Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
original games (own-IP as well as licensed) for mobile platforms. The company
designs and creates almost everything in-house, including characters, environ-
ments, and user interfaces.
According to Creative Director Will Luton, the artists at Mobile Pie take a very
pragmatic approach to designing assets for games, going from the macro to the
micro. To begin the design process, Mobile Pie answers the following questions:
assets
are char-
acters, props,
environments,
and interfaces.
What is the goal of the game?
What is the gameplay style?
Who is it for (demographic)?
Your
demographic
,
or audience, helps
define the game's
style. Understanding
demographics
means understand-
ing the audience's
age group, gender,
and other key
characteristics.
What is the theme?
When the answers to these questions are clear, Mobile Pie generates an asset
list and uses that to help prioritize how to segue the project into production.
The asset list contains the number and types of characters, props, and other ele-
ments they may need to create. As color is worked into the art, reference images
are used to help generate a palette.
k
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e m o G r a P h I C
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In
Game Over
, Nina Huntemann notes, “You know what's really exciting
about video games is you don't just interact with the game physically—
you're not just moving your hand on a joystick, but you're asked to interact
with the game psychologically and emotionally as well. You're not just
watching the characters on screen; you're
becoming
those characters.”
When designing art for characters, keep in mind that the gamer is going
to use your design to interact with the game itself, so that design needs to
work for the demographic and gameplay style.
theme
refers to the
setting or ambience.
Reference images
can include a color
palette or a look
from a similar
project.
The main thing to keep in mind in the early stages of developing the concept
art is that this process is flexible. The goal is to keep things loose with room
for change if it's needed, while giving enough detail to give a clear indication of
what the final character can look like. Figure 4.2 shows an example of Mobile
Pie's process. The character is roughed in with a pencil sketch.
