Game Jam Collab- Week 3

14:52 BA2b , Collaboration 0 Comments

This week was focused on designing our main character, working on assets, a general unified artistic direction, getting more mechanics working and assets in game as well as designing monsters, traps and obstacles.


With ideas being thrown around of having our forest being slowly consumed by machinery and man's industrialisation, and a team mate liking the idea of some kind of choking hazard, like air pollution, I started doodling some gas masks. I thought maybe our character could have one too, alongside a gas mask being a trap.


The gasser would choke the player, slowing them down, the screen zooming in.

The storyboard above was me playing with composition, this would have been more potent if I drew it in the side-scroller setting we'll be using, also I'm banned from the soft brush. Collborating with others has alreadt been quite enlightening, my team mate in charge of assets paints on 100% opacity whereas I'm lower, causing a lot of my work to seem washed out, so I've started t adopt this habit, and also with feedback, poured a little more time into my concepts. So I iterated this gas creature-



Playing with the idea of a mechanised tree, flower and botfly, I submitted these to the group. This idea of a gasser was liked, but the original idea of having the gasmask alone on a tree was preferred- also I learned I need'nt have spent the time I did on these, once the idea is cleanly there, move on.

So I sketched some more monster/ trap ideas, playing with the idea of some kind of pseudo-sprite, something that pretended to be a collectible using a fake sprite collectible to eat the playey, and something that the player would think to jump over, but would kill them, shocking them the first time.



The two silhouettes on the bottom row were the most well recieved, so I shall flesh them out and experiment ASAP.

We've been gradually steering away from the forest fire idea, being what you're running from, and more onto mechanised landscapes, polluted monsters and a generally darker tone. We'd like there to be a sort of dark twist, perhaps the sprites eating the player at the end. Ideas of encoding some riddles and other oddities into the level and menu screen for the sake of ambiguity, our whole game we want players to feel there's something amiss, something meta. I had one fevered debate with a team mate about "attracting the sprites", there needing to be a fundamental, mechanical and visual reason these strays are following the player. I argued there needn't be, they are collectibles, why add so much complexity where there needn't be, players making contact with the sprite by touching them and have them follow. My team mate would not be reasoned with and was a tad psychotic in the demands of there being a bell or something to win the trust of the spirits. So in my designs for the character, I tried to incorporate bells.


Playing with the idea above of something that shot up and killed you, I thought of some kind of plant, but zombified, polluted or mechanised versions were preferred Animation wise, we've been talking about a fluid style for the main character, drawn frame by frame in photoshop, but joltier animation for the lesser parts in Spriter, to get a more mechanical feel in motion for the monsters and traps.

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Moving onto the main character, I drew some quick mask designs and quite liked a cone shaped character whose feather ruffle could sprout wings, my group didn't but liked the masks, preferred a simplistic oval design, but did like the cone head idea. A bell perhaps jingling around the neck.


I drew out some more character concepts, the more simplistic masks being liked. However, the character direction we ended up going with was far less obscure than the direction I was taking it. So I took my team mates iterations, and synthesised the parts I felt went well together.


I had the idea of the mask rotating to show emotions, but that wasn't very well received. The idea of there being some kind of ring or halo behind our character, it acting as a "savior" to these creatures, is one that has persisted. We liked the shin guards, feather ruffles and chest plate, so continued down that direction.

I'm quickly learning to not get too attached to ideas when working in a group, its all about bringing as many good ideas to the table as possible and being ready for all of them to be dismissed, which is new to me, but I'm adapting to it and the benifits of working in a collaborative manner are far outweighing the minor niggles.

A final character shall be decided on very soon as we're almost there with it, I need to design some more hazards and monsters and level design needs to be attacked. I've also been in contact with a man who wants to collaborate with our group and create our music, we should have some further correspondence next week!