Fonts

[Lorenze]

Alright, so this is a weird topic, I know. But it's been annoying me way more than it really should be.

I'm legitimately curious - why do so many Ace devs use VL Gothic for their fonts? Besides the RTP, it's the #1 thing on Greenlight that instantly tells me it's an RM game. I know it's basic, comes packed-in, and gets the job the done, but it just looks so... boring and basic. Dare I say, even a bit lazy.

And even when devs don't use VL Gothic, it seems to me they either choose a generic font (Arial) or a font that just plain clashes with the game and the HUD. Like, I'll see an intense sci-fi game using a tech-y windowskin/HUD with Times New Roman. There are literally a crap ton of free fonts out there (FontSquirrel is a good place), some of which can be used in commercial games, plus there are scripts that allow you to change the font. So what gives?

Anyway, sorry if I'm rambling at this point. I just needed to rant for a sec. Gah. For future reference or whatever, how can devs pick out a font that works well with their game?

and yes i'm aware i've done some of this stuff in the past SHUT UP

Oh, and remember kiddies...

Spoiler

Comic Sans.
Never.

Not even as a joke.

 

[Ultim]

I use "Andalus".

 

[Andar]

A lot of devs probably don't want to mess with non-installed fonts (then they need to provide the font file inside the game) and another problem is that a lot of the free fonts are incomplete, resulting in junk boxes in the vocabs.


If you don't want to pay for a good font and avoid the other problems, then you're limited to the basic windows fonts - and those aren't exactly a good selection for games.

 

[??????]

Comic Sans.

Never.

Not even as a joke.

My last project (earth under attack - can be found in my sig) used a comic book styled font - pretty nicely too I think. Its not quite comic sans, but its not too far off it either.  I think as long as your font matches the rest of your scenes, you can use any font you wish

 

[cabfe]

Well, it does the job.

A lot of other fonts tend to be too fancy and less readable, especially the cursive ones.

 

[Ultim]

@Andar : Andalus is available in any Windows comp.About free fonts,the problem is,I used one font,then for every capital letter other than "B" and "S" is the font maker's logo.Gimme a fricking break......

 

[Andar]

About free fonts,the problem is,I used one font,then for every capital letter other than "B" and "S" is the font maker's logo.

Then that wasn't a free font, but the demo of a paid font - if you had paid, you would have gotten the true font file without the logos.
A lot of the "free font" sites on the internet simply copy together what they can find without checking their true sources or their terms, that's how incomplete or demonstration fonts end up being on "free" sites while in truth they're unusable.

 

[ロリ先輩]

VL Gothic is a font with Japanese language support. It's also an open source font.


Arial is a proprietary font without Japanese language support.

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

This snippet can be used to cut out those annoying junk symbols (like a square when you've pressed enter).

#Custom Font Junk Symbol Fix#created by Lone Wolfclass Window_Base alias rocess_normal_character_vxa rocess_normal_character def process_normal_character(c, pos) return unless c >= ' ' process_normal_character_vxa(c, pos) endendThis site here has a plethora of mostly free-share fonts. It lists the artist's name and and usage rights right above the font type sample.

I think an appropriate font can add depth to the game. I don't mind seeing standard fonts in games though. One thing I try to stay away from is a font that is too hard to read when set at 16 point. I myself set most font sizes to 20 within my game but there are a few places (in a part of a script perhaps) where you might need the font size a bit smaller than 20 to fit correctly.

Another annoyance is when a font has really fancy capital letters with lots of swirls. They look nice when reading text in dialogue and descriptions but when you're looking at a status menu, which may use 3 capital letters together, it looks messy.

 

[Raider]

I like "Georgia". But it creates those junk symbols too and the snippet doesn't really help.

 

[Andar]

that is because the snippet only eliminates one type of junk symbols, it can't replace any missing letters.