It has been a while since the last post. That is because I have been working on very interesting things. Like hiring artists to help me out on Find the Gnome.
In this blog I will go a bit more into detail on what we are working on.
Fan art
The game isn’t out yet, and one of the characters is already remade in a Lego. This characters is one of the drones you have at your disposal. It looks quite alike, see for yourself:
Concept art
For the concept art I am working together with Meinder. You can find samples of his work on his own website.
I hadn’t used concept art before, but it is a real help for me in refining my idea of the game. An example of the work he delivers is the character design as shown in the intro with the drone. But he also helps out with the look n feel of the levels:
He also helps out on a few other subjects. But that is something for the next blog to talk about.
Modelling and animation
With Meinder working on getting the look n feel right to make it easier to actually create the game I have in my mind, I realized this also makes it much more easy to hire someone to actually do the modelling and animation.
For me the modelling, and especially the animation, is the hardest part of game development. And I am not even good at it…
So I contacted Goran and he started working on the level design. By using the concept art Meinder had prepared. This is one of the early iterations:
I really like where this is going. This looks and feels so much like the thing I had in my mind: a game with a vibe that makes you wish you were there.
For me this means I have to do a lot of the preparation work. But that is something I like doing, and are much better at then modelling. And I do all the coding. And the whole business part of the game. So I still have enough work to do each day.
Planning
I got a a very interesting insight on planning lately: By having to better prepare work for the artists to work on, I had to go to greater lengths in preparation of work then I normally do. While I was doing this, I realized the work was much more easy to start working on, even if I had to do the work myself.
That s something I can apply to my own work too! Getting to do the actual work is the hardest part for me. And this practice lowers the threshold on mental power needed to start on the work.
And yes, I tried it out. And it worked like a charm. I even tried it on a very complex subject. That ended up being not that complex because I could keep it nice and tidy.
I don’t know if this works for you. But me, by being not overwhelmed in the moment when starting on a story, I got a much better result. Yes I still need to do the thinking work. But I can do that type of work on a separate moment when I am in a good thinking-mood.
GameFeelings 