A1: Independent Games Project

 Research

We we're told to make the game in the style of Nintendo and i decided to go for a more cute-sy style. I drew inspirations from games like tomodachi life and animal crossing. The final design also reminds me slightly of the Scott Pilgrim game.

The mii's in tomodachi life have a very iconic and specific style yet they are very simple, I was trying to replicate that, simple yet unique, which is a hard thing to pull off but I think I did that.

I like miis a lot because they're such a simple design. There's so many options which means there is endless opportunities with creating different characters. Each different mii looks different from each other even in the same style. I really like the customization of it. 

Each different mii facial feature is different yet has a very similar look to it. One thing that immediately is noticeable is the line thickness, it almost always is the same, even when they're smaller they're still the same width. This is to keep the style unified while still being different. Another thing is the pupil, which never really changes (apart from a few of them), it is always the same size circle. The coloured iris is also consistent throughout the style.

The mouths have more variety then the eyes do but still follow a generally similar rule of having the exact same line width for most yet they stray a bit more from this rule especially the red mouths but although they have a different width they still feel unified in the same style

Something I feel is prevalent in all of these is how they simplify basic facial features, on of the main things they do is take the most noticeable aspect of a feature and accentuating it, making sure to keep it within the realms of the pre-developed style. 

overtime miis style has changed over consoles, the one's shown here are the 3ds miis and the switch miis, the switch miis have alot more options when it comes to customization especially in the face area, there are other small differences too like the 3ds miis being shinier then the ones on switch

I did a quick exorcise with the design I already had to try an incorporate this style 

each of these were an attempt to try different facial features to see which would not only look appealing but which would fit the character best, originally the character I created had a mischievous and playful personality but I didn't feel like I expressed that with their face, more with just the design alone. I tried to derive the general style of the mii face without feeling like I'm outright copying it. 

uniform shapes/vibrantcolours/stylised but recognisable facial and anatomical appearance

On a similar not the designs in animal crossing new horizons we're also a key research point for me. They have the same sort of simple yet recognizable style but they also feel a lot cleaner. Overall the vibe I was trying to achieve is a simple playful design with cartoony elements which feel prevalent in the design yet not taking attention away from the other parts of the design. I feel this is achieved very well here. The most eye catching thing about the design is the face is it's very cartoony and the only part with an outline. While normally this should take away from other elements of the design it doesn't, it feels more like the finishing touch to the rest of the design. In fact the difference helps the rest of the design to feel natural despite the cartoony proportions the way it's designed is almost realistic yet subtle, which is accentuated by the cartoony face.

the style of animal crossing was likely inspired by old cartoons as seen by this concept art here, they wanted  amore simple versions of the animal cartoons that were popular at the time, but since the console they were making the game for had so many limitations this would be quite hard, their solution was to simplify the cartoon design even more to simple shapes which was then applied to their human design too, they had a design that was not only appealing but also worked to look cute with the limited technology they had.

the first animal crossing game was on the GameCube which had very limited graphics which meant the game was quite low poly, there wasn't a lot to work with the npcs being so small so all the features were

made quite big and cute-sy so that it could work with the very low polygon models they had which also fit with the style of the game.

The weapon is a mirror shaped like a rose, the mirror was an idea I came up with when I tried thinking of ideas you wouldn't normally associate with wizards, I wanted to do something more unique as to stand out a bit more, the way the mirror works is it uses the gems on the outside to shoot a sort of beam, the gems were inspired by the gems in Steven universe, I made the mirror rose shaped as I thought it complimented the general shape of a mirror, it also ties into the idea I had for the game to have something to do with nature, I kept both designs in the red colour scheme, the weapon is a more vibrant red and the character is less vibrant so they both stand out in their own way, u may think why red? the game will take place in a forest and the red helps the character stand out.

for the enemy I had an idea to make it a bunch of different things you'd find on the floor of a forest, like bones or soda cans or dead butterflies, just a bunch of stuff tangles together with vines.

In unity we have made a script for guns and bullets before testing them out with particle effects

we also learned to code an enemy and a bullet, when the bullet makes contact with the enemy it disappears

magic weapon

 for our game sorcerers of Sunderland we needed to create a magic weapon and shield, the idea I had for my magic weapon was a mirror that's shaped like a rose, I feel a shape of a rose works well with the shape of the mirror (the stem being the handle and the flower being the mirror part) the mirror is also red (to match the rose and also my main character)

I then thought about how the weapon would even be used it being a mirror so I came up with the idea to add gemstones to the outside of the mirror, the way it would work is the gemstones would all shoot light beams to the middle before combining with the contents of the mirror to shoot a ball of light.

this was my first concept for the weapon, it's quite rough around the edges but it shows my intent for the design, the handle of the mirror is supposed to look like thorns and the mirror part is supposed to look like petals, this stays consistent throughout.

this is the more refined version of design, I still kept the shape used in the first drawing but made it more simple and sleek, the colour is a gradient to capture the different shades of red without adding a tint to the mirror part.

I decided that the design looked to plain to me so I added gems to the mirror to add a more mystical but practical element to it, now there's some semblance of structure to how the mirror works, it collects light with the gems before combining them and bouncing the combined light beam off of the mirror creating a singular and powerful beam of light.

it was quite hard to make a 3d model of the drawing I did, I had a lot of help from lecturers to show me how to use edges which was mostly what I used for the frame of it. It was probably the hardest part of it due to it being such a strange shape, I created a bunch of edge loops then tried to create the petals which ended up being spikey instead of round as I liked how it looked at the time I created it.

I didn't end up finishing it but it was good 3d practice and the gems were probably the part I'm most proud of, I used mostly faces for it. The gems were easier then I thought, I just needed to create a square within the square with edge loops then extruding the face.

this was the first sketch I did for the character which I do like, I feel it has some components of the two styles I was trying to replicate, I felt the style didn't really fit the character I had in mind or the style I wanted to achieve.

I tried 3d modelling his character which went alright

the newer design has more jagged edges but still keeps the cute and simplistic style, but with a small bit more edge to add some quirk to the design as to not feel too same-ey I suppose? this is a sketch I did with the idea of incorporating the element of the rose into it's design but I felt I was over complicating things and I'd rather stick to a simpler design.

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I decided to just stick with the stars as it fit the angular style better, I also decided to keep the design simple so it wouldn't be too much for the simple style. this is the final design and honestly I'm quite pleased with it, it's simple but still has enough design qualities to stand out, it will also stand out in the mostly green setting of the game.