[DevLog] Battle Snooker (Working Title)

[I_smell]

 

New character! Freezer units:



Freezer Unit:

• Pauses opponent units
• Slows down the match, makes a match take longer
• Allows other units to overtake paused opponents
• Nullifies traps
• Does very little damage
• You cannot win a match with this unit alone

This one actually boosted straight ahead in the beginning, and then staggered a bit toward the end.
I had a strong idea of what I wanted this character to be, and he’s basically a depressant. He’s 25 acting like he’s still 18. He’s slowed down and paused his life. Judges everyone else for settling down, getting a mortgage, having kids- why would you?? Slow down, relax, what’s the rush? What’s the problem? Get off my back, I just do what I wanna do, we wanna get loaded, and we wanna have a good time, and that’s what we’re gonna do. etc.



In my first couple concepts it looked a bit too much like I was employing the archetype of a jock or a bro or a frat boy, but that’s not exactly what I’m going for. This character shouldn’t be arrogant as an effect of confidence, he should only ever appear arrogant as a defense. We’ve all procrastinated and it’s not something you’re typically proud of, it’s a weakness.



A couple things I liked on this character:
Puppy fat, neck-beard, typical of a coddled dropout
Low-maintenance haircut, or possibly high-maintenance, bad haircut
A heavy, long, Silent-Bob coat; looks defensive, makes a person look sedimentary… I was trying to find things that teenagers would find cool, but then would look bad or dumb on an adult. That’s why he has that facial hair as well.



In that vein, I started looking at overgrown teenagers like Liam Gallagher or Kid Rock or Jason Mewes for inspiration. I also looked at some college metalheads. It was good to look at those styles, but I wanted to make a character who was not a cool rockstar himself. Just another delinquent who fancies himself a rebel.
It sounds like I dislike this type of person, but of course he has a lot of charm and is probably a nice guy on the inside. Any douchebag vibes he’s putting out are just a misguided defense.
Same as with the previous character, I had to rein this guy in and bring him closer to the homogenized atmosphere of the game itself at the end.

I still dislike a couple things about the final design. I hate props, and I don’t want characters to be defined by props. It’s cheating and it’s too on-the-nose. I’m dieing to remove them, but I was just struggling to draw another pose I liked. This was pose #18 and I’m making this game for 3 hours at a time on Saturdays. Ya gotta keep it movin’ at some point. Hopefully I’ll get to revise it later.

[I_smell]

I took a break from concepting characters to actually draw some final-ass in-game artwork:

 

 

I HOPE I translated everything perfectly from the concept art to the final render. I really hope nothing got lost there!

 

 

Very high-res! I've made a computer game before, I know where this is going.

 

This achieves some of the things I wanted for my real, in-game character artwork. It's quite soft, it's nicely lit, it's shaded but still very colourful, it holds up small and large...

I'm a bit anxious about how gross it is. I do want these specific characters to be grimey, unfortunate punks, but I do not want to evoke a raw, Ren & Stimpy, overly-textured look. How am I doin'?

I should be focusing on what's best for the game, but a big part of me just wants to make my most nicest, high-res, high-detail artwork ever. I wanna stretch those muscles that sit still all day while I'm coding back-end controller support at work-- but maybe that's sabotaging the OUTPUT I want for this game.
Maybe? Maybe it's fine. Who knows.

 

Here are some extra sketches where I'm bouncing around ideas for the final-artwork Level Select:

 

Concept 1 is a space theme... That's because I'm just thinking about the end of the single-player campaign a lot. It ends in space, so I want a fun reveal for this one funny moment... but all in all that's a bad choice. The game is not a space game, and in-fact it can feel kind of relaxing to play. A dark colour-scheme is a poor fit, this isn't a hardcore game like DOTA or STARCRAFT. I started with a smooth, sandy-wooden colour scheme and I should stay there. That's the game's identity.
 

Concept 2 is closer to the original. I wanted to evoke an old adventure map. The game's identity lives in a vintage 60s and 70s, so I want to stay there. I want to somehow evoke an old wooden globe, or a liquor cabinet, or a gentleman's bar and a pool table. The atmosphere of the game should codify an earth where grand-scale decisions get made on snooker matches.

 

These level-select concepts were very quick, because I am doing this after a full work day and it's giving me friggin carpal tunnel to still sit at my desk.
I'll come back to it later this week, and also I still have a couple characters to finish concepting.

 

[Henke]

Looking good! 

[I_smell]

This is my current mock-up. Is the background too distracting? Hope not.

 

I was really happy to find some reference art of antique maps and old nautical diagrams:

 

The thing that's a shame is; I'm dying to FRAME this globe somehow, like you can see above. I think a spherical globe grinding around in an ornate wooden home is really nice.

What's stopping me is this idea of what happens at the end of the game... AGAIN! I just want to slowly build up to a giant ball being built on some continent or another, and you blast it off at a meteor to defend the Earth. So in order to do that, I need the globe to be hanging free, un-tethered, so you can orbit around and SEE that final level coming up. So do I go with one, or the other?

 

The plot events of the single-player campaign aren't really a high priority, so it seems dumb to let that dictate a decision so far-reaching as the Level Select and Lobby interface.

On the other hand, it did take me a lot of different sketches to get to a nice, unobtrusive, low-contrast background. So maybe it's actually nice that I'm not adding these stupid opulent decoration pieces. Maybe a few lines and numbers is already plenty and I'm finished.

 

Oh well I'll give up and pick a final design soon. I WISH I had the last couple characters fully designed and some good final art for the whole cast by now; but this is how it is when you're building a game on weekends. I made about 10 mock-ups of an interface and now that's my work done until next week! Very demotivating, but that's how it is.

[plasticflesh]

This is a fabulous development progress, thank you for sharing. Really excellent flat desaturated color palette. The gradient technique for effects animation is very clever. And I really enjoy the character design progress. Amazing work!

[Travis]

I am liking your finalized character renditions there. Definitely a lot of detail, but not too much. Has a differentiated style to it all, which is nice!