INTERACTIVE :: 29/08/16 - Concepts and Justification

Our group is taking a fantasy approach to the puzzle platformer we have been assigned, and our story revolves around the idea of the war between the Seelie and Unseelie - Light and Dark fairies.  I was responsible for coming up with the backstory for our game, which is as follows:

"The Summer Court has long been protected by the enchantment of their home tree, a vast Alder with branches big enough to house a whole colony of Seelies. But the tree has been stricken with blight and its magic is fading. The moth-like Seelie now face invasion from their ancient enemies, the fire-imbued Unseelie. These enemies are biding their time, preparing for war as the Alder's protective field shrinks with every passing day.

The queen of the Summer Court has chosen you for a secret and important mission - you must pass through the heart of the tree and enter the mortal realm in order to find [fey/sage/creature/bard], [name], and bring them back so that they can reinvigorate the Seelie home. The Unseelie have gotten wind of [name]'s location, and their agents are on their way to the human world, ready to do everything in their power to stop you. 

A violent war is about to break out - you and [name] are the court's only hope for peace. Find them, bring them home, and restore balance to the land of the Fey."


In terms of character design we have used models from games such as the Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, and the Animal Crossing series as a starting point.  We want to go for a simplistic approach with a protagonist reminiscent of older console and PC games, but we also want our character to have charm and appeal to the player.  I wanted the character to appear quite androgynous so that both male and female players could get behind using it.

For my concept, I have focused more strongly on the cute/charming aspect of a moth-fairy character and attempted to keep the design reasonably simple with obvious parts to the character.  My results are much more in line with the designs in Zelda and Animal Crossing than the other artistic influences that we looked at.

Conceptual art:

Refinement:

Color tests:

Our environments take place in the human world, but are looked at through the eyes of a non-human character.  While we use landscapes and artifacts that the player would recognize, we want them to feel wide and vast and unfamiliar, and so have adjusted the scale of things in order to achieve this.  We are hoping that this will lead to innovative use of simple household objects for gameplay, such as bouncing on spiderwebs or using large vines to climb or having to swim through snow and not freeze to death.  A lot of moth species hibernate during winter as well, which adds to the alienation factor.

It was proposed that our first level take place in an abandoned attic and that it was winter in the mundane world - because of this, my color palette is rather heavily desaturated in order to make the protagonist stick out.  There are a lot of colder colors used to add to the wintery effect.

With this concept I wanted to try and express some idea of level progression.  There is a raised area to the back of the building with a hole leading outside to where your objective might be.  The character starts at the top of a stack of boxes and it is insinuated that you must go down to the floor and find your way around debris and abandoned furniture before clinbing dead vines to ascend to the upper beams that will lead you to your goal.  I have tried to use dramatic lighting to guide the player to the right spots and create hazard situations with falling snow.

Initial Sketch:

Lighting:

Color Test: