There are many reasons for why there is such a big gap that I am now filling in. This is because of two close family members being badly injured which meant I couldn’t update my blog as I wanted to. Another reason is that the laptop I have access to at home decided to break, Which took a few days to fix and get running while looking after two family members who are still in bad pain and struggling. Besides this, The time has not slowed down production on both sides, Only my side of the project’s workload. However, I am able to catch up for lost time and get back on track to making the project as good as it can be. Luckily, all of the screenshots have been recovered from my laptop needing repairs which means that there is no evidence lost.
Sketching:
With the sketches, They have taken a while because at first I tried to take on too much work with all 6 emotions for each character, I decided that doing only 2 for each will be effective since I wanted to focus on capturing the emotions in their expressions and body language rather than rushing it.
Possible Concepts:
Originally, Myself and Joseph wanted to incorporate some sort of reoccurring threat (danger) into the game by having something to keep the player moving to not spend hours playing the game. We had decided on trying to make either a failed experiment or the protagonist’s own father (Who we decided to call ‘Jeremy Wolfston’). The reason this was the case was because of our first play day with our fellow classmate devs (Developers). The feedback from the simple survey I had created will be mentioned in detail later on.
Possible Concept 1: Jeremy Wolfston:
With there only being two sketches of Jeremy, This shows that the idea was soon scrapped because of three reasons:
- My family emergency had happened two days prior to the discussion of having Jeremy Wolfston in the game at all
- The game already had a lot of work that needed done and myself and my colleague decided that we were going to try and do more work than we knew we could complete. We wanted this game to be completed fully, not incomplete.
- The timing of discussing this was nearly halfway into production, this meant if we did add him we may of had to compromised a few other assets to be able to still complete the game.
Concept 2: Amalgamation (Combination) Of Two Animals:
-Sketches-
The reason why I had this idea was to do with the testing facility that this game takes place in. With the backstory behind our two plushie characters, Willow and Fifi, they were created after many prototypes. The amalgamations are some prototypes alongside another concept.
Concept 3: Prototype Fifi And Willow:
-Sketches-
This concept is pretty simple. The idea was to have the failed experiments (Prototypes) be able to come back to life and mistake Finn for Jeremy, meaning they want to harm him.
Emotions:
Finn:
-Sketches-
As you can see, all of these emotions are the most basic and dynamic for any character to emote. What makes these emotions unique to Finn is with his ears and his personality. I am able to draw emotions easier when I can understand the personality of the character and pretend to be that character in the situation they would be in.
Willow:
-Sketches-
As you can see, all of these emotions are the most basic and dynamic for any character to emote. What makes these emotions unique to Willow is with her ears and her personality. I am able to draw emotions easier when I can understand the personality of the character and pretend to be that character in the situation they would be in.
Fifi:
-Sketches-
As you can see, all of these emotions are the most basic and dynamic for any character to emote. What makes these emotions unique to Fifi is with her ears and her personality. I am able to draw emotions easier when I can understand the personality of the character and pretend to be that character in the situation they would be in.
Full Body Designs:
Willow:
With the full body design for Willow I know I wanted to make her look adorable yet goofy at the same time. Since that is the easiest way to describe her personality. The reason why she has a bow on her right ear is because of her being based off of my dog, she used to wear bows when she first came into our family.
-Sketches-
Fifi:
With the full body design for
-Sketches-
Failed Attempts For Colouring:
Willow:
The reason why I see this initial design as a fail is because of the colours chosen. They do compliment each other but I may have a gradient going from the tips of the ears to the bottom and the same with the tail. The ear that is in the background will only be one solid colour as it will look more effective.
Fifi:
With Fifi I wanted to have a simple yet cute design. I hadn’t realised how many colours Fifi actually has on her fur, which is four (White, black, orange and brown). In addition to this the base colour that I had originally used was completely wrong. It was more of a cream off-white colour rather than just being purely white.
Finn:
With Finn being the main protagonist, I knew that he needed to look like the design (concept) and have that signature serious but curious personality. With this attempt he doesn’t look like he would have those personality traits.
Potential Colour Schemes:
Willow:
-Image-
Fifi:
-Image-
Finn:
-Image-
Art Style Inspirations And Original Concept Designs Explained:
Willow:
The best way to explain who Willow is a 1 year old golden retriever who is bigger than the average (And still growing!). Her personality is she is very cheeky with lots of personality and character who loves to play and spend time at doggy daycare with her fellow dog friends.
(She is a LOT bigger than what she seems in this photo).
First ever concept art design of Willow
Fifi:
With Fifi, She is actually a 26 year old calico cat who is a family pet. The reason why I decided to add her into this game was because I wanted to make this a personal tribute to her because of how old she is. Another reason is that I love to make any project of mine personal so that it keeps me motivated and working harder than ever. This also pushes my creative thoughts and abilities.
Photograph of Fifi in real life
Fifi’s first ever concept art design
The reason why in the concept art Fifi wears a crown is simple. As a joke my family has made her middle name ‘Diva’ because of her age and she does like to have her surroundings tidy, she needs to make sure that she tells us when she is hungry or wants to go outside because she is sadly a deaf cat. By her meowing constantly and being so overly dramatic we nicknamed her ‘Diva’ as one of the other jokes is that Fifi sees the home she lives in as a 5 star hotel and restaurant. But I love her none the less.
Survey From Play Day 1 Feedback:
Question 1: We not only have a health bar design and designs for dialogue for our 3 characters which will have sprites. What would be your overall thoughts on this?
Question 1 Summary:
Question 2: What do you think of the current 3D models and textures?
Question 2 Summary:
Question 3: We have been researching official soundtracks from many types of video games hoping to find something suitable to fit the theme of our game. Are there any games you would recommend that have an elusive/horror theme?
Question 3 Summary:
Question 3 (Game Official Sound Tracks):
Question 4: What do you think of the current game mechanics and overall gameplay?
Question 4 Summary:
Ellie's Game Design 