Visual Styles and Elements of Game Play (College Work)

Many games today rely on 3D polygons and mechanics for the game to appeal to the current generation of gamers. So, the feel and look of games need to be as beautiful and captivating as possible to really get people to pay attention to your creation.
PlayStation 1, created by Sony, had this privilege to be one of the first to use 3D technology without it crashing or rejecting the file size of the disk it self. Sometimes the file sizes will cause games to have more then one disk holding the data of the game; two to three disks a time. This dawned the age of games today as we know and love them to be, since the 1990's.

Tomb Raider 1 (1996) was one of the first games to have this feature, the scenery and characters were all made up of 3D polygon's. Things were not perfect, but mind blowing back in the day, as Tomb Raider hit the shelves, everyone wanted to see this new creation and feeling of game play.
Precision was the key to getting around the areas which Lara Croft (The main character you play as.) had to explore and collect artefacts. Jumping was measured out in squares, as the scenery were managed in blocks and not curves, determining your jump depending how late or early you were to jump to the next ledge. Although, the nicest thing about Tomb Raider were the secret areas, they contained health packs and other boosts to help you on your mission.
Because of the restriction of sizes and dimensions or areas, Tomb Raider is a very short game, playing time only lasts for 5 hours. Textures and sprite images to replace items which are circular (Because Polygons with much more rounder edges were much larger sizes then normal blocky objects) were quite distorted and very hard to see. Though this was the original look and feel of a late 90's game, and had many gamers left in awe and amazement of how something could harness so much information on one disk, and be playable.

Now, keeping the complexity of Tomb Raider 1 in mind, years ago, it was amazing. Whilst time passed, graphics and file sizes developed into a much more larger scale, creating much more prettier and understandable games. Uncharted 1 (2006) had a great reputation for itself for its graphical perspective and story. Tomb Raider and Uncharted have quite a similar story dealing with the characters so it's a nice way to compare the two.
The areas are quite complex and advanced 3D, having much more then just blocks and secret areas, but curved and predictable areas which help you navigate where you must go. Having a hint to where to go is always nice and keeps players on their toes, instead of trying their hardest to find where they have to go next. The story is also shown in cutscenes rather then in game (Although many games such as Assassins Creed have been able to pull this off very well.) to let you know the next big part of the game is happening.
Precision is slightly taken away from new games entirely as Uncharted 1 has a smart AI system where the computer knows exactly what it can latch onto and what it cannot. Whilst a while back the AI system was merely simple, and had a few commands which aloud you to climb, shoot or do something in the level its self, so it was quite buggy and was in need of a few tweeks, but that was not sorted out until later models of games I believe.
Textures are key to making a game look visually appealing. The nicest thing about today's games is many are now on Blue Ray disks rather then original CD's, holding more information to play the game. (But you still get the odd game with two disks.)  This enables more detail into games rather then resorting to the lowest setting possible for a render.

Main Character Design sketches (College Work)

For the main character (Cher) I decided from the start, as he is immune to the cold, he contently wears light and cut back clothes. (Like you would wear for summer.) This took a lot of time trying to get it right as I needed to fix his clothing with the surroundings and era.
At first, I wanted to show how he was immune to the cold, which resulted in him being a little chubby and having fat resources slung around his back to keep him in temperature. This concept unfortunately failed, it wasn't connecting with the other characters, he stood out quite a bit. So, I decided to create a few Silhouette's to get a simple idea of what he should/could look like.

The one in red is the one I selected to draw fully, and have as the main character. From here, he is lightly clothes but has fur around his lower belly and neck, but long hair to keep the temperature of his head warm.

Final Concept of Cher;

As I had finished Cher's concept, and happy with what he wore, I decided to start other main characters that you'll see in game. These characters aren't immune to the cold, but they live in a tribe, surviving the harsh ever lasting winter. A girl, Lulu, and a elder named Yami.

Final Concepts of Lulu and Yami;

Beginning Concepts and Ideas (College Work)

As soon as I found inspiration from the song, I developed onto it by researching Inuits (Modernised Eskimos whom live in the coldest areas of the earth.) and how they cope with harsh weathers. The main idea of it is storing fat inside their bodies to insulate the internal organs inside, which makes them have what's called a low-carbohydrate diet which is why their bodies are big and stacked. I used this sort of concept to build my character's/NPC's structures and physiques as with other qualities that Inuits have such as clothing and habitat.

For the normal towns people of my world, I wanted to make them wear the warmest clothes possible, even if that means making their garments fluffy and thick. Here are the ideas of the towns people;

These are just sketches, but I wanted to see whether the idea would work, and how simple I could make them (This is to ensure if they were the final product that they would be easy to model/draw in a certain amount of time. This is crucial if you want something to be successful in a game.) 

From there I wanted to expand this sort of style of clothing to the main characters, but make them more distinguishable from the normal towns people you're bound to see, this is so the player could ensure that they can see the right character during a time.

Starting the Planning and Story (College Work)

For an assignment we had to design and come up with a game concept for a pitch.
To get inspiration for this project, I decided to listen to some music to get basic ideas of what the story could concede and use foundations on to get the whole story and concepts completed. A German band, Eisbrecher, has a song which is about an Icebreaker boat plowing through the icy seas to make the way for other ships, promoting their bands name and what its stands for.

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German (Original Lyrics)
Siehst Du den Eisbrecher

Eine neue Eiszeit beginnt

Komm mit mir auf den Eisbrecher

Wir sind auf dem Weg ins Licht

und das Eis um uns zerbricht

English
"Do you see the Ice Breaker

A new Ice Age begins

Come with me, on the Ice Breaker

We are on the way to light

and breaks the ice around us."

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"Ice Age" and "Ice Breaker" really made me think of ways I could use these words to add into the game play or game's story its self.  So, an icy/snowy environment that the character has to save or concur through the game would be a good idea, considering not many games really do focus on the dangers and experiences in a snowy environment. 


What I have decided for the story is this;
A man, by the name of Cher, is a engineer for an Ice Breaker ship. There is a sudden turn in climate which is making these ice breakers more in demand. Unfortunately for Cher the ship collides with an unknown object, making the ship capsize, killing the members on the boat. Cher is now left alone with nothing but the clothes on his back. Through his travels to find some where safe to live, Cher finds himself in constant battles with monsters that apparently caused the turn of weather. Little does Cher know that these monsters have something to do with him...