so my first impression were on fire. i was very quick to come up with the video game concept and story. i was sure i wanted a cast of four members.
i want each of the members to represent a sport and that be a weapon for them.
the main character having a baseball bat, another being a tennis racket and so on.
my idea is that an alien race essential comes to earth and kills most of the people on the planet in search fort he emotion of empathy. i want it to be slight in the future as i feel like empathy is A TOUGH EMOTION TO COME BY THESE DAYS, I WANT THIS ALIEN RACE TO HAVE NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE AND WANT TO WEAPONIZE IT BECAUSE THEY ASSUME IT WILL BE POWERFUL. IN THE MIDS OF TRYING TO DEFEND HEERSELF, THE MAIN CHARACTER MIMIE, HITS AN ALIEN WITH HEER BASEEBALL AND FINDS OUT THAT SPORTS GEAR ARE THE ONLY THINGS THESE ALIENS ARE WEAK TO, SETTING UP THE FIGHTING SYSTEM. MORE SO I THINK THE JORNEY WILL COME BY HER LITTLE SISTER, THE ONLY HUMAN LEFT WITH A HUGE AMOUNT OF EMPATHY, GETS KIDNAPPED BY THE MAIN TWO EVIL BEINGS, AND THJE CAST NEED TO GET HER BACK TO SAFETY.
THATS THE BASIC OVERVIEW OF THE STORYS QUEST.
STYLE IDEAS:
I WANT THE GAMEPLAY TO REVOLVE AROUND AN RPG, SO OUTSIDE OF CONVERSATIUON MOMENTS WHICH WOULD USE FULL DETAILED PROFILES OF THE CHARACTERS, THE MAIN DESIGNS WILL BE IN PIXEL ART.
inspiration from my own art books that i own!
final fantasy 7
genshin impact
devil may cry
super Mario odyssey
the games art books i own are all from vastly different games and what I've learnt from them is there is no one way to go about a games art book, its simply displayed how the artists see best and see fit. they can put in as much art as they want or as little, as some books have a lot of concept art and some dont.
video games that use the top down 8-bit type play style i would use as inspiration
Omori open world design
(omori?? used as inspiration for my project?? what?? no way????? I'm so surprised!!)
i may not be able to reference this game enough, its safe to say it changed my life and how much i care about games in general. however the art style is so brilliant that it cane be used for many different things, and i think the more basic pixel art for the games main traversing gimmick is perfect for the same thing in my game concept.
terraria
terraria is a beautiful and insanely unique 2d pixel adventure, as far as the pixel art goes i think it accomplishes a lot even with having such a basic design for characters.
this is quite niche as this is a game inside a game.
in the fnaf security breach game, there 3 Easter egg games called princess quest 1 , 2 and 3. i love the art direction in this small portion of the game. i think the top down look is perfect same for the pixel art.
early legend of Zelda games, specifically the 3rd one. just another example of what i want to use for inspiration when designing the pixel art part of the game.
next is a list of games with which helped me a lot with character design and inspiration for how to make characters distinguishable between who's a main character and who's a non playable character.
genshin impact - hoyoverse
fire emblem - nintendo
persona series - atlus
league of legends - riot games
character design of my own then came next.
i started with designing the main character, Mimie McCarthy. i did all these sketches and designs before i settled on a final look.
this is the final outcome of mimie's design that i came to.
when i was researching it seems very important that you know why a character would wear a certain type of clothing, and the type of accessories they wear too. you need be able to get an idea of a characters personality by the clothing that they wear, whilst also making it eye catching and easy to look at.
when designing the game concept i said before that i wanted the gimmick of the game to be able how these aliens from another planet cannot be harmed by any normal human weapons, they can only take damage from sports balls.
i wanted each character to relatively represent the sports equipment that they use however most of them aren't going to be avid sports players. mimie as the main character is one of the few who actually is an avid sports player. she is all about baseball she's always played it and its always been a big part of her life.
mimie is laid back with most things however when it comes to what she cares about she's all in.
shes a well known baseball player amongst the university she plays at. her main group consists of herself and two other best friends that she's known her whole life.
she isn't very books smarts and follows that path of street smarts. when i was looking into character design too it seems when trying to keep a character interesting and eye catching is to give them a lot of accessories especially if they wear clothing that has their entire legs bare. mimie wears a skirt and shorts so i spiced up the legs by adding a brace and bandages.
along with socks that dont match. asymmetry is another big part of character design that seems to draw more interest and attention to certain characters.
the reason for the cat parts is that in the story a being that they save from the aliens turns out to be from another planet, and to thank them for saving her she gives the a buff of 'cat like' abilities helping the gang with fighting.
i also designed her in the forms shed take within gameplay, the left pixel art is how shed look in the hub world exploration, the right is how shed look in combat.
this is the final design of mimie
Gina mae is the next character i designed.
mimies first friend, Gina is the polar opposite of mimie in everyway. shes very much obsessed with her books and has always been the academic weapon amongst the main three.
shes timid and quiet but always feels able to be herself around her friends. she isnt a sports player, so its mimies idea that she uses a badminton racket her for weapon as in mimies words ' its the easiest sport'
Gina while loves mimie dearly harbours some envious emotions regarding the girl and wishes she could be as free willed as mimie is.
she wears what's half a school uniform and a tennis / badminton uniform to signify her relation to her weapon.
i made her main colour green to compliment the pink that mimie wears.
pixel art ver
gina final design
next comes dotty.
dotty is another of the main three who shares another large closeness to mimie but for different reasons to gina.
dotty is quite academically challenged and is not the brightest girl of the bunch, but that doesn't stop her. she has an adoration for fashion and wearing something no one else is ever wearing.
what she thinks looks good, looks good, so shell wear it no matter what.
her and mimie get along on their 'dumb and dumber' relastionship.
ppixel art ver
lewis byron
lewis is a rich home-schooled boy who mimie met when she was young. mimie has no memory of the experience but its the only thing this boy has though about for his entire life.
he has little experience with normal schooling so he's a little tone deaf accidently.
his heart has been longing for mimie ever since he met her and hed do anything to see her again. not because he's creepy, but because he's never spoken to someone who doesn't treat him like a boss.
his family commonly plays golf so his relation to his weapon is pretty natural. he meets up with the gang during the events of the invasion.
pixel ver
Chelsie hall
outside of the main cast of four, i wanted throughout the game for you to meet 3 other playable characters who have also survived through the alien invasion Chelsie is one of these characters.
shes also part of the few who know their sports well shes always been a fan of boxing and so her skills have helped her survive through the invasion without the help of mimie at the start.
shes simialr to gina in that shes quite book smart, and she gets along with gina the most out of the main four as gina is, in Chelsie's words, ' the most honest' of the lot.
Brendon right
part of the additional characters designs i hadn't finalized Brendon nor the other character to be added as i sadly just didn't have enough time for the rest of this project.
basic enemy designs
final boss designs
final thoughts on this project.
what really upsets me is the state of this project near the end. i would've loved to have been able to really finalize it, i just ended up with no time left for it.
i prioritized the place project so much that it took up most of my year. it was hard to tackle all three at once and sadly this is the project that took the brunt of my lack of time.
I'm proud of what i had begun to create and this is really the kind of thing id love to be able to do as a job, i just wish i had more time.
I've learnt this year about time management and that I'm not really able to multi task things like this very well. however i still feel like this project has helped me really dive into design and how that impacts characters in video games.
and by no means will i stop here, even after university perhaps a small hobby will to be maybe once day create this into a real video game... who knows!
