WPG: A 'Break' from Dev. Painting Stuff and Games...

Ouch!

15th FEB

Silly Football! Seriously injured my ankle in a game of football and this really effected my work progress, I took a few weeks off to recover. Between the painkillers and recovery I managed to continue my research.

20th FEB

ColorsLive

Josh showed me a really cool game on Nintendo DS that is basically a painting tool. What I was really impressed by was a feature which captured a video of the painting being made. The link below will take you to the website which displays a load of videos of paintings.

http://colorslive.com/details/44756-Openings_III_by_Munin.php

Above is a painting created by an artist names Munin. He has a range of paintings that have a really loose style and with the videos being accessible I was able to see his processes and how he worked.


25th FEB

Art Rage

Josh also presented me with another painting application, this one was focused more around realistic painting approaches.

Here is a link to the website  http://www.artrage.com/

When I had a go on a touchscreen device i was amazed at how realistic the colours blended and how much it looked like paint. Bellow is a quick attempt at a coastal scene using the tool.

 28th FEB

With Ether's art style being hand painted I wanted to explore other games in development that had a hand painted style. I found a game called Airborn which has been in development for a few years.

Link to Moddb page for Airborn: http://www.moddb.com/mods/airborn/images/some-player-made-screenshots5#imagebox

Also Link to Teaser Video: http://www.moddb.com/mods/airborn/videos/airborn-teaser-trailer-hq#imagebox

Airborn is an Action Adventure based in a fantastic world on flying islands eons after the world has collapsed from overexploitation. I think the visual style for this game is extremely strong and shows a lot of character, It has a unique feel to it. In my opinion this sense of ownership of a style is important for an indie Development company and if I could create a unique visual style for Ether it would be a good hook for our audience.

1sh MARCH

Dear Esther

Another game that I researched was Dear Esther, I was bed ridden because of my ankle and wanted to play a game that offered something different and less demanding. Dear Esther has a really unique experience and is more of a journey where you piece together a story than an actual game with mechanics.

The game was created by The Chinese Room and started out as a mod for the sauce engine this game was created as a test, but in doing so they created a small cult following. From this publicity Rob Briscoe, an environment artist from Mirrors Edge contacted the studio and asked if he could re-skin the game as a downtime project. Its safe to say that what he was managed to create is a beautiful, immerse world that could easily compete with any AAA title.

Here is a link to the Company website: http://dear-esther.com/

This link is a video to a great presentation by founder of The Chinese Room Dan Pinchbeck. The presentation is about the journey of the game being created, his reasons behind the game, his past projects and what is on the horizon for the company:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olk-AJDWs_U

What the game delivered for me was an immersive world that had a deep story, but with out the need for game mechanics or characters. Although in a sense I was only following a path and triggering little snippets of story from a narrator. I found that the story was so vague that I couldn't help but immerse myself in piecing everything together. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and believe that in terms of environment art I have been inspired to push Ether as far as I can visually, whilst retaining that hand painted quality.