New level designs & refinement of idea

The playable character begins on this level at the top. This is a puzzle, side scroller so they must pull the lever which opens up the gate to the underground cave. They then must go into the dark cave. Sepia tones for a steampunk aesthetic. 

Once the character is inside the cave the camera zooms out a little to reveal to extra passages. One is a room with mechanical equipment. You will notice there is a bar with green juice in it. There is also a gate to the right. Each time the character opens the gate to the right they enter a new level. It will also be a puzzle, side scroller. They must complete it to earn plant juice. They then return to this level and go to the machine and fill it with the juice. When they go through the gate again there will be a new level (eg, level2). After completing each level there will always be a new level through the gate. However, you must fill the machine with plant juice first. Once the machine is full of plant juice power is restored to the city through an environmentally friendly means and the player wins the game. 

New levels could look something like this. I actually really love this aesthetic so perhaps the entire game could follow this aesthetic. I was put off from using a vector style but after creating this I actually really love it and I think children would enjoy this too.

Update

Just a quick update to say that Stencyl was not working for me. Such a shame as I spent many hours doing tutorials and googling for solutions. Code and I are not best friends. So I made a trailer in flash as I'm more familiar with flash and could do a better job. I don't think I need a demo for the presentation due to the type of game play. Just sad that I wasted a lot of time trying really hard to get it working.

Uh oh, changed my idea?

I really just haven't fallen in love with my bug game idea. So I have done something risky and switched my idea. I feel my orginal idea will be too hard for children and not exciting enough. I thought about what kids like and what type of game would excite me to make. SO I'm going with a steampunk theme. It will still be a side scroller with puzzle type of levels. Just the subject and art style has changed.

The main idea of a steampunk universe if that everything runs on steam (from coal). This is very bad for the environment so the perfect theme for this project. I also have a love for the design style of steampunk so it'll be exciting to draw for this.

Your goal as the character will be to heal plants that have been ruined by the pollution and collect their secret ingredient that can be used to make an alternative fuel for the steampunk world. 

I feel this idea is more simple for children but also more engaging. 

I stayed up really late creating the perfect character for my idea. Now I just need to make an environment and start putting this demo together.

Below is my walk cycle gif.

WALK CYCLE

Minor Changes

Adding a gradient to see if it looks better.

Game Concept

Realized I needed to post my other game concept to show the different ideas I explored. I've written notes on this but will quickly explain this idea.

A steam punk post apocalyptic world where animals are being used for scientific experiments (animal testing). You play as a steam punk character and must kill the enemies (animal testers), rescue the animals which includes feeding and healing them if needed.

I decided to probably not use this idea as I don't feel it's completely suitable for children and may be difficult to make in 2d. Was fun to explore though. This game would be an RPG.

Storyboard - Discovery

Interim Feedback

Just writing down my feedback before I forget the details. My tutor and group thought my idea was good. Their advice was for my character's health ti be impacted by healing the plants. So when the character is giving life force to a plant his life force suffers. Therefore the player must be smart about which plants they are giving life force to. 

Level Design

A minimalist art style. The bug jumps from level to level healing the correct plants. He must also push blocks to destroy weeds. 

Paper Prototype

Game development

Side scroller. You play as the insect. It's your job to restore the dying weeds back to life. However the levers are a puzzle and you must experiment which plants to restore life to in order to pass the level. The insect has the ability to suck life from plant's he's restored and put that life into other weeds. The game is about saving the environment and strategy.

Post apocalyptic world inspiration

This is my inspiration for the environment. I'm imagining old, crumbling buildings with plant overgrowth and a dark sky with sun light trying to peak through.

After talking with my tutor I think I may use the insect as the protagonist and not the enemy. He will save the environment as insects are good for the environment. I'm also going to experiment with another idea using pixel art and the moral being to save the animals. 

http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/03/20/the-sun-also-rises-on-a-post-apocalyptic-world/

http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/03/29/gdc09-massively-previews-earthrise/

http://lexirevellian.blogspot.co.nz/2013/01/the-appeal-of-post-apocalyptic-fiction.html

http://africanalchemy.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/dioramas-from-the-post-apcalyptic-world/

http://dornob.com/post-apocalyptic-art-7-city-landscapes-at-worlds-end/

http://fmikeart.deviantart.com/art/post-apocalyptic-world-291001711

http://www.verucacyn.com/2010/11/post-apocalyptic-visions-of-world-after.html

Character Outfit

A pretty rough sketch but sadly still took me a long time. I really need to speed up my work flow. Just playing around with character outfit ideas. Next will be character design in genera such as face features and hair. Going to go with a female character as they're normally more interesting to me and much more fun to design.

Bokeh

Image Credit, Click here
 
 Image Credit, click here

 Image credit, click here.

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Image credit , click here

I really love bokeh effects through using a nice camera lens and aperture. I hope to include this in my film. It can express a number of things such as happy, excitement and alone. It really depends on the colour, speed and the speed you focus on things. 

Project 2

Just brainstorming some emotion ideas which I like and writing them here as I think:

Closeness
Discovery
Relaxation
Amusement
Tranced
Broken

Original Character Designs

Well hello there. I've spent all night doing this and thought I'll post it on my blog while it's still fresh on my mind. Not too shabby seeing as I never do rendered drawings and my tablet is rather basic.

These are all original character concepts by me. I began by drawing shapes and turning them into pitch black silhouettes. I tried to make them look interesting but wasn't sure what they were or what the internal details would look like. I then began shading them in. I left the ones I wasn't too sure about rather basic and put more effort into the ones I like. I shaded a couple to make them stand out against the others. My favorite is definitely number 6. You can clearly see I've put more effort into him and his face just has so much character! The perfect chubby, grumpy villain in my opinion.

My ideas for this was to draw some evil looking bugs/insects. I'm really not talented in drawing original concepts so this project will be a great challenge for me and a perfect opportunity to get much better. I think I may sketch number 6 further with more details at some point, put for now will walk away from it and come up with some more ideas.

My idea for these concepts is a post apocalyptic world where bugs have gone mutant and mega sized due to waste and pollution  The game would require you to "save the world" by killing the enemies (bugs) and doing certain things to save the environment. I'm yet to iron out the details!

All Footage I've been looking at and notes I've taken

http://archive.org/details/Lucky_Strike_1956    -   Baseball smoking commercial

http://archive.org/details/newport_4   -   Pretty woman dancing with smoking man commercial

http://archive.org/details/LuckyStr1948_2  -  Dancing cigarette commercial

http://archive.org/details/SheShouldaSaidNo  -  Very beginning - man smoking/dreamy atmosphere.

3.10 - Pacing around a smoke

12.20 - Pretty blonde holding smoke

12:50 - Man putting smoke in her mouth

13.10 - Girl smoking (watch for 2 minutes)

18.30 - Man smoking

http://archive.org/details/Cigarette_Commercials_Old_Gold  - 

http://archive.org/details/Lucky_Strike_Kitchen - Couple in kitchen, happy, smoking.

http://archive.org/details/LuckyStrike2DorothyCollins - Use this as a voice overylay - woman telling you to buy smokes for christmas (funny)

http://archive.org/details/Lucky_Strike_52 - Shows the tobacco. Couple on couch smoking together.

http://archive.org/details/SalemCigaretteCommercial  -  Girl on swing happy and smoking, boyfriend is feeding her smokes.

http://archive.org/details/WinstonCigarettesCommercial  -  Couple smoking on a plane

http://archive.org/details/Zeek_The_Amazing_Piece_of_Toast  -  Couple walking out of a movie theatre, smiling and light up a smoke together.

http://archive.org/details/1954CommercialForPallMallCigarettes  -  Men smoking Pall Mall.

http://archive.org/details/VirginiaSlimsCigarettesU.s.TelevisionCommercial171968-1971  -  Cigarettes for women

http://archive.org/details/VirginiaSlimsCigarettesU.s.TelevisionCommercial181968-1971  -  Women smoking commercial

http://archive.org/details/VirginiaSlimsCigarettesU.s.TelevisionCommercial0519681971  -  Women smoking

http://archive.org/details/VirginiaSlimsCigarettesU.s.TelevisionCommercial0219681971  --  Women smoking

http://archive.org/details/tobacco_jmu03f00  -  A man telling you to try Capri smokes

http://archive.org/details/tobacco_idz99d00  -  iceskating and smoking

Share alike licence (must credit them)

http://vimeo.com/30973776 - Modern girl smoking. Must credit the author.

http://vimeo.com/31015372  -  Must attribute author. How smoking ages you.

http://vimeo.com/26731580  -  Would make an awesome smoke overlay, must attribute author but free to use!!

http://vimeo.com/26346418  -  Really cool, smoking slow motion. Use this. 

Before and After

The footage I got could only be downloaded in poor quality so I like that as an extra bonus the smoke overlay covers this too. Here's me working on Adobe After Effects.

Smoke overlay

Putting the smoke overlay on the film and it looks awesome. The smoking footage is really short so I've had to put it into several layers and key frame the opacity in order for it to blend together. Really tricky and annoying but never mind. 

Hard to decide

Choosing the music for my seduction film was super difficult. I was having trouble finding something that was copyright free while also sounding okay and suiting the film. I was really stuck between two tracks but decided on the females voice in the blues genre rather than the male voice in the soft rock genre as I feel the woman's voice makes it emphasize this film is about women and their seduction through smoking. 

NEW PROPOSAL

After discussion with tutors, I decided that the war theme was too risky as I don't have full rein to edit it as I please without the risk of offending someone. I would rather have a topic with full freedom. It's a shame as I'd collected a lot of relevant footage but I think I have a better idea instead now.

Proposal:

Different parts of Society's views on smoking will be depicted in my films. Many people are disgusted in it for health reasons, some associate smoking with bad behavior while for others it's part of their social life and they even find it attractive to smoke.

Film one: Seduction

This film will romanticize the act of smoking as from the 1920's it was a very popular and social thing to do. This will include close ups of models faces smoking, their lips, eyes and long fingers holding the cigarettes  I will use slow motion so the smoke is slowly coming out of the models lips and rewind so the smoke is going back in. This technique is often used in films when a character is smoking to create sex appeal. I will use cut scenes of these close ups with cross dissolves so the scenes blend together creating a soft and dreamy atmosphere. The film will focus on two women. One in a modern environment and one from the 50's to contrast against each other. This will show that smoking is seen as a timeless seduction to men. 

Film Two: Addiction
Clips of adverts saying "it tastes better" and " have one to day" will be overlaid onto scenes of a woman smoking. A clock will keep being shown to show she constantly needs to smoke. The scenes will begin to be shorter and faster with cigarettes dancing cross fading in the background. This will emphasize how smoking was shown as a good thing. The women will be aging and the end clip will be of her looking old and smoking in slow motion to show what smoking addiction can do to someones aging. 

Film Three: Expectation versus reality
In this film I will use lots of cross dissolve fades of couples smoking together as the expectation for smoking is casual and social. I will then contrast this at the ending with a close up, fast motion of a girl smoking and aging. A smoke overlay will be used on this film to create the atmosphere of deathly smoking. I will use split screen to show all the couples happy together and then cross fade this onto the girl alone, smoking and aging. Happy smoking add music will be player over top. I will also you fast motion in reverse of the happy couples smoking to emphasize that what they're doing it wrong.