2-D Student project History part-2

Our first project idea was scrapped for good and the time had come to start anew.

We had agreed to go with something simpler, and with that it was me and another guy who had acquired energy from playing another indie game called Undertale which had recently been released to critical and commercial success, not long before we began our own projects.

We went with this idea that a little girl would wander around a mansion in-between the real world and something more dreamlike which would've allowed us to play around with the aesthetics and level design. The look of the character was pulled from the little drawing I had made on the Adventure-game concept paper that I pointed out in the previous post and elaborated upon, she would go over some more cosmetic changes as we dig deeper.

The mansions itself would've been this multilayered puzzlebox that'd involve backtracking and collecting items to progress, fighting or escaping spooky creatures and such noise. The main goal was never elaborated on here because the mansion idea also found itself tossed out into the trashbin, but more about that later.

Here are some drawings I made to further elaborate on her design. The scarf in my opinion just seemed like a cute addition and Ideally would've been something she would pick up once her journey began. A scarf or muffler is just something I thought a traveler should always have for convenience' sake.
I wanted her idle animation to be one of yawning and haphazard waving in place to add more character to her. I also slimmed down her figure somewhat and stretched out her limbs just to make her appear more mobile.

To help with the narrative I also went ahead and drew a cute companion for her who would've been this short humanoid firefly person. The staff with a crescent trinket and little cape would've alluded to his role of being a more knowledgeable figure and somebody a confused player could instantly go to for advice or just some minor dialogue if the player wished to engage in it or learn more about the world.

Here's a picture that further emphasized what kind of relationship a player would have with their companion. They would be the guiding light in the players struggle to escape the clutches of incomprehensible forces out to do them harm.
I didn't of-course want the firefly to play the game for the player, he would merely stand by and offer guidance.


This one was eventually canned aswell. We would end up having to repeat this mistake a few times but once again we just took an idea too far. You'll learn more about it on my next post.

2-D Student project History part-1

First post on my Portfolio Blog, let's talk about my 2-d project for school.

It was me and three other artists along with a couple coders who were assigned together to tackle this mammoth of a project and I'm proud of every single one of my compatriots and their efforts. We had a difficult time learning the ropes with group work and communication but we pulled through and I view the outcome of our project as something of an extremely enlightening learning experience.

Back when we only began to discuss what we were going to do, the prevalent idea was to make a Zelda-esque fantasy adventure game. We wanted to do something with a female protagonist, a noble warrior princess on a quest to go and save her younger brother from the clutches of evil in hell.
We hadn't assigned anyone with specific roles like ''Lead Artist'' or ''Concept Designer'' at the time so I went ahead and sketched things out with the approach of trying to define the aesthetic and show everyone what my vision was, because it's what I do best. 

Below are a  couple pictures of the main heroine with a conceptual in-game sprite. I immediately wanted to convey to the player and my teammates that I wished her not to be seen as a weak home-bred lady who had never wielded a sword before. I wanted someone that a player would find fun to play as, Someone who looked capable with an upright posture and who had more character than an over-embroidered tablecloth. Her outfit would've had the Gold and Red color theme with gleaming steel armor and the instantly recognizable yellow hair, notice also the tiara under her bangs to further signify her noble heritage.

If you look to the bottom right you will notice an unrelated little girl character with the cute hat, keep her in mind because I'll have a lot to say about her in a later post. Here's another picture of the princess with a slightly simplified outfit.

Here's some environmental stuff I had doodled to provoke further discussion among my colleagues.

All of this was eventually thrown to the gutter however. Upon receiving further lectures and information it was unanimously agreed that we had bitten off on more than we could chew here so we went ahead and settled for something that appeared a little simpler at the time...