Posting the final product before the concepts because I CAN
(actually, it’s because the photos are more easily accessible but I digress...)
Dragon Labyrinth is a game I created earlier this year during my second-year at AIE. We had to create a game for a “client” (and by “client” I mean our teacher and whichever poor soul he managed to drag into pretending to be a client for us). When it came to be my turn, he had gathered some volunteers from graduate students who like to pop in from time to time to see how the next generations of game students are going. (Okay they’re actually more 3rd-year students, but they just don’t get taught in the building, they work in a building about a street over and get mentored rather than actually have classes like us, but we call them graduates anyway because they've technically graduated. The third year is a “graduate program” and I am getting off topic...)
As I was saying, it was my turn to talk to my clients. Before the meeting, we all picked from a list of prompts and created a game idea to pitch. They would act like real clients, asking us questions and testing us on how well we spoke with them. Checking the scope of our games and seeing just how well we are able to say “no” because if they start asking for more and more, you need to know your limits and when to tell your client no.
From the list of ideas, I chose to create a Turn-Base Game. This morphed into a Dungeon Crawler/Multiplayer digital and board game. I decided to create a digital version, and a board game version because I didn’t have strong hopes in my programming abilities. We only had 5 weeks to create the game (same time span as the Happy Haunts game I created previously to this), and I struggled to get the programming in that game working let alone this multiplayer/turn-based game I came up with. But I knew I could finish a board game.
I did really well in my pitch meeting, I had a strong idea of what the game and it’s finished product would look like, I told my clients that I doubted I would be able to finish the digital version of the game, and would probably focus my efforts on the board game, and they were eager to see what I would do. I spoke clearly and didn’t fall into the trap of saying yes to the client all the time. Things were looking good :D
I’ll go more into the creation of the game another time, but for now, enjoy some pictures of the finished product and a link to the instructions. I wasn’t able to test the game as much as I would have liked (I still haven’t even finished playing through the game completely yet), so the instructions are likely to change if I ever continued this game in the future. But aside from that, I hope you enjoy!
(All the art was done by me this time (except the boss/enemy drawings, those two were my twin’s))
Concepts for Happy the Dog from my Happy Haunts Game^
I drew these to help me figure out what our main doggo should look like. He needed to be simple to draw because of his animations, but still a cute and lovable pupper (plus his design would need to work as a ghost).
I went with my first choices because I liked them the best. Fun fact, the first two coloured dogs in the line-up are my dogs Barky Pants, and Jade (they’re both Kelpies).
Happy’s design and final lineless style were inspired by Bolt from the Disney Movie, specifically the end credits which are this adorable lineless style I love.
Sourpuss the Vampire Cat took me a while to get his colours right, so long in fact that I enlisted my twin’s help. I drew the top three images of him, but Annabelle my twin drew the rest. We initially loved the second coloured option for him, this white and striped vampire cat, but the problem was that it was too similar in colour to Happy, so they would merge together if they were next to each other (this being a lineless style). We tried a few other options but finally decided that a dark colour would work best against Happy’s white coat. But I didn’t want to go with black because that was too dark, and slightly cliche when it comes to vampires. We finally settled on a dark blue, the only issue this brought up was his cape’s red colour. Literally, nothing was working out, either it looked too bright or merged with his coat too much. The final version is slightly different than the original red we started with, but we thought it worked much better with his colours.
I also edited his patterns when I made the lineless style. Some lineless styles, people will draw lines to help distinguish features, but I didn’t want to do that, I wanted to make his features and colours as simple as possible so that it would be easier when animating him (which we never got around to but I digress). This is why his tail and far-legs are a solid colour, it helps to tell them apart from the body and other legs.
Final designs of Happy and Sourpuss^ (Annabelle drew them, but I coloured them)
I love neon coloured ghosts, so I had to do it here :D
Look at this^^ Look at all the cool team-based mechanics they have! Some of them I guessed they might have like the slip-stream giving you a boost, but they have other things like the skim boost to help your teammates in case they get hit and slow down. And you can swap items if they need some help to catch up! There’s more but all of these would be great if you play with inexperienced players, nobody likes being last all the time, and this would help them get back in the game more. I can’t wait to play this with my twin, there were so few co-op games where we could work together, growing up. I mean I’m sure some existed, but none that were available to us at the time. Still hoping for a Sonic, Shadow and Silver team!
LINK to a video of my second-year game; Happy Haunts.
This game I made by myself, with dog sprites done by my twin; Annabelle. (other art assets came from stock images and whatever was on my computer that worked for the level)
Happy Haunts is a game about a cute little dog called Happy who died when he was literally scared to death and now spends his afterlife looking for the Vampire cat who scared him.
This game came about when I was looking through royalty free music and found a cute spooky little tune that was titled ‘Happy Haunts’. I instantly envisioned a 2D sidescroller game about a ghost called Happy, which then became a ghost dog because the name Happy suits a dog more.
It was at this point when I realised what I had done..
You see, my teacher LOVES dogs, and he was joking with the class one day; about how movies that kill off the dog are the worst, and anyone who kills off a dog in their game will get an automatic fail. At the time I was like, ‘Well that’s easy, just don’t kill the dog, or even have a dog to begin with’. AND WHAT DID I DO????? THE ONE THING HE SAID NOT TO DO, AND I DO THE THING.
But I liked the idea too much to change it and got to work on my pitch. Originally I debated having a car run the dog over (off-screen), but I had targeted my game at kids and thought that could be too real or close to home for some of them. Getting scared to death has more of a cartoony feel to it, and then he comes back as a ghost doggo so I felt it wouldn’t be as bad. I liked the idea of a cat being his antagonist, and just instantly jumped to ‘vampire cat’. I named him Sourpuss.
Well, the pitch went off without a hitch! Showed the teacher my concepts, the ideas for my game, mechanics and story. He was upset when I told him the dog dies, but he was slightly won-over since he came back as a ghost. (Haha, I asked him if I automatically fail, he said not yet, but I was teetering!).
I was able to make the game and started work on Happy Haunts. I had a few setbacks since I struggled to program some of the mechanics, and things didn’t turn out exactly like I had envisioned - I had to change a few things just so I could finish it on time - but all in all, it turned out well! My teacher even liked the end product so much he said it gave him nostalgia for when he used to play The Lion King on the Sega Megadrive when he was younger!
I really enjoyed making this game, and I still really like the idea and hope to even complete it in the future.
Whaaa? I hear you saying? Or maybe you’re saying Duh because you already knew this.. Either way, I’m here to tell you why I like to use Pinterest to help me concept game ideas.
Now Pinterest does have its problems, the main one being that it is atrocious about sourcing it’s images, but aside from that what it’s really good at, is creating mood boards.
I find it helpful when I’m planning out the look/tone/and feel of a game to create mood boards on Pinterest. This just means finding any and all images that you feel fit and suit your game and compiling them into one place.
The Pinterest board I created above^ is for a game I made in class called Dragon Labyrinth. It was a dungeon crawler board game where you played as dragons trying to reach the end and claim all the gold for your team. I was struggling to figure out a good style or look for the game and characters, and since it was aimed at kids, I decided to start there. Looking at games aimed at kids like Pokemon, and looking at dragon designs from things like How to train your Dragon, or Spyro.
It also helped me when it came to designing the game board. Looking at real-life caves got me thinking about underwater cave networks, glowing crystals, lava, or waterfalls. And the concept art I found gave me a better idea of how I could draw my own game board.
Doing all this helped me out, so maybe it’ll help you too.
Team Sonic Racing was announced at E3! I’m excited for this, apparently it’s going to have a story mode, and you can customize your own teams :DDDD I really hope Silver is in the game, then you could have Sonic, Shadow and Silver in team together and I think that’d be amazing.
I never played the original Sega All Star Racing, but I did play Transformed and I LOVED it! I’ll have to make a post about it sometime, for now I’m going to be gushing over this. Little bit sad that this game doesn’t have transforming vehicles in it, but I’m curious about the team based mechanics and want to find out more of what it’s like.
Concepts and final designs for Travesty Carnival characters.
These were all drawn by my twin; Annabelle Potts, though I helped with some of the colours because I had a very specific idea of what kind of palette was in my game. More concepts for the Carnie Characters can be found in another post of mine: Initial Character Concepts
And here we have the final designs of The Ring Leader, The Ticket Master, Slacksly, and the Haunted House Ghost, as they appeared in game.
The Carnival as a whole has a red/yellow/black colour scheme, and the Ring Leader follows this with his red/yellow and black ensemble. His jacket is a muted red colour because it reflects the carnival; it’s basically abandoned (aside from the robots still milling about), and isn’t as bright and vibrant as it once was, just like him. The metal on his face is also a dull green rather than like a silver or steel colour because green contrasts red better on the colour spectrum. Plus it adds to that oldish feel that everything has since he’s not shiny and new anymore. All his dull colours help to make his eyes pop out and draw you to them.
Went for a more yellowish tone for The Ticket Master’s metal. We did try a darker bronze look, but this yellow helps make him feel more sepia like in old movie films.The red and blue add a bit of colour and the pink ticket stands out more since it’s the only bit of bright colour on him.
Slacksly I had a very good idea of exactly what colour palette I wanted to give him. Very sepia, with dark red; almost purpleish maroon accents on his tie and hat. Plus a darker, kind of dirty brown for his metal, like he gets dirt on it or scuffed and does nothing to fix it.
And finally the ghost. The Haunted House is the complete opposite of the rest of the Carnival when it comes to colours. Bright blinding neon reds, greens, blues and purples cover the building, and the ghosts follow suit. This ghost is more covered in shadows than anything, but he’s accompanied by a bright cyan light. His blue contrasts the Carnival’s reds.
The animation is beautiful and lovely to watch. Nobody talks so it uses slapstick and their expressions for the comedy, and it’s a series which means there is more of them!
I’m eager to see where it goes, apparently it starts right where Classic Sonic in Sonic Forces left off; teleporting back to his home dimension. Plus old characters like Metal Sonic, Mighty the Armadillo, and Ray the Flying Squirrel return.
Go take a break for a few minutes and enjoy Sonic Mania Adventures!
LINK to a video of my first-year game; Rogue Islands
Rogue Islands is another game project from our first year at AIE.
It was our first group project with the other classes, so we teamed up with Designers, Artists, and Programmers to make a game.
Annabelle (my twin) pitched her idea to the group; a game of pirates and ship battles. She had been planning this idea in preparation for the group projects and had been working on this animatic for the game during the 'storyboarding' segment of her Game Art work. In the end, the group liked it and decided to go with it.
This animatic was created to be like a trailer for the game, but we never went any further with this animatic because it was too long and felt like it kept stopping and starting too much.
In Rogue Islands, you play as a hyena who is the Captain of the pirate ship ‘The Giddy Dodger’. The game was going to have both ship battles and land battles, but given our short time frame, we decided to just stick with the ship battles.
One of the ideas for the game was that all the islands were actually monsters (like in the animated Sinbad movie), which is where the name came from: Rogue Islands.
Created by aheartfulofgames and published by Badland Games
Their Original Kickstarter Page:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1597522957/heartandslash
Their Twitter: https://twitter.com/HeartnSlash?lang=en
Heart & Slash is a 3D brawler/roguelike in a pixelated world, with procedurally generated rooms, and perma-death.
And I wholeheartedly recommend it! (haha)
(more under the cut)
When I first saw this game, it was as a PS4 game on the shelf at my local EB Games, and I was immediately taken by the game art. The pixel art style, and the designs of the characters themselves sold me before I even knew what it was about.
My first thought was that it was probably an indie game (and low and behold I was right!) This is because I hadn’t heard of the game before; either through ads, or word of mouth, and because I doubted any of the bigger companies would go the style route that this game did.
I have a weak spot for ideas, ones that make me think or get me excited, and the idea of these two characters interacting was probably the main reason I got the game in the end.
Heart; an adorable robot with a heart motif suckered me in quick with his cute design and this overall innocent feel he had to him.
Slash; an angsty robot with spikes all over his body was icing on the cake because he’s this cool dark and dangerous character, and I just really wanted to see these two opposites interact.
After reading the description for the game I was a little uncertain...
This game had permadeath, which means every time you die, you go back to the beginning and start again (achievements, and story progression are saved, but you just have to fight through the beginning rooms again).
I have a major issue with repetition in games, it’s why I struggle to play first person shooters, or grinding games. I just get really bored or tired of doing the same thing over and over again, and this game was nothing but doing the same thing over and over again.
But I was still taken by the art and characters and decided to buy it anyway!
(Heart&Slash Launch Trailer)
Imagine my surprise when I found myself actually enjoying the game and eager to play more!
Heart&Slash has this great flow effect to it, it managed to get me in a state where I didn’t mind repeatedly fighting robots in room after room. Any XP I earned stayed with me each time I died which made upgrading my character or weapons easier, and the wide variety of weapons you can unlock made it fun to try each of them out as you stumbled upon them.
The main reason however that I continued to play it, was exactly the reason I bought the game in the first place; Heart and Slash’s interactions!
I love these two, I think of them as brothers and I’m excited each time I see them on screen, even though Slash doesn’t like Heart that much at the beginning.
I haven’t completed the game, but from what I’ve played I found it very enjoyable. There are a few bugs here and there; I got stuck jumping and had to start over (but restarting’s part of the game at least) and I nearly had a heart attack once when I almost jumped out of the world, I landed in the sewers luckily but still, I had some good weapons on me and didn’t want to restart just yet.
Overall I love this game and I can’t wait to defeat QuAsSy!
He started human because that’s what I assumed the Ring Leader would be, but my twin was having annoying time trying to draw a human that didn’t end up looking like Snidely Whiplash. So she tried robots and it worked!
This page was filled trying to figure out his clothes and his look. (Should he have a Hat-face/ or no hat-face. Four limbs or perhaps a Broken limb/etc..).
Also, the first concept of Ticket Master! He worked out so well, his design didn't change.
More of The Ring Leader! We were mainly deciding on whether he should have a hat face or not. We ended up choosing the hat-face because it gave him more of a unique design from the usual Ring Leader trope.
The top bit there was an idea for an idle animation for The Ring Leader: have him tapping his foot while swirling his cane.
Plus a little idle animation idea for Ticket Master: he would tip his hat while a ticket flicks in and out of his chest.
Concepts for ghosts in the Haunted House; different takes on the bed sheet ghost. (deciding between silly or scary).
And finalizing Ring Leader's design and whole look.
These are concepts for trapeze artists but they were never finalized because they just never worked quite right with the style of the other characters.
Plus concepts for Wilbur the clown. We had the idea that his head could rotate to show when he's happy or sad, however his sad face never seemed to work. We were also having trouble figuring out what kind of legs to give him.
More Wilbur concepts, making him a 'jack-in-the-box' kind of a robot. (not shown, but he has three wheels on the bottom of his box like a 'Reliant Robin' car. This added to his ‘clown’ factor because trying to wheel around on three wheels while your upper torso is a spring coil would be near impossible and funny). He's the one who usually fixes the power box in the game when it acts up, however he's recently broken down and no one can fix him. You; the player would explore the Carnival and eventually come across his body, and fix him during a mini game.
Concepts for Fortune Teller. Her head is a round TV screen (inspired by crystal balls and those rounded “Eyeball” tvs from the 60s) and would display distorted visions on it when she tells the future.
Finalized image of the Fortune Teller.
Concepts of Slacksly (one of my personal favourite characters aside from the Ring Leader himself). He’s basically the epitome of a sleazy game tent operator. His name is derived from 'slacker' and he lives up to it.
When I was thinking up a name for him, I thought something along the lines of Slacker would be good because it describes him so well. My first thought was Slackster, but I didn’t like the sound of that much, I felt like having a Y sound at the end would work better, but there was no way I was going to call him Slacky. So I kind of combined Slackster and Slacky and ended up with Slacksly! Suits him so much more than before.
More concepts of the trapeze artist, but they’re still not working.
And the first concepts for Lion.
More Lion concepts. Tried to incorporate a crown into his design, but eventually tried a more humanoid design.
More Lion concepts. Decided to continued with the humanoid design, but struggled with the design of the legs. He’s meant to look lionish, but also robotic, and intimidating (which he sometimes lost due to his legs looking odd).
We had the idea that the lion could have been responsible for the Creator's death in this story, which is why he stays in the lion cage all the time now. (When asked why he did it, his reasoning was that "It's my nature." Like the scorpion from the tale of the Scorpion and the Frog).
His design is also inspired by a Sphinx, which is why he has a human face and animal body. We also had the idea that he could be a sort of hint system for the player. You could talk to him what you needed to do next or where to go, but he would only speak in riddles, and figuring out those riddles would help you in the game.
Just a little character stuff; but he also doesn't like The Ring Leader too much. This is because the Ring Leader is also the Lion Tamer, so they used to have an act together, and the lion wasn't too happy about it.
Just finalizing the Lion's design, and more concepts for possible ghosts in the Haunted House.
While working on Travesty Carnival in my first year at AIE, I needed to write out all the dialogue options that could happen during the game. Some of what I wrote didn’t get put in the final product because of time constraints (I spent quite a lot of time working on programming the light box and creating the world of the carnival). But I thought it might be interesting or helpful for others to see how I went about it.
(I wrote it in notepad at the time because I didn’t want to get distracted with formatting stuff in Word; trying to make it look “pretty” and all that).
Start -> Walk in dark forest, Ticket Master waves you over.
TM: "Hey you! Yeah, you. Be my arms would ya and reach that PowerBox behind ya.
The damn thing's reset itself."
You:
Option1-> "What the heck are you supposed to be?"
TM: "Rude kid, I'm not a "WHAT". I'm a "WHO".
And that WHO just happens to be...
The Ticket Master!
I practically run the joint with everything I do.
However things have hit a snag thanks to this powerbox acting up..
-> "What do I do?"
TM: "Well you gotta open it for one thing."
*Open Powerbox*
Option2-> "Um, okay I guess."
TM: "Then hop to it, I haven't got all night."
*Open PowerBox*
TM: "Now what you gotta do is flip the switches so that all the lights turn on. Easy."
*Flips either 1,3,4,5, or 6* (a random light turns on)
You: "What?"
TM: "Right, I forgot about that...
But I'm sure you'll figure it out, you look like a smart kid."
(above text only happens once)
*Solve Puzzle*
TM: "Hah! You actually did it! You turned on the Carnival Lights!"
"I'm indepted to ya for the help. Here, take this FREE PASS
and enjoy the Carnival while we're setting up for the show tomorrow."
*Take FREE PASS*
TM: "Go on, scaddaddle."
(the following dialogue options appear right after the above text)
You:
(This option only appears if Player chose OP2 before):
OP1-> "What the heck are you supposed to be?"
TM: "Rude kid, I'm not a "WHAT". I'm a "WHO".
And that WHO just happens to be...
The Ticket Master!
I practically run the joint with everything I do.
And thanks to you things look to be back on track."
OP2-> "What's there to do?"
TM: "Well there's always the Game Tents,
I'm not sure if the rides are safe yet after that blackout,
but there's plenty of people to see if you're looking for something to do.
Heck, speak to the Ringleader over at the Big Top and he might even give you a job!
Otherwise the Carnival Grounds are yours to explore.
Any further interaction at the entrance ticket booth:
TM: "I'll see you around kid!" and then he disappears.
Any interaction at other ticket booths:
(Random (and can't answer him back)):
"Spoken to the Ringleader yet?"
"How were the games kid? "
"Finding your way around are ya? "
etc..
*Goes to Game Tents*
(Interacts with Slacksly)
SLY: "I'm on my break, what do you want kid?"
You:
OP1-> "Who are you?"
SLY: "Slacksly, don't bother introducing yourself, I don't care.
What are you doing here though, you didn't sneak in without paying did you?"
->You: *Shows Free Pass"
SLY: "For the love of-! Hows a man supposed to make a living with that idiot handing out Free Passes?!
I'll show him a piece of my mind, that's what I'll do.
After my break."
OP2-> "What's there to do?"
SLY: "Scram that's what."
TM: "What was that Slacksly?"
SLY: *groans* "I mean-
(dripping sarcasm) Why not try one of our fun and definitely not rigged Carnival games!
Beat the high-score and 'maybe' I'll give you a prize."
(shows up after OP2 has been selected)
OP3:-> "I want to play a different game."
SLY: "Listen kid, I am on my break.
I am not walking around to every game tent to set them up just for you.
Either you play this one, or none."
(Interacts with the Game Tent)
SLY: "Okay kid, listen up cause I'll only say this once.
Click the Left Mouse Button to shoot the cannon, use the mouse to aim,
And hit the targets as they come to get a highscore.
If your CannonBall misses a target, you lose a life, you've only got 5 of those.
If you decide you've had enough, click the X button in the top left.
Got all that, Good.
(Once all 3 Options have been used, any further interaction with Slacksly:)
SLY: "Either play the game or buzz off kid."
(no further interaction)
*Goes to Circus Tent*
(Interact with RingLeader)
RL: (mumbles): "First Porticia, then Armstrong, or perhaps Wilbur.. No no, he's ill. Then..
Hmm? Someone new? Or are you one of Porticia's?"
->You: "Who's Porticia?”
RL: "Not one of her's then. She's a Trapeze Artist.
What can I do for you?"
You:
OP1-> "You're the RingLeader?"
RL: "Yeppers! I run this Carnival and you must be here for the big show tomorrow.
"you're a little early, but I won't fault your eagerness.
So head on home and come back tomorrow."
->You: *Shows FREE PASS*
RL: "Oh what's this? A 'Free Pass'?
Well no problem then! Enjoy the Carnival!"
OP2-> "What show?"
RL: "You're going to love it, I'm planning the order of the acts right now.
There's Porticia, as you know. Armstrong the Strong Man.
Myself as both the Ringleader and the Lion Tamer.
And I'm hoping to get Slacksly to do his juggling act, somehow...
Wilbur our clown would, but he's feeling a little unwell unfortunately.
OP3-> "I want to join the Carnival."
RL: "Really? What can you do?"
->You: "I fixed the powerbox.."
RL: "OH So you're the little "ragamuffin" The Ticket Master was telling me about.
Haha thank you for that, we were in a bit of a pickle before weren't we.
Though I'm not sure what help you'll be around here if you don't have an act
you can do for the show."
*SUDDEN EXPLOSION*
RL: "What the??!! What was that?!"
...
"Oh. oh no.. Looks like that came from the.. Haunted House.."
*looks at you*
"RL: "Good news! You can join the Carnival!
You'll be our Official.. Fixer.. Person. Yeah!
Go fix whatever caused that explosion.
I-I would go see whatever caused it myself, but you know
The RingLeader's a busy person, gotta.. Ring.. Lead...
...
Good luck!"
*Goes to Haunted House*
(Ticket Master is out front of it in his ticketbooth, looking worried)
->You: "What happened?"
TM: One of the Animatronic Spiders malfunctioned.
What are you doing here?
->You: "The RingLeader sent me to fix this."
TM: "Well you're going to have to go in the Haunted House,
That spider fell down the chimney."
*Tries front door*
-[LOCKED] Find another way inside.
*Tries cellar door*
*Enters cellar*
-Reach the Kitchen
*Builds stairs out of boxes into the kitchen*
*Finds animatronic spider*
-Mend Animatronic Spider*complete spider mini game*
*sound of pots and pans falling on the floor*
Camera turns around
Ghost appears
Flies into you
Screen goes black
[TITLE OF GAME] fades in
[Thanks for playing] fades in under it
~The End~
It didn’t stay exactly like this in the final game, like the ending changed a bit. But it’s pretty close! There was some stuff I added in there to get around things I wasn’t able to do in the game. Like due to time constraints I wasn’t able to make it possible to ride any of the rides like the carousel or Ferris wheel, so I wrote into the story that because of the blackout you just fixed, the rides might not be “safe” to ride. It’s plausible within the story and an easy fix!
I did the same thing with the game tents. I wasn’t able to make more than one (kind of) working mini game, so I had Slacksly the game tent operator complain about being on break and not wanting to set up the other game tents. Again a plausible and easy fix! If I did make a fully complete version of this game with an actual ending and everything, my idea was that as the game progressed, more and more game tents would eventually be set up as Slacksly finally got around to setting them up. Just thought it would be funny :D
Travesty Carnival was a game I made in my first year at AIE. We were tasked with making a game with a Narrative. Previous to this segment we had been learning how to use Unity and Maya to create a game world, and I had decided to create a carnival, I used this carnival as the basis for my Narrative story.
Below are videos of the final product; with a world, mechanics, and story by me. My twin drew the character art however, I’ll post her sketches and concepts another time though
. This game was a learning experience. I had never used any of these programs before starting this course at AIE, and everything in this game I made myself (excluding stuff like the audio and character art and some of the more difficult programming). I don't have any intentions to continue this game right now, but I might in the future.
A runaway finds a Carnival run by robots and helps out around the place so that he can join them. But strange things are going on in the Carnival, and questions start to arise...
