


Left edge: exaggerated emotions, "cartoon" movement, playful mood.
Right edge: weakly expressed emotions, realistic movements, serious mood.

Most animated characters are categorized as 2-6 heads. Although characters with a height of 8 heads can also be hyperbolic and playful, most often they will be categorized as serious and realistic. Characters above 8 heads can also be playful, but, again, the body will attract more attention than the head and face.

Questions to ask:

1. How important are the facial expressions in the game?
2. Is realistic movement important?
3. How serious / foolish is your game? Realistic proportions suggest serious and realistic gameplay.
4. What will be the angle of the camera and does it change during the game?
5. What is the average width of the head and body?

Wide heads have more surface area, attract more attention and cover most of the body when the camera is pointing down. If the visual style requires wide heads, increase the height by 1-2 heads and add more body.

The opposite is true for body width.



Do you have wide-bodied characters who need to show more emotions? Increase head size.

Remember the important rule: characters with a small body can be made much larger on the screen, they can express more emotions and have more artistic freedom and distortion. This allows you to place in the screen space more objects and information.


(© Microsoft)
In Age of Empires, facial expressions are not important. Individual units are slightly different.


(© Beeline Interactive)
Facial expressions are important in Smurfs' Village, and more important in Minions Paradise. On the screen, the characters (and their heads) look bigger.


(© EA)

Step Three: Relative Scale and Ratios

So, we have characters and tile size. How big should other objects be regarding characters? The time has come to check whether the chosen visual style and proportions meet the requirements of the game.

In general, if you choose realistic proportions for the characters, you need to stick to the realistic dimensions of buildings and objects.


(© Firaxis Games)


(© Firaxis Games)
You can allow even greater distortion if you create a “desktop” type of game with iconography, similar to Civilization and aimed at an adult audience.

Let's go through the general scenario:

• The player can interact with the buildings.
• The player can interact with the characters.
• Character growth - 3 heads.

As a starting point, choose the golden ratio (1: 1.618).

Understand correctly, I do not encourage numerology or any mystic of numbers. You can choose any aspect ratio that you think is suitable. In my examples, I use 1.618, but the same can be done with other ratios.



Use 1: 1.618 as a starting point to determine the height of characters and buildings.


Left: credibility, buildings are important. Right: exaggeration, important characters.

Obviously, a character must have fewer buildings to enter them.

You can also use the ratio to create buildings and architectural elements. If your game needs high buildings, you can expand the selected ratio to additional floors.


Use option “A” (simple construction) if the character must move between floors. Choose “B” (simplified golden section) and “C” (extended golden section) if movement is not required.

Do not forget about the doorways.


Make sure the doorways are large enough to fit characters.

This is not the only way to solve the problem of scale, but I hope it will be useful to you.

Good luck to your game design!

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The author of the article, Yuri Sivers (Yuriy Sivers) - is the leading graphic designer in Kongregate. He is engaged in game design, concept art, illustrations and animation.