Hello!
Welcome to my first blog post. As you may have noticed, my website has been a bit stagnant lately. This is because I am back in college, pursuing a degree in Game Art at Columbia College Chicago! I'll always love illustration and drawing in general, but video games have always been a huge inspiration for me, so I want to be a part of something that inspires others as well.
The downside to this is that I'm starting basically back at the beginning. The upside is that it's still a pretty fast-paced beginning! In one of my first "fundamentals" classes, Intro to Game Development, we're already working on a game while in groups. This post details my process so far in said class and group - this also may or may not be for a grade.
My group was assembled pretty much because the three of us sat near each other and vaguely talked to each other during class. We decided to go with my classmate's game concept: You're in a bar and overhear a man talking about how he's invincible, and you then decide it's your goal to kill him before the bar closes that night. It'll be a point-and-click adventure game in a very simple style inspired by Problem Sleuth.
We wanted to get a prototype up and running the next week, so after procrastinating a bit, we got to work. One group member, Devin, is in charge of programming (using RPG Maker VX Ace as the engine) and also the "director" so to speak, as he came up with the game concept. The other group member, Nat, was supposed to be our creative writer.... however, they vanished from class for several weeks due to personal issues. No hard feelings, but it did change up our planned work process. I am the designated artist of the group, responsible for all visual elements. Talk about a tall order!
Luckily, the style means that I don't have to spend a very long time at all on each individual element. In fact, most of these I prepared during the hour I had before work on the Saturday before the concept work was due. Here are some backgrounds and character portraits I made, all drawn in Photoshop:
Welcome to my first blog post. As you may have noticed, my website has been a bit stagnant lately. This is because I am back in college, pursuing a degree in Game Art at Columbia College Chicago! I'll always love illustration and drawing in general, but video games have always been a huge inspiration for me, so I want to be a part of something that inspires others as well.
The downside to this is that I'm starting basically back at the beginning. The upside is that it's still a pretty fast-paced beginning! In one of my first "fundamentals" classes, Intro to Game Development, we're already working on a game while in groups. This post details my process so far in said class and group - this also may or may not be for a grade.
My group was assembled pretty much because the three of us sat near each other and vaguely talked to each other during class. We decided to go with my classmate's game concept: You're in a bar and overhear a man talking about how he's invincible, and you then decide it's your goal to kill him before the bar closes that night. It'll be a point-and-click adventure game in a very simple style inspired by Problem Sleuth.
We wanted to get a prototype up and running the next week, so after procrastinating a bit, we got to work. One group member, Devin, is in charge of programming (using RPG Maker VX Ace as the engine) and also the "director" so to speak, as he came up with the game concept. The other group member, Nat, was supposed to be our creative writer.... however, they vanished from class for several weeks due to personal issues. No hard feelings, but it did change up our planned work process. I am the designated artist of the group, responsible for all visual elements. Talk about a tall order!
Luckily, the style means that I don't have to spend a very long time at all on each individual element. In fact, most of these I prepared during the hour I had before work on the Saturday before the concept work was due. Here are some backgrounds and character portraits I made, all drawn in Photoshop:
As you can see, they are rough... very, very rough. Problem Sleuth is also done in quite a rough way, but I still feel it's a bit more polished than my placeholders - there's more of an element of planning in Andrew Hussie's fast drawings, I feel. Devin insists it looks fine, but I know I'm capable of more, even in a sketchy style. Thus, these are placeholders for now.
It was also suggested that the invincible man not be so stereotypically macho and buff, which I thought was a good idea. I changed him to look more normal, as well as added a few UI elements, such as a clock and arrows to move to different areas.
It was also suggested that the invincible man not be so stereotypically macho and buff, which I thought was a good idea. I changed him to look more normal, as well as added a few UI elements, such as a clock and arrows to move to different areas.
It was a bit stressful to do it all in a week, but we got it done, which meant pretty much all placeholder work was done. To improve upon it the next week, we were asked to add in the time element and make the clock stand out a bit. This is where I improved upon my clock scribble - I kept it very simple, but in my opinion it's much more refined and fits in better.
I was also asked by Devin to add in a temporary cult room, as well as portraits for the cult leader.
I was also asked by Devin to add in a temporary cult room, as well as portraits for the cult leader.
The next week we were meant to add in some writing, but outside circumstances prevented us from doing much - especially since our creative writer was still missing in action. Not all was lost, as I drew some temporary ending screens: one for a good ending, one for a bad ending, and one for a neutral ending.
This is where we're at with our game right now - our class is focusing on the midterm quiz coming up (tomorrow, actually!) instead of continuing with the game for this week.
I definitely want to see it through to fruition, as I think it's a fun little idea that makes for a great first game project. I think I can improve upon all of the art by the time the final game project is due, and may even add some selective coloring that my professor also suggested at one point. Now that our creative writer is back in class and in our group (hopefully!), we should be able to get the plot and dialogue written out a lot faster than what we were doing. Here's a couple of samples of how it looks altogether in the engine:
I definitely want to see it through to fruition, as I think it's a fun little idea that makes for a great first game project. I think I can improve upon all of the art by the time the final game project is due, and may even add some selective coloring that my professor also suggested at one point. Now that our creative writer is back in class and in our group (hopefully!), we should be able to get the plot and dialogue written out a lot faster than what we were doing. Here's a couple of samples of how it looks altogether in the engine:
Pretty cool! If all goes well, I'll be sure to make another post with a link to the finished game (if we upload it anywhere, haha). Look out for that!
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