For this assignment, we were placed into groups alongside the Game Design students and tasked with developing a small video game prototype known in the Industry as a “Vertical Slice”. A Vertical Slice should include the core mechanics and themes of a potential full game into a small and easy to digest format, which in a profession scenario, would be shown to higher ups and then critiqued and iterated on throughout the development cycle before release.
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When my group first met up, after introducing ourselves and showing off the kind of work we specialised in, we started to brainstorm different ideas for our potential game. We were eventually caught in between a more horror-centric game with an open world or a more cutesy-styled platformer from a 2.5D perspective.
We spent the first week discussing the finer details of these concepts, and soon decided that everyone should have a chance to suggest their own fleshed-out concepts for our game. So we went on to each create a One-Page Document that detailed the Game’s Identity, Design Pillars, Story, Art Style, Core Features and other aspects that would define how the final product should be.
For my One-Page Document, I created a game concept called “Crossing Paths”, where the young grave digger of a small village is tasked with finding the souls of the deceased and putting them to rest. The art style would have been inspired by Animal Crossing and its cutesy character designs, which would then contrast with the darker twist in the story and atmosphere of the game.
Here is the PDF of my Document: “Game Concept – Crossing Paths”
While I would love to expand on this concept more in the future, as the group went on to vote for their favourite concepts, the winner was John Houston’s Game Concept “If You Go Into The Woods”. It would feature a cute animal character that explores a cabin in the woods and avoids being hunted.
From here, I was assigned to work on concept art for the player character, which we had decided would be a anthropomorphic crow. We researched multiple different inspirations for the art style and design we wanted to have, so I started making sketches inspired by all of them to see what the rest of the team thought of them.
While settling on the second design body-wise, I needed to do a bit more thinking and research to figure out how to make the raincoat work for a winged character. I took more inspiration from Animal Crossing and found some fan-made raincoat designs, while also toying around with a more poncho shaped silhouette. I took those designs and drew them on the Crow to see how they would look, and also sketched out some different expressions to get a better understanding of how the facial features would move.
The group was starting to solidify the storyline and location of the game at this point, deciding that the Crow will be taken by the Hunter and must traverse through all the rooms in the cabin to escape from the upstairs window. From this, I went on create some storyboards and layouts that further develop the story and environment. I wanted to emphasise lighting in these pieces to more closely represent how the final game could look.
With the final design for the Crow settled on, Danielle went on to model the Crow with my art as reference. The Crow model went through some changes over the course of development to better reflect my original artwork, but before that, I had done the textures for the old model which were positively received by the group for the painterly shading used on them. I decided to continue with that style for the future textures of the Crow and Hunter models.
As I was the main 2D artist of the group, I was tasked with drawing all the concept art for the props needed in the cabin to make sure that there was a consistent style. As development continued on however, we started to realise that it was a bit extreme to have me draw every single possible object, especially since we had known from the beginning that the 2D comic book inspired cutscenes would also have to be done by me. So that’s when me and Najib started making a clear Style guide for the group to refer back to themselves.
Despite this shift though, I still drew many different prop designs and would continually ask for input from the rest of the group on what they liked the most and what would best fit our overall vision for the final game.
Getting back to the idea of cutscenes in the game, I had multiple discussions with the group to better help us all understand what we wanted from the cutscenes and how to best engage the player with the plight of the Crow who wants to escape the cabin and back into the forest. I thought that if the player had a chance to see what it was that the Crow was going back to, they could feel more sympathy for them and keep that in mind as they play through the game.
That is then how the Crow’s family was conceptualised, and the shocking idea of the player watching the Crow be kidnapped by the Hunter right in front of his family’s eyes. With how happy the Crow is shown to be before their kidnapping, and how suddenly it all occurs, my intent was to jolt the player and give them a more emotionally gripping reason to continue playing the game.
The final cutscene follows along with the through-line of the Crow doing everything they can to get back to their family, and when face to face with the Hunter for the final time, they show a defiant expression and joyfully fly out of the window to freedom. As the Crow finally makes it home and embraces their family with tears, the player will then feel that sense of accomplishment and contentedness as giving these innocent creatures the happy ending they deserve.
Within this time-frame, I went out of my way to draw out a full character sheet, which had been suggested previously by some people in the group as a way to see the Crow and Hunter in a similar art style and how their designs compared and contrasted each other.
While doing this, I also came up with an idea for a logo design for the game and drew it out to see what the group thought of it. The design features weaving vines that act as a border, berries in the place of letters for the font, and an old paper texture that I continue to use in other elements of my work with the project. I wanted to give off an almost fairy-tale like quality to the design, yet I also had no specific inspirations in mind as I came up with it.
The rest of the group liked the logo design and agreed to use it for the final game.
As stated previously, we as a group had agreed on doing a more cell-shaded or painterly look for the character textures to help them stand out from the rest of the environment.
I made sure to not add strong shadows to places like under the arms, as when the arms move around, it would not make sense for the shadows to stay still. I added a metallic shine to the character’s eyes, along with an emissive glow to the Crow’s eyes to help it stand out as the player traverses differently lit areas of the cabin. I also added a layer of roughness to places like the Crow’s feathers and the Hunter’s clothes to help better convey their textures when light shines on them. I finally then added a height map to use for the Crow’s bandages, which allowed it to stand out in a three-dimensional way without using extra polygons on the model to do it.
One of the final small details we decided to implement was little icons that direct the player to their next objective, so they don’t get lost when exploring the cabin and can figure out the puzzles behind the objectives. I discussed with the team how they wanted these icons to look and be presented in-game, in which the sketch below was exactly what they were looking for.
From there, I just directly took the ripped old paper design and added all the objectives with the same font used for the logo and silhouetted images to further convey the meaning of the objective on a visual level. It was another team-mate’s idea to make the final objective icon messy, as if it were hurriedly written by the Crow themself as they try to avoid gun fire and escape the cabin.
Through the process of creating the artwork for the cutscenes, I researched into art from old books and watercolour painting that would convey the same kind of texture and colour palette that I wished to implement here. The lineart of the shadows was a detail that was inspired more specifically by the 4th ending animation of the anime “Attack on Titan”, which attempted to show a sketchy storybook art style in motion.
When editing the cutscenes, I would make sure the paper texture in the background moved in the same directions as the panels moved, since they were on separate layers. Extra character drawings were added to create more fluid movement and emphasise certain shots. I found two pieces of royalty free music to use for the Opening and Final cutscenes, which were “A Fool’s Errand” by Jon Bjork and “Sea of Space” by Yi Nantiro respectively.
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And that is all the work I did on the Vertical Slice assignment!
I am quite proud of all the things I was able to accomplish in this group project, and just how much of my own artistic quirks and ideas I was able to implement into it! I still have a lot I can learn from this experience, such as being able to more clearly define an art style and have other people understand the rules behind them.
Everyone in my group ware great to work with, and the Game Design students were able to clearly communicate what their needs and wants were from the Animation students, which allowed for an honest and constructive work-flow where everyone was able to speak their minds.
The final game is far from perfect, but it is a game that is packed with a lot of ideas that were able to be fleshed out to some degree at least, and I would like to hope that that effort and skill can be recognised and that I can only continue to learn more from experiences like these in the future!