Task 5

18/05

Production

Today, I have starting creating new art. I have decided to do so to show how much my concept has changed since the beginning. I want to show influences of my research and feedback from others through this art. I want to create sketches and then edit them with Photoshop and Illustrator.

I have decided to create my art using hard paper and black fadeproof ink pen. I did so as I prefer hard paper more than the soft paper, because it is easier to store and is harder to damage. Also, hard paper allows me to draw on both sides with bold (I do not know hot to describe it otherwise) ink and markes, which can be seen on the other side when used on soft paper.

I decided to use ink pen instead of a ballpoint pen as the later one is much worse when it comes to drawing. Ballpoint pens can easily damage the paper, might suddenly stop writing and are quite useless when it comes to filling areas with a single colour. I have decided to use no pencils at all, as I do not like how they can damage the paper (hard pencils make very slim and barely visible lines but go really deep into the paper, while soft pencils are hard to erase and overall messy. I have also thought about using coal, however I could not put details with it. So in the end the only option for me was to use an ink pen.

I started with sketching a rough shape of my robot in the middle. Then I drew some plates of its armour. I did the same for his chest, arms and bottom. Then I added some details on then like diodes, holes, rust, scratches etc. Next step was connecting those plates together. I did that by adding new but smaller plates, cables and other objects that I think could be used to create a robot.

Then I added more details, like printed numbers and lines as well as some shadows to show that his robot is three-dimnesional.

Lastly, I added some more details and a cockpit.

Robot with a simple background.

Background is made of rocks, little plants, mushrooms and simple machinery. I worked hard to give it a three-dimensional feeling. Also, I added some platforms that would be used by the character to jump on it as well as made my robot seem more dangerous by giving him guns, rockets and lasers. The last thing I have done was adding moss, dripping water and the main character jumping around.

I am really happy with the result - this drawing shows exactly what I had in mind. This graphic shows how enemies would look like, how environment looks, how background looks and how level would be designed.

I am glad that I decided to use tools that I chose - I think that other paper and pens or pencils would not give the same effect.

Unfortunately, scanners in the college lowered the quality - tones are different, some parts of the picture are partially or entirely faded. However, there is no other way of showing my drawing digitally - my phone reduces quality even more. I tried boosting colours, however, it made things even worse as it boosted BOTH black and white, making entire background (which is barely visible here anyway) disappear completely.

24/05

Today I made another drawing to include in the YGD's worksheet. This time I decided to create another concept for a boss fight. Unlike the previous one, this fight was already planned by me in the research and pre-production phase many times. I have even created a prototype a few weeks ago!

New drawing.

Old drawing.

This image was created using the same tools and techniques as the previous ones. The main change is the addition of water. I wanted to make sure that water appears like the real one - that is why it splashes around while robot uses his arms. Robot creates waves and water circles as well as whirlpool and causes water to evaporate.

I wanted to make all my robot to look like they come from the same place but to not make them identical. That is why robots from the images above look similar but are different - I used similar parts for them (like cockpits, pipes etc.), gave them the same skeleton (upside-down triangle) but gave them different main component like arms, bottoms and chests.

I wanted them to interest potential players, who would be easily bored with the monotony of same enemies and environments.

25/05

Final Document

Including today, I have only 4 college days (and 10 outside-college days) to finish my project. Because of that, I have decided to start filling document requried by the BAFTA YGD. I plan to include screenshots of the progress here.

Personal Information required to enter the competition.

To be honest, I did not think about a name for my game - I have always referred to it as a game. I have decided to with Nikodem as it is the name of the main character. Titles like this are very popular - Mario Bros; Sonic, Banjo Kazooie etc. I have also ticked the PC platform as I wanted my game to work on computers. I have considered arcade machines, but as you see they are not an option here.

That is what I wrote initially. I found it insufficient as it was only around 60 words (I did not count them). Because of that I wrote the main point as a bullet point list, deleted the entire text and started from the scratch. I repeated that until I was happy with numbers of things I wrote (I added more bullet points each time) and the way I presented them. I expanded it around five times.

Here I write about what my game is about. I explained what players can do, what they are expected to do in order to progress and what awaits them if they successfully move on with the story.

Here I write about the story and the overall setting that I created in the beginning and started developing later.

06/06

A description of setting in my game. I explain how different it look before you play, as you play and in the end.

In this section I explain how many characters important to the gameplay (not to the story) are in my game. I also explain their strong points and weak points as well as how they affect the gameplay.

In this section I explain how players will fight the first boss. I have designed this fight in during the pre-production already, so writing it again now was much easier.

07/06

In this section I explain how players can control Nikodem. It is pretty straightforward, as most of modern games share the same controls.

In this section I write who would be my audience. I explain who would play my game and why I think those groups would do so.

In this section I explain how my game is different from the existing games.

08/06

I have finished filling all sections in the required document. Having one more week before the deadline, I have decided to make my drawings even better by colouring them.

Colouring

Picture in colour.

Picture in colour with 3Dshading.

13/06

Those images were created by scanning my drawings and then editing them in Photoshop. In order to colour them I had to set my drawings' layers to Multiply, which allowed me to colour it without drawing on line work. Each colour was put in a different layer in order to allow me to edit it more easily.

I chose those colours for a specific reason. I decided to use read and dark with white elements to empathise on how sinister Evil G.Enius is; dark colours are associated with evil, red with blood and pain, while white is purely to create some contrast.

I have also used neutral tones of green, yellow and blue to match colours chosen for the robot.

14/06

Another Boss Fight. I decided to use much darker tones for this piece in order to show that Evil G.Enius is much more powerful and dangerous in this one. I decided to use only one colour for the main elements (platforms, robot, Nikodem, crystals) to allow players to easily distinguish them from the dark background. I think that his piece looks really comic-like and I like it.

This picture was created by use of three base layers of robot - by using three identical layers with the multiply effect I was able to make contours bold and darker. Three layers were created - for the robot, background and other objects. I decided to use this number of layers in order to be able to edit them with ease.