Week 1
For this part of the week, I began sketching up some of the ideas my team had for the what kind of game it is going to be alongside starting to make concept art for the chosen idea of the game.
When we got introduced to the task, our group started to generate ideas during class. A lot of these ideas were a mix between horror games, puzzle games and detective games. After while, we decided on a few ideas to have. The first one is a detective game based in a train station where you are trying to escape from a monster while trying to find out what happened in that game. A second game that we have thought of was about being a kid in a haunted Toy Store and trying to find his way out.
After class, I started sketching out the first idea of the game. Firstly, I did some research to try to understand what makes a good horror game in general or at least when it comes to the art side of horror. Naturally, I went down a path of first searching some drawings that are in the horror genre to have as examples when it comes to referencing them in drawings.
Once, I did my research and noted down what elements I should have present in my drawing, I began doodling away. I first started with the protagonist as it is usually the first thing I would do when creating anything before creating the world in which the character inhabits. Considering this is a detective horror game, I decided to sketch up a cop character by first creating different looks for this cop character. When drawing them, I made sure to give them a very rough style to really convey a certain uncanny horror look. Alongside making the character design looking a lot more broad and square to make the character a lot more sturdier which give a very authority vibe to this character in which it would have also contrasted with the environment as it would have made him tinier in comparison to the creatures in the environment. Kinda like how in the first Predator movie you had these soldiers that were killing enemies in 1 minute while in the other, they are completely overpowered by one creature.
For the second image, for the first part of the page , I made a background for that exact game to convey the idea that I had in my previous statement. The same thing can be said about the second page as well. But, this time, I wanted to focus more onto the toy aspect. When, doing the sketch, I wanted to convey the creepy factor of the toys and giving them an uncanny vibe to them.
The next day, the team entered in a Discord call and began to create ideas for the horror with different settings. There were a lot of ideas that we came up but one stuck with us the most. The idea of a haunted toy shop. Seeing the potential for things like character design and environment designs, we all went with that idea and started right away. We firstly set up a Miro Board to be able to see what each one of us has to do alongside acting as a moodboard for the whole project. It will also be used as an app to display our progress throughout this project. I immediately started collecting a lot of reference picture. For the references I looked at both real life examples and fictional examples to get an idea for the tone of the game. For the fictional part, I looked at Poppy Playtime and Tattletale which had a lot of ideas when it came to both the atmosphere and some of the designs. For the real life references, I looked at a lot of either cursed or uncanny looking toys as I wanted to give off this uneasy or nervous feeling when looking at these characters. With the references gathered, it was time to get creating.
For the first part, I decided to try and doodle some ideas on the canvas. Mainly, trying to come up with head profiles for toys and to try and create something that looks unsettling and in the very uncanny territory. This is how I usually start my concept design to get an idea of how some characters may look and which one would have the most visually interesting looking features. Once I had a lot of different heads, I would choose some that I would be pleased for example the doll head you see at the top right side of the image as it gave of a very cursed atmosphere to that character. While others like the teddy bear you see in the middle of the image wasn’t as scary, it had a lot of potential and so I continued trying to figure out what I can do better with his design. Some I did like the design but felt like the toy idea was generic. Like the clown idea on the left side of the image as I felt like the idea of giving him a doll body didn’t fit it at all and I would repurpose it for a different type of toy.
Firstly up the design block was the doll idea. For it, I was heavily inspired by very old and creepy toys. Of course the head design from the previous image demonstrates such an example. In this, I simply experimented with different looks for baby toy designs. Tried to change thing around. For example, change the head shape of each of the designs to give a good silhouette, messing around with different facial features like, same dotted eyes, massive open eyes staring at your soul or eyes that look dead inside to give of a slight feeling of stress or unease. When showing these designs to my classmates, in the end, we went with the design in the middle due it being the creepier design in contrast to the other ones due to its lifeless expression.
For the clown, I turned him into a Jack in a Box instead. The reason is simply due to the creepy factor that Jack in a Box has as you never know when the character will pop out of the box. For the design, I mainly experimented with different head shapes and to try and find different ways that I can make them look and feel scary while also having a somewhat cute atmosphere to them. In the end, the design on the left side was the most liked by the team due to its goofy yet terrifying look as his eyes looks like are about to pop out of his head.
Lastly, for the plush, I wanted to experiment with different looks for it. Things like trying to make the plush look a lot more stretched and much more disturbing when it comes to the design. For the first one, I wanted to give it more of a theatrical feel to the the plush. However, the design simply did not sit with me right at all and felt like it came from a different game. For the other two designs, I wanted to give the feeling that the plush gives off this feeling of dread and fear when you look at it. To give of this feeling of discomfort that would scare the person playing the game. In the end, we went with the bear design in the middle as it was the most terrifying thing to us as it stared at us with frighting eyes.
Week 2
For the next week, I worked on the UI elements for the game. The first one is the battery system. In the game we have a flashlight that can run out of battery, so i wanted to create an indicator for the player to know when their batter is running out. I was experimenting with different looks and designs. Mainly, I wanted to create something that looks appealing while also looking simple and clear to read. So I would experiment with different one like something simple like a normal battery or even having just numbers represents the amount left in the battery. After this concept was made, I send it to the UI team to try and figure out which one they would love.
Another UI element that I helped with concept was the health bar system. For the the health icon, I want it to match with the atmosphere of the game. So for the icons I created something that is related to it. For the first one, I made a candy bag to represent the health. The idea would be that each time you took damage there would be less candies in the back. The reason for using a candy bag was simply because the protagonist of the story is a child. So, it would make sense if the kid would have his health represented by a bag of sweets. Another icon system that I had a plan of was a candy in the shape of a heart. As the health kept depleting, the candy would keep cracking until it was fully broken. Lastly, I wanted to create a heart plush for the health icon to relate to the toy aspect of the game. Each time you took damage, the plush would begin to tear slowly until it was completely broken. Once the concept for that was done, I hand it off to the UI team to see what they can do. However, the team would decide to not have a health system and instead if you were caught by the enemy, it would be game over.
Lastly for the font, I wanted to create something that both looked childish and felt like it was a hand writing. The reason for this is to enhance the atmosphere of the game. For the font, I mainly focus on making it looks simple and clean and came out with a bunch of font designs. However, as I showed this to the team, they decided to use fonts from online instead.
Week 3
For this week, I started working on the colour pallets for the toys to get an idea of what they can look like. So, I took each of the accepted designs by the team and started creating different colour pallets. For the doll’s colours, I wanted use desaturate colour as a lot of horror media used a very grey variant of colours to give off the unsettling vibes of a character or setting. I wanted the doll to give off that creepy and depressing vibe by just looking at the character. Once, these colour palates were finished, I showed these to my classmates to choose between one. In the end the red one won as despite it looking a little vibrant, the creepiness of the character remained existent as it balanced between the vibrant yet appealing colours for a kids toy while also looking uncanny. After getting that response, i tried to mimic that colour pallet with the rest of the designs.
After the good response from the last colour pallet, I used that for the Jack in the Box. For it, I wanted to use some vibrant colours while also having some desaturated colours sparkled in. The clown was quite an interesting one to do the colours, mainly due to the clown make-up as I could have endless design for the look of the clown that can make him look terrifying or adorable. So, I gathered my reference of clowns and started the process. Looking at them, they had a very vibrant look to them which either gave it a jolly feel or a horror vibe to it. So I tried to implement both of these colour features in. In the end I came up with these pallets. When I showed this to the team, they really loved the design on the right as it had quite a contrast in comparison to the others. Especially the coil as it had a lot of dots onto it.
For the teddy bear, I wanted to go with a more monochrome colour scheme, as I wanted the bear to be a lot more simpler in colour, but to also feel terrifying just from its simplicity and to compliment the existing design. Considering it was simple, I mainly pout a lot of thought into the eyes as it was the most essential feature. At first, the eye ball was going to be white so it would make the iris feel like it stood out more. I also tried a more sick look as I used a skin like colour for the eyes. However, both of these didn’t impress me. For the last one, I instead made it a shiny eye with a simple a dark brown. This immediately made amplified the design and it made it feel a lot more scarier. When, I showed this to the team that this colour is perfect for the bear design.
Week 4
In this week I mainly worked on the model sheet for the doll which would be used for the modellers to create in a 3D program like Maya. Using the feedback from last week, I improved the coloures for the toy to better reflect the vision of the team. I also went ahead and made a striped down version of the doll model in case it is needed to be created for the much more terrifying parts of the game where they can be put in the environment. There isn’t much to say about this week then just that. Later in development, this design was scarped due to one of the artist, coming up with a much more terrifying version of a doll which later became the main antagonist of the story.
Week 5
For this week, I carried on with the model sheet for the props to help the team speed up the process. For the Jack in a Box, I used the feedback that was given to me in week 3 and created this model sheet. Once it was done, I simply handed it to the modelers to start working on it. Later in development this guy became a prop instead of becoming an enemy simply because there wasn’t much you could do with a jack in a box.
As we were talking on discord, the conversation came up of what enemies are gonna be in the game. After much brain storming, we ended up using the teddy bear design to be one of the enemies in the game alongside the porcelain doll who was the main antagonist of this game. For this one, I made the Teddy Bear look a lot more longer and gave him the colour that was chosen by our team. I also created a second variant for Teddy Bear with its mouth ripped open. The idea for the opened mouth one was if the player stared at the bear for too long, it would begin to freak out and begin to chase the player around the map. However, this idea was scraped due to it sounding a lot more like it was trying to be scary and felt like it was deviating from the simple yet terrifying design of the character.
Lastly, I wanted to create some concept art for the background environment to help the art director to be able to use this as a reference to be able to create the environment. This concept is for the collectors’ room. When creating this environment, I imagined that it would be a lot more twisted and dark as it was towards the end of the came. As the player, would walk into the room, he would see toy with his own head stitched onto the toys its self with blood and a sick green light covering the room. This concept was created during the brainstorming phase for the story of the game. So of course, it later got changed into something that wasn’t as disturbing as that by the art director, to match the story we were trying to tell.
Week 6
For this week, my team needed another enemy for one of the puzzle rooms. One of my teammates told me about how you would collect items while jumping on platform while making sure to not fall into the ball pit. Other wise you would die from a creature swimming in the pit. With that context laid out to me, I had the perfect idea for the enemy. It was going to me a crocodile. However, there was a slight problem. A lot of crocodile toys were made out of plastic. So I had to get creative when it came to creating this enemy. So, I decided to merge the crocodile idea with a monkey wind up key toy. With the idea, ready, I started making head sketches for the character. When creating him, I had to make sure that I wasn’t straying away from the toy design as it would ruin the immersion of the player with the game. Some designs weren’t so great due to them looking a lot more animatronic like. Others looked too realistic for what I am going for. While some felt like they had great ideas and just needed to be improved. So I selected both of the heads from the top and bottom right as they were the closest to the design I wanted to make.
Then I continued with the design by creating the bodies for the crocodile with different looks. At one point, I considered turning the crocodile into a worm that was a tunnel used by kids to crawl into. However, team said that design wasn’t interesting and instead I should continue experimenting with the other designs. However, those designs while did somewhat hit the mark, I also felt like they were missing it as well. So, I took the best attribute of each design and decided to merge into one.
I ended up with two results for the crocodile. However, when I showed this to my teammates, they said the bottom design is the best between the two due to the key also looking like a shark fin which would help people identify him easier when they are in the ball pit area. Once that was decided, I immediately went and created a character sheet for the enemy and gave it away to the modellers of the project to create a 3D model for him.
Conclusion
Overall, I am quite happy with the progress for this week so far as I got to contribute to the project and help create some of the designs for the game. Probably what I liked the most about doing this project were the character designs and some of the concept design for the game as it allowed the art director to get an idea for what the game will feel like. The thing that I didn’t like about these weeks was that I did not make more toy designs for the game to help out the modelers to make more props.