Recollections
Since the last post, the name of the game has changed. We have decided to have a more poetic and abstract approach to the title and since the storyline is based on the lifetime of the character, “Recollections” seemed a better solution than the previous, because it is an immediate reference to all the memories all of us gather throughout our life.
In addition, I have been working on the game’s background, which will represent the four season and the aging of the character. In the beginning of this project It was hard to come up with a concept and put my ideas on “paper”, because the game is a 2D platformer I believe that the best visual solution is to create a very geometric and flat world, playing with colours and shapes to give it depth of field.
There is still a lot to do, but I am confident that it will be done until our deadline and the game presentation.
15th April 2017
One of spring's background first draft
One of spring's background first draft
Work in progress
One of spring's background first draft
Hello, my name is Mariana! I am a third-year Multimedia Arts Bachelor Degree student at the Fine Arts University Lisbon (FBAUL), alongside with Alexandre Peres, André Saraiva, Duarte Botelho and João Varandas, four Systems and Computer Engineering Master Degree students from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), we are developing a puzzle-platformer, which main concept is based on how the human life stages can be associated with the seasons, for example we tend to compare our childhood with spring. The game’s main targets are casual players and puzzle enthusiasts, aged 10 to 60.
I am responsible for the game artwork (backgrounds, characters, eastereggs, collectibles and so on), while the IST students are in charge of all the programming aspect of the game.
30th March 2017
Since the last post, I finished all the season's backgrounds and started working on the characters. Each season will have a different version of the same character, the character's age changes with the seasons: spring it will be a child, summer an adolescent and so on.
The backgrounds might be finished by now, but I believe that there's always room for improvement.
I have already sent all the backgrounds to the students from IST.
30th April 2017
Since the last post, I have been working on the game's menus layout and appearance. I have tested numerous colour palettes and chosen one with tones of blue, yellow and pink because it evokes all of the seasons colours. In addition, the chosen colour palette is gender neutral, appealing both to men and women.
In the mean time, I have started working on the male child version of the main character and it's walking cycle, but it seem that it is stumbling on something and so I will redo it.
The IST students asked me to start working on some assets, one of them is a bee that will be an obstacle on the spring level, and not to add so much detail do the characters.
I have sent them all the imagery that I have been working on and I am waiting for theirs response.
15th May 2017
Group photo at MOJO, 30th May 2017
As we entered the last phase of the game development I worked on some of the game's assets and the final poster. The walking cycles were the hardest task, because I wanted to make them as seamless as possible
Overall, this was a great experience because it allowed us to contact with other realities and working methods. My group was very open for new ideas and received with enthusiasm my work.
I hope this partnership is carried out into the future, because it was beneficial for all the parties: for the FBAUL's students to contact with programmers and prove our worth, work integrity and creativity; and for IST's students to understand how to work with artists and broaden their creative horizons.
Personally, I feel that Professor Patricia's guidance was indispensable to all the process, she gave us enough space to create our own images and came up with our own ideas. She was definitely essential for the success of this journey, her effort and dedication enabled us to finally have a real project experience, that we were craving after three years of mainly theoretical work.
1st June 2017