Group Project Begins

 At the start of this new term, there was talk among my course-mates of wanting to test the waters with making a group project in the form of a playable section of game. I immediately knew that I wanted to engage with this as part of this concept art journey that I am on, as participating in a group project would allow me to see what working in a pre-production pipeline is like. It was a perfect way to gain experience of this and to test myself in being as useful as possible to other members that would be working further along the pipeline, relying on me to provide a foundation for them to work from. 

To clarify, this is not going to become my main project for the term, and my historically inspired fantasy world is still very much the core of my MA work at present. However, I decided that for the first few weeks of the term I would put my personal practice work on hold so that I could focus on the group project given that my role is mainly in pre-production, and a delay in my work would therefore be to delay the rest of the team.

The Idea

When we were discussing the potential forms our game could take, I came to the group with an idea that I'd had around a year ago. The idea was for a third person traversal/action game set in a fantasy world brought to ruin by some sort of miasma. You would play as some sort of 'earth spirit' whose goal would be to travel through the land, fighting back the corrupting miasma and restoring life/nature. Here were the concepts I presented:

Playable character concept sheet featuring traversal ideas

Nature Divinity that creates the Earth Spirit to go forth and heal the land

Tone establishing concept featuring the corrupting source, a miasma spewing volcano/mountain

Reference images used as inspiration for the piece above

The group liked the idea, especially the environmental message at its core, but the majority also really wanted to do something a little more on the sci-fi side of things. The two ideas came together and we ended up deciding to go for something with a similar premise to what I had presented, but applied within a different context. The elevator pitch is as follows: A puzzle focused game set in a post-apocalypse industrial wasteland in which the player, an (ex) gardener robot ventures out to restore nature to the world by completing environmental puzzles involving an arsenal of helpful plants and bots. The player's progress would be visually documented by the spread of greenery back through the environment.

Establishing The World

It was agreed that I, alongside a couple others, would be doing the concept work for the project. My main focus would be on environment and tone, while others would be focusing on character design. After our productive discussion I went ahead and worked on exploring our reimagined context:

Abandoned Industrial References

Powerplant References

Reimagined source: a power plant spewing toxic waste/fumes

I really wanted to retain some form of distant and omnipresent landmark that would replace the fantasy mountain as the source of this world's troubles. The idea above of a looming power plant preserves the towering, oppressive form factor of the mountain while fitting the newly established context. This would be the central target that the player needs to reach in order to end its polluting influence. I see it as our game's 'Hyrule Castle'; a defining landmark that is often seen looming in the distance, and is evidently the primary objective. With each puzzle completed by the player, they are one step closer to reaching it. The logical conclusion that the player should be able to make is that this power plant was probably the cause of the current desolation, perhaps due to some sort of experiment/scientific breakthrough gone wrong.

A (very) rough equivalent of the establishing concept from the initial, fantasy context

The distant power plant surrounded by a toxic lake of its own making

The concept above was inspired by a chat with another member of the group in which we discussed the idea that the central objective could be surrounded by a lake of its toxic waste, which the player would need to work towards purifying enough that they could cross it.

Vegetation and Art Style

Next, some concepts exploring the art style for the restored vegetation:

A first pass aimed at exploring different types of tree

I showed the group the tree concepts above, asking for feedback. Everyone liked the more twisting, stylised feel of A and B so I decided to pursue that direction further, while figuring out the art style I wanted to achieve: 

Second pass expanding on the twisting forms of some of my first pass sketches

These came out nicely I think, and I especially like the the bold, cartoony style of the various barks. I think this will be the visual style we'll try to pursue, and we've already agreed that a low-poly, stylised look is the aim. 

I imagined tree forms like these would look interesting coiling up through crumbling bits of industrial constructs, as though they were taking back their place. I went ahead and sketched an example of this idea:

Level environment before and after player completion

Doing this sketch gave me the idea that when restored, each zone/level could feature one large, landmark tree like this one as a clear visual indicator of completion alongside the rest of its regrown greenery. I'm also beginning to play around with the idea of an extremely muted, potentially even greyscale palette, with the two exceptions of the toxic waste/fumes and the regrown flora, both of which would be boldly coloured. Experimentation is needed here, but I think this has the potential to make for a striking and interesting/unique aesthetic.

Plant Mechanics

Alongside the world building ideas above, I've also been looking into gameplay mechanic concepts over the last week. While I have left conceptualisation of Playable/NPC Bots to others in the group, I have been looking at the potential plant varieties for the player to grow in order to solve environmental puzzles and progress. 

Concept for a plant that recycles rubble/trash retrieved from the environment by the player, for various potential uses.

The pitcher plant was the first idea I had. I imagine it could be used for tasks such as getting past blockades with corrosive projectiles that melt them down, or for converting rubbish into some sort of useful resource such as fuel for some other procedure (perhaps to make compost/fertile soil somehow?).

Some other plant types, conceptualised with various renditions

In this sheet I was scribbling down ideas as they crossed my mind. Hopefully some of them make it into the final outcome. One thing I think we are keen to achieve is the use of combinations of different plants to overcome a single puzzle. For instance, I could imagine a scenario where a 'chomper' plant is needed to break a large piece of rubble down into smaller, more manageable pieces that can then be fed into the pitcher plant from the previous sheet, for use as corrosive projectiles to melt down an obstacle/objective.

What's Next?

Now that some general concept work has been done to establish what this game actually is, the next step is to sit down and nail down the precise content of our intended outcome. We aren't planning to make the full game, as we each have our own personal projects to focus on and need to keep this group project's scope in check. Instead, we are aiming to produce a vertical slice or playable demo that best showcases the mechanics and ideas of the theoretical wider game. So once we have a talk about what exactly will be in our playable section, I can then begin conceptualising the specifics of that playable level's environment.