Week 4

Character Design

This week we was focused on designing and making our antagonist and protagonist for our games. The character for my game is Marie Curie and because she is a rather old character getting suitable pictures for her was rather difficult when it came to sketching her out.

66.media.tumblr.com. Web. 27 Jan. 2017.

Sketch 1

This is my first effort on creating a sketch of my protagonist Marie Curie. Whilst creating this I had to consider some key things about Marie Curie; like the dark colours, the tied up hair and the blue eyes.

Sketch 2

This second sketch is mainly a face-on pose in case there is a scenario where my character needs to face strait-on whilst playing.

Sprite 3

This version showcases the type of object I would have in my game that would act as a key. When it came to creating this in Photoshop, I made some slight adjustments because the sketch would not work very well in-game.

Antagonist

Coming up with an antagonist for my game proved a challenge for me, as I wanted to have the WW1 element to my antagonist. From the picture I used this WW1 bio-hazard suit as it had a scary feel to it

 

Game one:

What style of sound is used?

The sounds used in Terraria are pretty basic and rather blunt but still have a lot of impact on the game-play. The sound that is made when you hit a tree is always the same no matter on what tool you use and makes a rather blunt sound, as it would if you were to hit a tree.

The Music in the game is mostly two tracks which is the Day music and the Night music, both sounding the same but have there differences, for instance the day music is slightly more cheerful and the night music is with a slightly slower tone.

Why do you think the creators chose this style?

Considering Terraria is a Action-adventure sandbox game the music suits it rather well as it gives off a rather calming ambiance which is what you would want with a game like this.

What effects does this choice of style have?

Since the game has no time based game-play there’s no need to feel like you’re in a rush whilst playing this game. The music is there to also help the player fell immersed within the game.

What production techniques do you think the creators used to generate this sound?

For the background music I think they used artificial sounds as they don’t really sound realistic. Computer generated Foley sounds were most likely used to create the background sounds. The hard effects like mining are a type of swoosh and a hard blunt hit, these are sounds the could be made pretty easily with just a swoosh of a large object or hitting something with a blunt object.

Why do you think the creators chose these production techniques?

The swoosh and blunt hit are both simple but very effective sounds in game as they just represent hitting a object and the motion for it.

What effects does this choice of production techniques have?

Very simple but effective methods of creating sounds and using them as well as the game is rather calming adventure game so it work very well.

How would a different stylistic approach or use of different production techniques have affected the experience?

If they used more complex sounds for this game I don’t think it would suit the game very well as he game just has simple mechanics so having complex sounds for this game would not make it as enjoyable.

What style of sound is used?

The uses a mix of impressionistic and expressive but considering the game being rather dark its mostly expressive. The game uses monsters usually made from young children’s fears which just makes it mostly expressive.

Why do you think the creators chose this style?

A lot of the games “creatures” and monsters” are made up so the sounds for them are mostly Foley and computer generated as you can’t really get sounds from something that doesn’t exist.

What effects does this choice of style have?

It adds a eerie tone to the game and makes the ambience scary, which is suitable considering the genre of the game.

What production techniques do you think the creators used to generate this sound?

For the background music I think a lot of it could be made easily in a studio, as for the sound effects like the projectile shooting and the impact of the projectile. They are sounds that sound like they could be easily replicated.

Why do you think the creators chose these production techniques?

Because they were simple and very effective.

What effects does this choice of production techniques have?

The background music works extremely well with the genre of the game, giving the player of fear and energy.

Reflection

By the end of this week I feel like my skills in pixel art have really improved and been tested. Sketching out our ideas on paper, prior to creating them in Photoshop was a useful thing to do and it will be something I always use in the future.