Of Mice and Pen: Pirate Art - The Game Maker's Companion: Game Development - page 227

around, allowing the cars to drive upside-down on “corkscrew” sections of track. It didn't work very
well at first, but I showed my ideas to the programmer who was amazed! He'd not anticipated his
engine being used in such a way, and he went away for an afternoon to write some extra code to
allow my ideas to be incorporated in a more robust way. Within a few weeks, we were building race
tracks with loops, corkscrews, moving ramps, bridges, and extreme jumps! None of which had been
a part of the original game concept, but they went on to become the defining features of the game. It
was a great example of artist and programmer achieving more together than they could alone, and
the resulting game was great fun because of it.
In a similar way, the artist can expand upon the elements set down in the game design by the
designer. The Shadows on Deck design calls for enemies in the form of pirates and skeletons,
chosen for their striking silhouettes. During my initial sketching (and indeed throughout the
game development), I expanded this baddie list to include all sorts of monstrous variations the
designer hadn't considered (whelks for heads, eyeballs on tentacles, snake bodies, flying winged
skulls, bee-hive-headed pirates, and so forth). I then began to think about other creatures, such
as hermit crabs, lizards, spiders, and bears, and wondered if I could make some of those work in
the silhouette style of the game. As a result, the finished game should look a little more varied,
and greater variation makes for a more interesting game!
By the end of the conceptual stage, we had concept sketches for Flynn (see Figure 10-5) and
many, many enemies (Figure 10-6). The three level environments—Pirate ship, Cliff village, and
Swamp—are all roughly sketched out (for example, Figure 10-7). The first stage of the art process
is over, and so the middle section of the art “story” begins!
Figure 10-5. Concept sketches for Flynn