Pre-Production:
Story:
You play as Finn Wolfston, a 17 year old anthropomorphic wolf (animal with human features) who grew up not knowing entirely who his father was, where he worked, or what kind of person he was…This left many questions that gave Finn determination to keep on pestering his mother about his father’s occupation and identity, But he never got any answers. His mother would always tense up at the subject of Finn’s father as she would either not reply entirely or have the simple command of telling Finn to ‘Drop it’. (This means to stop talking about the subject of his father and forget about it). But this only made Finn’s curiosity grow more and more. One fateful day, Finn decided he’s had enough of waiting for answers so he takes matters into his own hands. He discovers his fathers occupation after many hours of hardcore researching. His father worked at some sort of testing facility, but that’s all he could find out. The next morning, Finn decided to head to the location of the facility to get some answers, which was a foolish choice. Why? He found himself on the top floor of the facility after blacking out due to some sort of gas. The only way Finn can possibly escape is to go from the top floor down. During his escape he will find out more answers than he asked for…With the aid of two mysterious characters. Will they actually help Finn? Or betray him?
Concept Art For Characters:
For both of the concepts for Willow and Fifi there are seperate designs for concepts, this is where the games were used as inspiration for designs as well as my own creativity. I am not saying the designs are copying the actual assets from the games I was inspired by (As this is known as plagarism), Instead I am saying that I have taken inspiration (which means that I was drawn to the ideas that other developers that made the games had. This means that for example, If I was to really enjoy the ‘Spyro The Dragon’ series, I could make a game inspired by Spyro’s creativity and unique feeling with everything in the game.
Willow:
‘Withered’ Willow:
- Colour Palette: Darkened pastel colour palette used for Willow.
- Stuffing and patching shows ‘experimenting’ and withering over time.
- Bow will be found beside the body as it’s too damaged beyond repair to wear.
- No models are required, Just a 2D graphics sprite.
- Eyes will have a brown gradient.
- All colouring and line art will be completed via wacom intuos drawing tablet and stylus.
- Softwares Required: Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator or Microsoft Paint.
Willow:
- Colour Palette: Pastel colours.
- Bow will be on right ear.
- Model is required for the ‘end’ of the game.
- All colouring and line art to be completed via a wacom intuos drawing tablet and stylus.
- Softwares Required: Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator or Microsoft Paint
Fifi:
‘Withered’ Fifi:
- Colour Palette: Darkened pastel colour pallete of the original pastel colour palette for Fifi.
- Broken crown with ‘Diva’ engraved onto it.
Fifi:
Inspiration:
For the inspiration behind both of these unique characters they were based off of my pets. Willow being an English white golden retriever and Fifi being a calico cat (we don’t know exactly what breed Fifi is, since she was someone else’s cat before my family took her in). With both of these as inspiration I had used my own personal art style I have developed over years of practice to create multiple designs for each of them so that if myself and Joseph liked assets from more than one of the designs I would be able to create a separate design which would combine the both. (This is known as development).
Inspiration also struck my creative flow when I was playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf a few days ago. One of the characters is known as Isabelle and she has uniquely shaped ears which I took inspiration from for Willow’s iconic ears. However, with some of the designs, they were inspired by other games myself and Joseph enjoy to play and communicate about.
These include:
Splatoon:
Why Splatoon?:
The reason why we decided on Splatoon as part of the inspiration was because of the bright colours used in ‘Turf Wars’. This has high contrast but the colours work in harmony. This inspired myself to want to use pastel colours (Something I try extremely hard to avoid) and make a game with it.
Splatoon 2:
Why Splatoon 2?:
With the added on DLC (Downloadable Content) known as ‘Octo Expansion’ takes place inside a maze like subway station. This inspired having the maze layout for our testing facility. For the inside of the ‘Octo Expansion’ it is known as the ‘Deep Sea Metro’ which has darker shades of grey and black for a colour scheme.
Bendy And The Ink Machine:
Why Bendy And The Ink Machine: Chapter 3?:
The reason why myself and Joseph chose chapter 3 was because we knew that the layout of the building in chapter 3 was the inspiration for the layout of out building with multiple floors and dangers along the way. Another reason why we chose chapter 3 instead of any of the other chapters was because this one has the most character development and tells the stories of the characters which answers unanswered questions that I have had from playing the previous two chapters.
Rusty Lake Hotel (Not for the easily scared):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQuJW2jBjv8
Why Rusty Lake Hotel?:
A bit of context first. Rusty Lake Hotel is part of the Rusty Lake series. I enjoyed this game out of the entire series but this is because of the horror attributes that it contains. I do agree that the game is quite dark, like any horror game but this is because that makes the ‘Rusty Lake’ series unique as a horror and puzzle game. The inspiration from this game isn’t with the actual game play, But instead the art style.
Super Mario Odyssey
Why Super Mario Odyssey?:
For the reason why I was inspired by Super Mario Odyssey is because of the creative flare it gives off. It’s very different to any of the other main series Mario games. Odyssey allows people to not have to follow the story and have a chance to explore to come across references to some of the older games (Super Mario 64 mainly) and to also see some of the older characters that nobody had heard anything about for years. (Pauline).
Another reason why I was inspired by Odyssey is by how colourful it is. Odyssey has so many bright colours that make all of the 3D models stand out from the landscape. When I saw this I felt inspired to do something which involved colours and character design. This is how I came up with the idea to add my two pets into the game. (Fifi and Willow).
However, My more personal choices for inspiration would have to definitely include Super Mario Odyssey but for different reasons to what has already been mentioned.
Five Nights At Freddy’s:
-Why FNAF-
Super Mario Odyssey:
-WHY MARIO ODYSSEY-
Pokémon Sun and Moon:
-Why Pokémon Sun and Moon-
Concept Art And Development Of Designs:
Fifi:
Here you can see all six designs on the page that I sketched them on. The four colours that you can see is a possible pastel colour palette because this will have a bright contrast with the room that both Fifi and Willow will be eventually found in by Finn. Another reason is because in my experience of drawing as a hobby, I always avoided pastel colours because I didn’t feel confident using them. So now I am challenging myself to use them to create a character. It may sound unrealistic to some people but I am determined to make this work. This is why I researched pastel colour palettes since I knew I would eventually find one that I could show to Joseph and that we would compromise on together for Fifi’s design.
Design 1:
Design 2:
Design 3:
Design 4:
Design 5:
Design 6:
Willow:
Here you can see all six designs on the page that I sketched them on. The four colours that you can see is a possible pastel colour palette because this will have a bright contrast with the room that both Fifi and Willow will be eventually found in by Finn. Another reason is because in my experience of drawing as a hobby, I always avoided pastel colours because I didn’t feel confident using them. So now I am challenging myself to use them to create a character. It may sound unrealistic to some people but I am determined to make this work. This is why I researched pastel colour palettes since I knew I would eventually find one that I could show to Joseph and that we would compromise on together for Willow’s design.
Design 1:
Design 2:
Design 3:
Design 4:
Design 5:
Design 6:
Ellie's Game Design 