Sep 1, 2021
Experimenting with some layouts for the Cheat Codes page and some scribbles working stuff out
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Experimenting with some layouts for the Cheat Codes page and some scribbles working stuff out
Had a chat with the table group- Sammy suggested this toggle feature to reveal the “simplified” or the paradaxian version of radicalisation
Character Select screen
I have managed to skate by in this design degree not being capable of drawing (in hindsight classifying my 2nd year illustration elective with Donald as a whoops). Fortunately in this case I just used some DnD character creation software (HeroForge) and based the characters that a player could choose from off that.
I originally had a bash at doing just straight lines and fills, taking inspiration from more of the 90s comic book arcade games (XMen- Children of the Atom specifically)- but it looked trash. (top right)
Switched to pixel style renders (middle left) + just a cursed image that happened that I thought was worth documenting (middle right)
Potential layouts for the character select screen (bottom)
Bambang- pirate (mermaid/ water adventure) Hector- knight (goblin/land based adventure)
Important Discoveries while doing initials for the Devil’s Advocate feature A- I can just use mosaic in After Effects to get pixelation in a pinch (to use in combination with CRT) see left
B- CRT (cathode-ray tube, not critical race theory) or what gave old monitors that very specific look I can also do in After Effects, which can lend more to the arcade look. However, something I was still toying with, doing more line based illustration (to line up with circled style stuff for the text I had planned for in lvl 2) did NOT work with the CRT effect (again in hindsight that should have been obvious, but crystal clear now) so that sort of style was canned. (see right).
Thinning the herd down- I liked this Defender style one, tried it out with some more traditional fantasy colours (and then just some others for fun).
In the end it just looks a little too Marvely/actiony/adventure/ Indiana Jones for the vibes I’m wanting (a little more fantasy). The one I also liked before (lucky 6) got culled too- didn't perform well when scaled down small for lvl2.
Had this concept from wk5ish (top)- the font in hindsight was an atrocious choice, but I liked the idea of the bigger X (and its adventure connotations). Tried mashups with other concepts I liked but looked like more of a dead end than it was worth.
Last attempt was with the Mortal Kombat style font- but ultimately the X became too heavy handed and threw the balance off
Trying them out with how they might look as a start screen
Top right- conveyed the right vibes, but looks too much like Stranger Things-
added in the 80′s gradient style to the font to try and distance the Stranger Things vibes but the serifs of the font clashed with the emboss back.
Adding in a CRT style layer, bottom right looks more promising.
A lot of the arcade game logos were just 80s style text so had a bash at some of those- [metallic] gradients.
^ here are some of the rejects (& why)
1st- too golden, is just not gamey enough. 2nd- a bit Mojave desert- not that gamey. 3rd- adventure vibes, but leans a bit too much into Schwarzenegger 4th- the font is too scifi > which led me to 5th- I followed a 80′s logo tutorial which used the grey back emboss, but I didn’t like it > 6th- replaced the grey back with a purple- makes the gradient pop a little more
The 6th one I think has potential
- the ones below were just me messing around doing some warmup stuff, getting overly attached to the glow effect for a solid 5 mins.