fredag 7 november 2014

2d-course

We finished the game design course and continued with a course in 2d. One of our assignment that will be the main theme in the course is to make a character of choice. The class started with drawing 20 thumbnails of different characters and then choose one of those. After that, I did loose sketches to get the shape and feeling of the character and then I wrote a backstory about my character.



My thumbnails-






















måndag 3 november 2014

Artwork team 12






Copyright Tara Sundström
                                                                 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


                                       








Copyright Lisa svanström

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright Amanda Heinonen

söndag 2 november 2014

tisdag 28 oktober 2014

concept project space shooter

The final assignment for the course Game analysis and Game design is to make a design for a space shooter game in groups. In my group we are six people that all need to take different roles for the assignment.

The roles are:

Lead Art
Lead code
Lead sound
Game designer
Producer
QA

We divided the roles between us and I got the role as lead art which means that I am responsible for the visual of the game.


The groups also got two different words that had to be somehow part of our space shooter game. Our group got the words Dragon and oscilloscope.We also had to comply by some rules.

The rules are:

2D game
Atleast 3 different power ups
single target
atleast one projectile
Pc-game

We started by brainstorming around the words and came up with creating a music game since the oscilloscope is an instrument that can be used for music instruments to visualize sounds and works with different frequencys. We then started to think about using these frequencys as our projectile and that our dragon would use these sound frequencys as a weapon. Since normal dragons usually make fire we decided that our dragon would have a special ability to create sound instead of fire.

Gameplay

The player plays as the dragon and are making music by exploding monsters with different sounds.
When the player explodes the monsters with the right sound and time, it creates a song. The player can also choose to create an own song by choosing which monsters to explode and when. The game can be used as a music production tool where the player create own songs or as a challenge where the player try to complete the game as perfect as possible and get the highest score. The player gets visual feedback that enhance the music and there will also be different layers where the player start off with some tones and build it up at next level until the player are finished and can hear the whole song.
 


Narrative

Our dragon is a special dragon that cannot shoot fire like the normal dragons and there for is seen as a outcast by the other dragons. But one day the dragonplanet get invaded by a new type of monsters that are immune to the other dragons fires and its then up to our hero dragon to defeat them since the only way to defeat the new monster is by sound frequencys.



Paper prototype
 

Our first assignment was to create a paper prototype for our game that would show the mechanics and feeling of the game. We decided to make an paper prototype with glassbottles filled at different levels to make sound when hitted. We also made a paper roll with monsters in different colors painted on the paper roll.
The glass bottles have different colors matching the monsters and when the monster appear on the paper roll the player have to hit the right color on the glass bottle that is shown on that particulary monster.

The powerups on the paper prototype is a mix of different colors and if the player manage to hit all the colors on the powerup the player get another stick to hit the glass bottles with. If the player manage to succeed another powerup the paper roll goes slower for a few seconds.



Visuals



Our visual goals are to give the player the immersive experience of combining music with art to build an explosion of colors. The art style starts out as a black and white, dark environment and with a mystical feeling. The reason for choosing a black and white environment is to highlight the darkness and hopelessness in the world before the dragon starts to sing. When the monsters explode by the dragons singing the colors splatter on the world and also colors the enviroment, making the world looking more beautiful.

We also wanted the luminescent colors to show really clear in contrast to the environment so that was another reason of choosing a black and white enviroment.
When the player starts the game and makes the music in the world, the enviroment starts to get more and more colorful. The art style of the dragon is very dark but with clear turquoise luminescent light from the dragons body as well as emitting from the mouth of the dragon when singing.
The art style focus on a realistic view of the environment, but it also have some fantasy elements like the sprites, the luminescent lightning and the dragon. 



 The first quick sketch of the game

















 First sketch of the dragon


















söndag 19 oktober 2014

work of the week

So, we got an assignment to design a game based on two randomly choosen words in groups of around 5-6 people. Our group got the words dragon and oscilloscope. When we brainstormed we was thinking about how an oscilloscope have frequences and that it is sometimes used for music instruments and then came up with the idea to use the words for a music game where u play a dragon "singing" out frequenses and different tones. These tones can be used by the player to shoot monsters and also at the same make music, either own music or tones fitting to the background music. If the player hits the right monsters at the right time a song is created by the tones/frequences the dragon make. We also decided to focus alot on the visual of the game to give an highly aestethic feeling as well as the audio expression.

Since we was suppose to have different roles in the group I got the lead artist role but even though we have different roles, we will all help with most of the assignments needed for our design.
The visual of the game are going to express an black and white world where the dragon´s music and singing creates color. The dragon is going to be mechanic since we wanted the more harsh feeling to the game with the black and white enviroment.





söndag 21 september 2014

Speed painting

This one is made by graphite pencils on a paper, and it took around 40 minutes to make.


Speed painting


Sissy fight

Our second assignment was to play sissy fight and learn its mechanics and then remake the game into something new and different but with kinda the same mechanics. After we done that, each group got a little card with a change to the game where my group got the note with a change of making the game into a learning type that could be played by kids in the school.
We was in groups around 5-6 ppl and after we had some brainstorming, we came up with how our first version of the game was gonna be.
We decided to make a game with bloodmages where you had the same mechanics but you could heal people and where every action costed mana. For the second part, when we got the card to change the game, we made it so that the kids get different spelling questions where they had to answer correctly how a simple english word was spelled. to be able to make their spell either pass through and do damage to the other players or to be able to protect themselves with a defensive spell.

The assignment was good training on how you can change games completely by just changing the dynamics and by doing that we was able to get very different aesthetics.

Speed painting

So we have a challenge to draw or paint something fast everyday! Here is my first fast drawing which took around one hour to make and it is made of ink on paper.


MDA

So one of the first things we got to learn at my school is MDA ( mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics).
This is how you basically design a game. We got to train our MDA skills with a game called space invaders which we had an assignment to explain what the MDA is in the game.
What the player see first when they play a game is usually the aesthetics, if they play it longer they might notice the dynamics but our job as game designers are to first get a clear vision on what we want the player to feel when they play our game and after that work on the mechanics.

The mechanics is the rules of the game, what can be done by the player? How the game is build up.

Dynamics is the chain reactions inside the game, if you click on button A what happens next? The input and the output. And also how the players interact with the game.

Aesthetics are the feeling of the game, how the players feel when they are playing the game? The emotional response.

onsdag 10 september 2014

First one

Hello!

My name is Tara and I have just started my three years education at Uppsala university campus Gotland, gamedesign-graphics.
This is my newly made blog where I will share my work and progress under the years.
I decided to start studying game design-graphics because my biggest passion in life has always been to express myself and my favorite way of doing that has been thrue the art of drawing and painting.
I will now challenge myself more and learn the skill of digital art as well as using my creativity to design games and I think these years will be awesome.