Wk05 Title Screen Final Phase

Here is the final version of my title screen for The Big Sleep. It is fully animated in the parts that I wanted. To start I animated the letters of title and options coming in. I felt that at the beginning of the game everything should load in and then you would be able to select if you wanted to start a new game, load game, etc. Secondly, In the top right hand corner I added a light animation to mimic a television switching channels and changing colors. Lastly, I wanted to add the blood appearing on the hand and glass over time as you stayed on the title screen. This, however, is difficult to do with only 5 seconds but it gets the point across. I hope everything looks like it belongs and follows the artwork.

Wk05 Title Screen First Phase

Here is my final imaging for my title screen. I tried to keep it very simple but still keep the emphasis behind the high tech society and the prosthetics that are prevalent among the people. I also didn't want to give to much about the game therefore the player would play it to find out what it is actually happening. This is a just a still image, however, I plan on adding elements of animation in the title itself, the lighting coming from the top right corner and some imaging adding to the hand and glass. For the title I want to have it sort of dissolve into existence and stay there, and possible have some tiny color changes to give it some life. I also want to have the colors in the corner of the screen to change and flicker to mimic a television changing channels and give a time lapse feel. I also plan on, over time as you sit on the title screen, blood will slowly appear on the hand and the glass of whiskey. This I think will create a cool feeling that as time goes on his hands get dirtier.

This was an idea for maybe adding a flicker glow from the television.

Wk04 Mood Board Final Phase

Here I finalized my mood board and what colors are going to be a major component in my game and I also created a sort of guide that gives a background to where the game is coming from. Since the game is based around rival gangs I wanted to base this guide around a sort of heist setup bulletin board you often see in movies. I hope this gives a mood to where the game is coming from and also spark some ideas to where I can take it from here for the title screen or improvement.

Wk04 Mood Board Concept Phase

The Last of Us is one of my favorite games of all time and judging from this poster and the colors used in it you can really tell the mood of the game and what the artist was trying to express. You can see a lot of dark colors being used in the foreground of the poster like the water and the clothing of Joel and Ellie as well as the shadows that are cast on their face. I feel this brings out an emotion of fear and mystery to what lies behind them. Then as your eyes progress through the poster you can start to see a little lighter colors like more greens, pinkish reds, white. This reminded of a "light at the end of a tunnel" sort of theme.

As seen in my game poster the color scheme is kind of all over the place. It goes from vibrant reds and greens to dull blues and grays. This gives a different feel to the game maybe expressing characters are major part of the dull deteriorating city they live in.

 

The Characters mood board I created seems to have a similar color scheme it follows, minus the black and white picture that I used. For the most part the two characters that I revealed have solid dark colors that is the main part of them and then a highlight of a vibrant colors that distinguishes a certain emotion to each of them.

My environment mood board that I created for my game I think has a solid range of duller colors that, like I said previously, give you this ominous feeling about the city that is currently run by gangs. It also shows a common theme of emotion that this city is dark and falling apart. I liked the lighter colors you can pick out in the day of the docks giving it a good contrast to the dark night lit up by the city lights.

Game Concept Final Form: The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep:

This is a turn based strategy game, with a hint of fighting, set in a futuristic city that has spiraled into chaos where the government no longer has control, but rather, the gangs have taken over. The players control two rival gangs and play against one another and the objective is to either find the rival gangs safe (equivalent to a flag) or to eliminate all enemy players so they cannot make a move. I named it The Big Sleep, since it is centered around gangs, because that is slang word they use for "Death". I focused on the three different elements of Characters, Environment and maps you can play on, as well as the game mechanics and game play itself.

 I focused on the characters of the game because I thought it was really important to get a sense of how the models will look and give you a sort of idea of what type of society these people live in. As you can see in the image there is prominent use of prosthetic limbs and skin and the technology level is a lot higher than that of society today. These specific pictures I wanted to model for Spy character of the game and the general (man with four arms), and the other is just a rough sketch of a grunt action sequence. I want to also make it available, possibly at a later time, to give the options of choosing different gang factions for different player skins of each piece to ones liking.

I wanted to focus on the environment of the game because to this type of strategy the structures around play a huge part and where you can strategically move you character pieces to give yourself the advantage. At this stage I wanted to have two maps of different parts of this city. Parts where gangs would most likely have turf wars over. I also wanted contrast the elements of day and night so I thought that docks map during the day would allow for a different atmosphere of play, while the players can also battle in the city streets at night for that more inner city turf war. Each map will have different hazards that players have to maneuver around and different elements of strategy they will have to think about to outsmart the enemy player.

I lastly focused on the game mechanics and game play because I really thought it was important to explain the combat system which uses ranked pieces as well as the specific abilities some pieces have. It was also important to get out there the fighting game mechanic I thought to add whenever a tie would happen. So to start, I want to describe the combat system which uses ranks, this is how game works smoothly. In game you cannot see your enemy players numbers on his piece for they are secret only to him, so you are going in blind to fights. If you attack the enemy both ranks are revealed and who ever has the lower rank, i.e. Rank 3 beats a Rank 5, wins the fight and the other players piece is removed from the bored. This goes with a few exceptions to bombs and spy pieces. A spy is the only character piece that has a chance to take out the kingpin piece. The player with the spy, however, has to initiate the attack. Mechanics are the only pieces who are able to disarm bombs if they come across one, other than that bombs always win against everyone and are not removed. Grunt pieces have the special ability to move in a straight line as many spaces as they want until they hit a wall or an enemy. For ties, the game changes to a 1v1 fighting game, where skill comes into play rather than strategy, and slows game play a little bit to make the fights a little more intense and worth winning.

The game poster I created to advertise some elements

Wk03 Game Concept Rough Draft

The Game:

I was thinking about doing a turn based strategy game that utilizes and number system to determine who wins a conflict. There will be, however, certain characteristics to certain numbers that put them ahead of other numbers. I was thinking of a number system of characters being number 1-9. The lower the number the better when it comes to combat. The lower the number though the less of players you have on the field. For example, a 9 would be equivalent to a common soldier, or pretty much cannon fodder. These would be the most abundant amount of players you will have on your team. They can be used to scout areas out of rush into enemy lines to get a feel for where the other players has placed some of their players. An 8 is very similar but then again just a little better than a 9 therefore if they were to meet in battle the 8 would do away with the 9, etc. this goes down the list with only some exceptions. I was planning on using 1 as the general or kingpin. There is only one of these on each team. 1 can defeat any character on the board, except for the Spy. The S piece is a spy. Spy have the ability to take out the general/kingpin if the spy is the one to attack first, however, they are the weakest character in the game otherwise because every other number they come across will kill them.  There is only 1 spy so be wise. So now that is kind of cleared, I will go into more detail in a little bit. The main objective of the game is to capture the other players flag which is placed (somewhere up to the player) on their side of the map. There are also bombs or mines in the game, these are pieces that cannot move but can be placed strategically to deceive or defend your oh so prized flag. The number 8 is the engineer of the game, when they are met with a mine, the mine is defused and taken away. As for other special characteristics the 9 is the only one that can move an infinite amount of spaces in a straight line as long as it doesn’t hit a wall or another enemy.

Now to go over it, each player possess 40 pieces including:

1 Flag (or safe)

6 Bombs (mines)

8 Scouts/Grunts (or rank 9 pieces)

5 Engineers/Mechanics (or rank 8 pieces)

1 Spy/Infiltrator (or rank S piece)

4 Recruits (or rank 7 pieces)

4 Soldiers (or rank 6 pieces)

4 Captains (or rank 5 pieces)

3 Right hand Men (or rank 4 pieces)

2 Underbosses (or rank 3 pieces)

1 General (or rank 2 piece)

1 Kingpin (or rank 1 piece)

The World:

This world I was thinking of would be set in the future, however, where society has regressed so that the technology has moved into a sort of gangster “cyberpunk” era. Guns are still prominent and some tech is higher than average, say for example cloaking systems, or robotics and cybernetics. The world is bustling metropolis where the setting of the game is in a city on the verge of chaos, where the government is no longer in control, but rather the gangs that have been formed for protection and survival against other gangs and inhabitants. There is only a black market which adds to the danger of the city. The game will be based with the warfare of the city, with each player controlling a rival gang of one another. The concept of the game was instead of using flags, I wanted the object of capture to being the rival gangs safe. This gives it a kind of more robbers vs robbers feel and may the better gang win the big loot and prize. What I planned on doing to make this came a little more than strategy game (this may be in a later stage) but instead of when a tie happens rank both players get their players removed I would make it turn into a one on one fight sequence where skill comes into play. (like any basic fighting game). Or I would make a cinematic guessing game where you have three attacks you can choose from a light, medium, and heavy each player has 3 seconds to choose one: medium beats light attack, heavy beats medium, but light beats heavy. Going back to a rock paper scissors style game best two out of 3.

wk02 RPS Concept Final Form

Here is the final form of my rock, paper, scissors guide/poster. After receiving constructive and positive feedback from when I posted up the concept phase you can see that I did end up using the thumbnail sketch prototype where the header was large and in the center of the page. I did however change the way it was shaped and gave it a three dimensional model and in a flag formation so that it kind of stands out to catch peoples eye so they can read the rest of the poster. From there, I added the two images I was planning on using that gave it a more traditional feel since I like the hand drawn images. With that hand drawn images of the hands and how they used in the game I had to get it off of the paper that it was originally drawn on so now it looks like it is drawn on the poster. I chose to use only two images and keep a decent amount of white space because I didn't want to have to poster to cluttered and busy. I feel like a simple poster will reinforce the simplicity of the game.

I know this kind of late but I just wanted to post up a pic of some bad game art that I found. It is in the game sleeping dogs. The game itself is really well done and a lot of fun to play. The artists, however, did a kind of shortcut job on the imaging of the stores since you cant really go in ALL of them, they just kind pasted this poorly drawn image in the windows to make it seem like they were open and three dimensional. Take a look.

Wk02 Rock, Paper, Scissors Concept Phase

     These are my thumbnail sketches for the Rock, Paper, Scissors poster. I really like numbers 4, 8, as well as 5. I am leaning towards the ones where I put the header in the center of the poster. I thought that this would be a good idea due to the fact that if its centered like that it has the potential to draw people closer to the poster therefore allowing them to read the intro and the rules. I feel that the ones with the headers on top are too traditional and will look like any other poster.

This is a grouping or artwork that I planned on using for the poster guide. I really like the hand drawn traditional style. I chose the one that visualizes the rules of rock, paper, scissors if there are still people out there who don't get it after the rules are written. The other sketched drawing I wanted to throw into the poster guide to bring humor and a sort of light heartedness to the game of rock, paper, scissors was well as it might draw attention from some people with its cartoonish style. The other picture of the colored hands I liked the design of it and may just use it as a border around the edges or just something to add a little bit of color to catch the eye.