After
what has felt like an eternity, we are finally beginning work on our Senior
Studio projects. I've always enjoyed starting new projects because nothing has
been solidified yet. I have a fresh block of clay to mold into whatever I
desire (to a certain extent). The Senior Studio project that I am apart of is a
multi-player isometric dungeon crawler called The Grind. However The Grind
doesn't take itself quite as serious as many games of the genre. In fact The Grind is a parody of the RPG/dungeon
crawler genre, with which the goal is to reach level 10 before the other players.
Players will be competing with each other to land the killing blow on an enemy
so they can get the most experience. While players will be competing with one another they do not directly fight each other. Instead players use items to wreck havoc on one another, such as inverting controls for a short period. Some situations may require the players to temporarily work together such as if a boss monster
were to show up. The Grind is intended to be a party game, where friends can
cause mayhem on each other in one sitting. Each time through the players will
have a different experience as levels and spawns are randomized.
When I
took the role of Art Director on The
Grind I knew instantly we'd need to have the art style add to the comedic
tones of the game. For example ultra realism wouldn't quite fit here. It
wouldn't be very cohesive to the game play. This led to a whole bunch of
research. I found inspiration from all kinds of media. Be it from film,
illustrations, paintings, and of course other games. I cannot stress the importance of looking into other media for inspiration. Our most influential pieces of inspiration came from illustrations and paintings. It would be hard to create a truly memorable art style if you only look at what games have already done.
The one game that stood
out to me, which had an art style that aided the comedic elements of the game
all the while creating a visually stunning world was Lionhead Studio's Fable. Fable had a very charming fairy tale art style, all the while lambasting the player with crude humor, but it didn't feel out of place.It had a very consistent art style, which helped make the world so memorable.
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| Concept exploring disproportion |
I was also
heavily inspired by the Don Quixote illustrations of
Gustave Dore. The element from these illustrations that stood out to me was the
comically disproportioned characters. In most RPG's the main character is the
ideal hero with a chiseled physique. By using exaggerated proportions we can
continue to poke fun at the RPG along with creating both humorous and memorable
characters. Another inspiration from traditional media were several Arthurian
paintings. All of these paintings had vibrant landscape backdrops with
idealistic characters cast in heroic poses. Inspired by these paintings our
team decided that for The Grind we will
emulate the classic fantasy illustrations. These paintings were possibly the
biggest inspiration for us as it not only cemented the basis for our art style
but also influenced the game narrative which had been barren up to that point. Armed with a rough idea for a theme we then set off to define it with concept art.This led to a little issue that was briefly mentioned before: consistency. Next week I will delve further into this topic.
-James
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