Character: "Core" Pitch

"Core" Pitch

Character: "Core" Game Interface

The game is designed to be for iOS. The player will have a directional pad on the left hand side of the screen, and the combat icons on the right. In the top left hand corner is the player's health.

The health gauge is designed as V2's electromagnetic core.

The normal melee icon.

And an empty icon which is customizable with the abilities V2 learns as the game progresses. The player can pick and choose up to a maximum of 3 usable at one time. This allows the player to cater to their particular playing style. 

Character: Character Final Concepts

V2 is the playable character in the game. The last of the experiments to awaken from its long slumber. A basic combat model in appearance, its true power lies in its core's ability to mutate its abilities with the use of other model's cores. V2's limbs are pure energy generated from its electromagnetic core and is able to shape them at will. Its core is powerful enough to allow V2 to float, but in its current state, it does not last long. 

In game sprite.

Like the background, V2's design was adapted into the vector style.

V3 is the successor of V2, however due to booting up before V2, it was able to upgrade itself to the design we see here by combining itself with other experiments in the lab. When the humans were still running the lab, it was actually because of V3 the project was shut down and the lab abandoned as it was too much of a risk.

Size comparison with V2.

Character: Environment Final Design

With the final design I've incorporated all the machinery I designed by layering them to give a sense of depth. As the idea for this platform game is for iOS, I felt that the vector style was more suitable.

 Background with interactive platform:

Character: Environment and Machinery Development

As mentioned previously, the environment is going to have 3 layers to create depth. I've made rough sketches of what I have in mind for the environment.

In red, is the interactive part of the environment. As this is a platform game I want there to be opportunities to be on different levels throughout and not being stuck on the same level throughout. For this I was thinking of using fallen parts of the ceiling creating pathways, broken machinery and other objects to use to jump on to proceed. 

Continued work on the machinery I wanted in the lab and sketched out more ideas. I referenced more steampunk objects heavily again.

With these and machinery sketched out previously, I developed them more and decided on the style I wanted for the game.

Character: More Environment Development

As previously discussed with Justin, my game will be a platform game and his main concern was how I would go about doing the backgrounds. My main idea is for a 2D environment but creating depth with the use of silhouettes. My main influence for the style of the environment is the adventure game Ghost Trick, developed by Capcom for the Nintendo DS.

At the start of this project I was looking into sci-fi labs for the environment, but as the character design was forming I've realised from its colour scheme which I became quite fond of, it would be more suitable in a steampunk-esque environment instead.

I've collected some images of steampunk labs to influence the type of machinery and what-not that I want to include in the environments.

I quickly jotted down some ideas of what type of objects I'd like to use in the environment. I referenced more steampunk objects to design the machinery.

Character: Villain Initial Sketches

Experimented with shapes and decided a more "sharper" body shape was more appropriate. As the villain character is the same type of being as the hero character. I've kept the oversized hands and energy-like design for them.

Explored ideas for other enemies in the game:

Character Class: Poses and Expressions

Character: Hero Character Development

When I spoke to Justin last week he recommended doing some research for how my characters limbs are floating and what not. I had magnetic fields already in mind so I did some quick research on it. I've given my character a magnetic core which confines and guides magnetic fields, so exactly what I was needing for this character. 

I did some quick silhouette block outs to give me more of a general idea of what I'm wanting this character to look like.

Character: Environment sketches and influence map

To suit my mutation theme, I decided to go with the sci-fi genre for my environment. I want to use the abandoned lab my character was created in as the main environment in the game, obviously differing on each level.

I started doodling out some parts of what I want to include in the first scene/level, primarily the broken test tube. Depending on the type of art style I end up going with I'm still deciding whether or not to make the lab retro/cartoon-y or a really detailed, high tech sci-fi lab.

I also wanted to get the feel of the type of colour palette I want to work with for my environments, the green and blue combination is a favourite of mine.

I've also collected a few different sci-fi lab designs to help influence my environment.

Character Class: Evoking a Character in a New Culture

Instead of a style I went for an event during the 1950s to combine with Angry Birds which resulted in a Space Race version of Angry Birds.

Character: Initial Ideas

In today's briefing we were given three cards; one red and two blue, to base our character design on. 

My three were:

• Weaponry
• Mutation
• Air

Trying out different combinations for my three words; weaponry, mutation and air, my first thought was to decide on the type of environment and genre of game I wanted. I've been leaning towards platform games, these games can be action/puzzle/speed based.

I put together an influence map of a variety of platform games from different generations, some with different game mechanics. 

For my character, I wanted to incorporate the mutation as a "splicing" power. This mechanic is more of a power boost element i.e in Mario with the mushroom/fire flower, but this is taken directly from the enemy (and lasts a certain amount of time). 

Before seeing Justin, I started to do some quick drawings. My main plan for this project is to do a style out of my comfort zone and do something more creature based than human.

These are few rough doodles I did, thinking about the type of shapes I want my character to have.

My influence for my sketches come from a few game and anime characters. Noticeably the head shape and mouth.

After talking to Justin he gave me a few ideas of how to incorporate "air" into my project. We both agreed that if I were to include it into the mechanism of the game it would over complicate things and just doing it for the sake of it, so I'll be focusing on using it for the character and environment.

If I were to use "air" for the character I can relate it to emotion, the examples Justin gave me were:

• Since the air can have something dramatic like lightning, the character can be very short tempered
• Can also be "free and not tied down", like a free spirit. A character that's more like an airhead.

Another thing we discussed was the game format. Originally my idea was to go down the platform game route, but the idea of an open world has opened up new possibilities. A platform game would be a bit too restrictive for narrative. I feel this will be easier to decide on once the environment has been developed.

Character Class: Gaming Platforms

For this I was given Angry Birds and chess to work with. To give it a more serious element, the main objective of the game would be to knock the king down from the fortress, still keeping the main objective of Angry Birds included.