DuoDeus

This week I collected some images of simplistic artwork to help me form some ideas for creating this game’s world. 

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After this research, I decided to make design rules for the game’s universe. 

Rules:

 All objects should have rounded corners

 Look squishy

 All objects must have eyes.

I did a quick pen sketch of a character I thought would suit this world

Bouncy character’s seem more comedic and I feel that this game idea may seem odd and new to players, so this design choice seemed fitting. 

I redrew the character from the sketch before, I thought that the character should have a primary hand that is used for abilities that we may design in the future and the secondary hand which would be used for basic functions along with the primary  hand such as traversing and jumping.

I imagined that the movement of the character would be a squash and bounce movement, the arrows in the sketch show a clockwise rotation which almost resembles a bike pedal’s movement, I thought this type of dynamic movement would be humorous to watch.

The more detailed a character is the more unrelatable the character becomes to the player 

Page 375 “The blank slate”

Roleplay as the character

Iconic “Less detail that goes into a character the more opportunity the reader has to project themselves into that character.”

This can be applied to character design 

An example of this is iconic characters in a detailed world 

Typically in anime characters are cell shaded whilst the background and environment 

are highly detailed and have an oil painted texture, highlighting the character’s features even further.

Applying this to the design of 2D games would create effective communication to the player as animation details would not be missed and the nature of the character is easier to recognise.  

During our meeting we spoke about how we could involve different cultures in the game through the instruments. I was still working out a suitable character designs, however I had a bias towards my previous sketch of the character with giant hands as feet as it seemed humorous  and I liked the idea very much. During the meeting I suggested that the different cultural instruments could be indicated by masks that the character puts on. This idea stemmed from the character with the giant hands legs as its face looked like a mask or a section of the body to put a mask on. 

I created a mood board of masks from different cultures before inspire some ideas when creating sketches.

On the character sheet I have drawn 4 pairs of characters on one side, each slightly different to their pair, and on the other side, masks from four different cultures. African – Japanese Tengu and Cat – Chinese Wu kong – Hawaiian Tiki  

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I redrew some character designs digitally to start exploring the types of characters I would want to use when finalising my ideas.  

During a lecture in our class I doodled a few characters on paper. I was still thinking of different styles the character could look like. I made 3 variations of character “F” from the jelly character sheet during the doodle. I liked the idea of “toothpick” legs as it makes the character seem on edge and confused, especially the sweating character. I later asked a few classmates what their opinions are on the characters I have drawn. Responses said they prefer the character to have bendy legs as it seemed more suitable towards the “squishy and bouncy” design I informed the class about when discussing our game idea.

The design of the triple legged character was called “too scary” for the look I proposed to have. The long sausage shaped character had a few humorous reactions whilst there were no comments made on the marshmallow or mirrored L shape character.      

Artstyles

Giant hand

CODA2CODA studio visit

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I decided to draw the long shaped character from my previous classroom character sketches as my team quite liked its look. I named the character “Dizzy” as a pun on Dissonance. I felt that this character should appear, following the players, depending on the player’s interaction and creation of dissonance with the sounds they make. However there was barely any harmony in the prototype when players created sound. Regardless we thought Dizzy should have a place in the game’s universe. I thought of his movement to be wobbly and unstable as the music created before he appears is erratic fitting his entrance on screen. This type of response from the game can communicate to the players that their actions are having an effect on the world. 

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Obstacle Scales Major/Minor

I made a sheet that would compare the character to the size of future obstacles we may want to develop later on. This was to guide us on how future obstacles will work and the solution of evading or vaulting over them. Each block is double the size of the 2nd player and the height of their jump (single and double) are marked to indicate the possible height levels of the obstacles.  

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Play test need more assets for game 

At the moment, only stills are ready for the prototype, I had made 3 stills from the layers of concept art I made earlier. 

After doing this, I realised the colour shifting character did not look so appealing from the distance of the camera in-game. I decided not to use this colouring for future characters as the colour shifting looked too solid rather than a seamless colour bleed.  

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Game design thoughts , Street fighter Super bar

We were having a discussion on player 1 and player 2’s interaction with each other. During this I thought that each time the second player successfully vaults over or evades the first player’s obstacles, they should have a meter which fills up which enable certain buffs such as speed or invulnerability to certain objects. This idea was inspired by the game Street Fighter, where each time the player lands a hit on their opponent, their “Super” meter increases. This allows the player to perform “EX” commands (a buffed attack) When the meter is full, the player is able to perform their “Super” which is an ultimate ability which can change the game’s direction as this does a significant amount of damage to the opponent.

Sloshing water

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Ideas/notes 

I thought that the ground could still follow the colour spectrum but only its surface. When player 1 uses an obstacle that erupts from the ground, the colour on the surface should influence it to change by coating it in paint as it breaks the surface. I liked the idea of liquid and sloshing animations to be on screen 

I later also thought that certain obstacles could change the appearance, art or even audio of the game. An example of this could be a dropping obstacle which flattens player 2 which could  or an obstacle that creates a distortion effect on the player and      

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Pixel art testing 

I had thought about pixel art being a style for our game as we thought Chiptune sounds would be better for our game. I drew at a  x scale 

After animating Dizzy, I decided to add afterimage frames to fake smoothness in the animation. I did this by using the onion skin of the original animation as a guide. I also lowered the opacity of the afterimage. When played, the animation seems much smoother than the first animation however this was a false effect on the eye. 

I later added details such as liquid sloshing and audio to further develop the character   

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Blender is a great, free 3D modelling and animation program I have seen being used by many indie developers to create assets for their games. My previous experience with Blender is very little as I was discouraged by its interface and controls. Both seemed very obscure and I had become used to the navigation controls and Ui of Maya. However, I decided to come back to blender as I was inspired by some animations I found on Youtube. I also had some technical issues with reinstalling Maya, allowing me to explore a new program.

I wanted to look 

I then exported the animation frames as 128px x 128px, to my 

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Blender sfx smoke

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Final obstacle designs meeting 

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Colour test 

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Concept arts

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Obstacle design/ animations

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Character animations

Although I had finalised my idea of the 

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Playtesting at Ukee event Women in games 

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Conclusions

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Prototype