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UI for Exploration, Items, NPC, Tiles, Stones and More

January 16, 2018

After a long hiatus in updates there are plenty of new things.

So far the game’s demo only showcased the combat system, but with the addition of new UI elements and a lot of coding the player can now explore the game world outside the combat zone.

Quest Log

Kanji Library

Vendor

With the implementation of a vendor and inventory it was necessary to make items to work with as well. I left the ideas for what they’re going to be for now completely up to Tomáš, after which I made the designs. Some of them turned out better than others, and I’ll have to make sure I keep things at about the same level of quality going further, or the game will eventually start looking as if put together from random pieces.

An NPC was added in multiple places to serve both as a guide for the player as well as to help us solve the technical challenges of the newly implemented systems. Currently the player can interact with it in form of a trader and quest giver.

Before I moved on to another lengthy task, I was asked to draw a wheat or rice field in preparations for a system of resource gathering we have planned for future. Initially, the rice was supposed to grow out of water rather than dirt, but the brown water layer I drew was practically indistinguishable from the mud tile we use, so I discarded the idea. When we eventually get to implementing sound, we can use a wet step SFX to imply the water instead.

I also finally got around to reworking that terrible looking stone we’ve been using as a placeholder all this time. While I was at it, I made a version that covers four tiles and after experimenting with the colors I ended up creating a version to be used in a desert-like environment as well.

And with new locations in mind, I made a new set of sand and stone tiles. There’s never enough of those.

Finally, something I’ll be working on in the future is one of multiple crafting stations we’ll be putting in the game. The design might very well change completely, but for now this is what I sketched out.

Business Cards – Finals

May 12, 2017

Finalized the version of the business cards where the front is the same for all of them, while back features a different image from one of my works. There are 15 versions in total.

Front

Build Comparison

May 10, 2017

January

February

March

April

Artbook – Finals

May 10, 2017

Having finished putting the artbook together it was time to start the printing process. Initially, I wanted the artbook to have a hard cover, and to immitate the feeling of exclusivity evoked by actual game artbooks. When I consulted the people at the print, however, it turned out the cost would be quite high, as I would have to order the cover custom made for my horizontal A5 format. And that excludes potential delays in schedule.

In the end I opted for a light cover with heavy grammage, which looked sufficiently professional, while still being very cheap, meaning I could give the prints away to potential employers.

Front page

Project introduction

Image spread

The Right Type

May 10, 2017

Thinking about kanji characters, one immediatelly associates them with calligraphy. When learning kanji, however, stylized characters, despite their attractive look, are pracitaclly useless due to their at times extremely low legibility.

For the game we were looking for a typeface that would combine the aesthetics of traditional calligraphy with clearity and simplicity of modern digital fonts. The best example of such a typeface is Epson Kaisho. However, because of its licence it may be impossible to use in the game. Therefore we used a “free for commercial use” typeface Yasashisa Gothic.

In the game the characters are displayd as if engraved in stone tables.

Yasashisa Gothic

Epson Kaisho

Designing the UI

May 10, 2017

After figuring out what we wanted the UI to be like, I started working on individual pieces that make up the HUD that is used during the combat phase in the game.

Health bar structure

The spell icons themselves were the result of a collaborative effort, where my friend created the outlines of the shapes, while I redrew them so they fit into the game visually.

Concepts

Finals

In the end for the main bar we decided to use one in the bottom center of the screen. This layout may seem overused, but it’s the most effective and simple one.

Final HUD

Artbook – First Drafts

May 10, 2017

I tried putting together the layout for the artbook. Because of my tendency not to waste space, the first draft feels rather cluttered. The second draft I tried to make better contrast between pages and make spreads with images only. The third draft is basically identical to the second one, just refined with the addition of the pattern on the right side among other things.

1st Draft

2nd Draft

3rd Draft

Artbook

May 10, 2017

Moving on with the physical promotion from the business cards, I came up with the idea of using a format of an Artbook instead of a traditional and general-use portfolio. It much better fits both my identity as well as the work I create.

Ideally, it would look somewhat like this example of a Mass Effect artbook.

UI & Functionality Exploration

May 10, 2017

At first, I was trying out new forms of UI, which I personally liked visually, but unfortunately their functionality suffered in multiple cases, so I decided to instead go for already established designes.

Since the UI contains so many elements it was important to figure out how the design would work accross the entire game while keeping it visually consistent. Our greates inspiration was Dofus, technically a predecessor of Wakfu, which uses stone-like blocks as the framework upon which other elements are placed.