Growth

Week Nine

(or The Week My Brain Didn't Wanna...But I Made It Work Anyway)

After I finished my blog post last week, I got to work wrapping up the narrative for AIM<. The lead artist and I had hashed out some details and written several drafts before we came to an accord on what the story should look like. I wrote an initial draft weeks ago but as a writer, I tend to go crazy creating strange places, characters, and stories. We had to find a good balance between different and relatable. The narrative will be revealed through the environment and collectibles scattered throughout the game.

After finishing the narrative, I finally started focusing on further world building and environment concept art. I panicked a bit when I realized not done a lot of world building had been done. We've done a little; like creating a cool cannon design and some drone concepts. The game design document reflects some scattered information and now we have a narrative. One of the earliest narrative drafts focused on Mars for a setting. As development progressed, though, we found Mars to be limiting for the sort of world we want to build. Beyond these steps we hadn't decided what this place we're creating looks like.

Lost.

My panic compounded when I realized a sketch wasn't going to convey all the information we'd need. Most of my experience as an artist has been heavily weighted towards characters, objects, and vehicles. I have only a little experience crafting visual environments. In the past, when I've hit an artistic roadblock, I've frozen up. This time I decided to try to find a way through right away instead of letting the roadblock get me all bound up.


 Hurdles always seem bigger if there isn't any hope. Sometimes, hope can be found by looking for inspiration. I dug around and found a couple of artists that provided some ideas for tackling the problems I was facing. There's a lot of misinformation disguised as advice or "tutorials" that only serve to make roadblocks more daunting. I've found that "tutorials" or skill demonstrations that look too good to be true, often are. None show an artist practicing. Practice is the key to skill. I realize that's obvious but when in a slump, it's hard to remember.

I learned two very important lessons this week. Finding a way through is key when dealing with roadblocks. Looking for a way around or trying to ignore them accomplishes nothing. Growth only happens by going through.

Secondly, and this is more focused on design, concept artist and teacher Feng Zhu said that there is no difference between a landscape, vehicles or a character. All are made out of the same four shapes; cylinders, squares, spheres, and cones.

I think he's absolutely right. I often find myself caught up in the "right" tool or technique and forget that good design is good design.

Thanks for reading all that! If you're reading this and want some helpful, healthy sources of inspiration and learning, check out the following links:

• Feng Zhu: Design Cinema (65! free videos - start with the first one)
• Matt Kohr: Ctrl+Paint (digital painting fundamentals - lots of free videos)
• Eddie Russel: 'Infiltrator' Production Pipeline Volume 1: Concept Design & Storyboarding (via Pluralsight)
• Lisa Liang: Conceptualizing Environments from the Imagination in Photoshop (via Pluralsight)

 Those are the best I've found so far. If I find more, I'll talk about them in a later post.

In the gallery below, I'll post some of what I did this week. Some of it's really rough and none is finished. All of it is a work in progress. I'll share the finished art as well in a later post so the most of the journey is visible.

Have an awesome Thanksgiving!

Elevated Train WIP by Aram Wahler

Crash Site WIP by Aram Wahler

Looming Wreck WIP by Aram Wahler

Train Wreck WIP by Aram Wahler

Talking

Week Eight

(or Do Not Panic: We are Training Professionals)

Last week I mentioned that I had to make big changes to the game design doc again following a longer pivot than expected. I spent the weekend following that post doing exactly that; adding in a handful of mechanics to help flesh out some thin areas in the games design. The most important flaw in the game's design was the heuristics.

Heuristics, when used in context of game design, is referring to how the game communicates with a player so they can learn how to play it. One of my professors, Jay Little, teaches that a good game needs "tell" the player 3 key things: who they are, what they do, how they win. So how does this apply to AIM<?

The previous AIM< build was a very bare-bones approach created with the goal of allowing the team and play testers to get a look at the key components without anything distracting from potential design flaws. Our initial approach was a solid start but I discovered via play tester feedback that the game was lacking anything that would communicate player progress. This is where heuristics come in. The AIM< prototype told the player who they were but left what they do, and how to win up to them to figure out. Letting players figure things out is a good thing but there should be a balance. Players need as much information as they need to have fun figuring out the rest of the game.

AIM< ver 0.1 - Drone Spatial Cue Issue

One example of confusion players experienced was while they were controlling a drone. Currently the placeholder drone is a simple sphere with a cylinder attached like a gun barrel. When players navigated into darker areas of the map, they had difficulty seeing the drone's orientation in the environment. Players experienced disorientation, which disconnected them from the game. It was a distracting enough issue that some play testers had difficulty looking beyond and giving feedback on other important mechanics.

A solution we are going to test is using some sort of underglow light effect that will reflect off of surfaces beneath the drone and tell the player where they are "sitting" in space. Eventually the effect will probably become the light from the drones thrusters. We will also be adding a head light mechanic that players can switch on and off at the cost of some energy.

This week wasn't all just game design document work. I mixed down a couple sounds created by our sound team. It was a nice change of pace that allowed me to focus on a different aspect of AIM< that hasn't seen much work yet. The two sounds we made were created to guide players to sources of energy and power-ups.

Lastly, I worked on a little bit more concept art. Our art lead asked for some complex pipe shapes so AIM< won't just be populated by a bunch of cylinders. I'll add the image to the gallery below. I should have some more images done this week after I brush up on my skills by watching some Pluralsight videos.

That's it for now. Have a happy, safe weekend!

Pipes by Aram Wahler

Deux

Week Seven

(or Pivot: The Sequel)

Well, we weren't quite done pivoting last week. We pivoted some more this week after meeting with a game designer that teaches at Stout. Finally, though, I feel like there aren't any large pieces missing from the design and we can go full steam on assets. I still have to update the game design doc with everything we discussed but we have a mission statement draft that will be finalized and we will be sticking to it. I'll go into specifics on some of the changes more next week once I'm finished updating everything.

One change I will mention, though, is the cannons design. The art lead and I decided to give it legs based on some of the feed-back we have received. I made a quick concept piece (see gallery below) just to get an idea of what that might look like and we will be continuing to re-design the cannon over the next week.

Last week I mentioned that audio for AIM< had begun and that some new members joined the team to work on sounds. Near the beginning of this week, I made some concept art (see gallery below) to show the sound team specific concepts that the art team had discussed. Some sounds have now been made and will be mixed this weekend for Monday.

That's all for this week. I'll right a little longer post next week and discuss some game design issues I encountered.

Have a great weekend!

Steam-Powered Gate and Generator by Aram Wahler

Power-Up Concepts by Aram Wahler

Main Cannon Re-Design by Aram Wahler