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2 BY 2 Evaluation

Media and techniques

I’ve used pinterest in projects before to look for ideas and references and while I did use it for this project I didn’t create a board and I only looked at it occasionally, I think it would have been a lot better if I had created a board, that way it would have been easier to find references. For my next project I should use pinterest and save the pins I get inspiration from. That way others will be able to see where some of my ideas came from. 

Again I’ve stuck to pixel art as I believe that’s what I’m best at, although I think my art is slowly getting better. 

I’m a lot more confident with photoshop now and I think it’s the best for pixel art. I decided to use a colour palette this time and I found that everything matched up a lot better, now I just need to continue improving my artwork.  

Purpose / theme / concept

I made the art for a game about a Triceratops and a Seal travelling through hell together. The Triceratops is searching for a title and the Seal is helping them. Each level is a puzzle platformer, with the end goal to reach the Land of Titles. 

I liked the sort of silly story aspect to this game and I think I’d work on that type of story in a collaboration again but I do prefer the more serious fantasy/dystopian stories, the ones that really grip your heart. 

Though doing a puzzle platformer was a fun and new experience I think if I’m ever going to do anything like that again then I’d need to do quite a bit of research. As I’m not the best at puzzle games I wasn’t too sure how the levels should be designed, simple puzzles are fine but as you go through the game the puzzles should get harder. I would struggle with creating the complex puzzles for later levels.   

Though I’ve always liked platformers I still tend to lean towards open world games. My second project in year one was a first person open world game. I would love to work in a group coming up with ideas, character designs and world building for a stunning open world game, preferably a third person open world game.

Though I’d like to improve with drawing people I was quite glad I was just drawing animals as I find them so much easier to draw.

I’m happy with the outcome even though I would have liked to have a bit more time to complete my artwork.

Outcome

Overall I would have liked to have more time to design some more tile maps so that we could have had more variation in the levels. I still had a few more levels that I would have liked to have designed but overall I have completed what I’ve set out to do. I enjoyed working and sharing ideas with someone else as that helped me to come up with more ideas. Having more experience with working in a team will be a good thing to take with me to my future career. I’m quite happy I chose a colour palette before starting this project as it helped to keep everything more consistent. Now I just need to practise keeping the style more consistent too. I didn’t really get much time to experiment with the colour palette so hopefully I can look into this a bit more in my next project.

Conclusion

Though I still get easily distracted, my time management has improved by leaps and bounds, I hope to continue improving it in my next project by following a timetable and a weekly task list so that I can stay on top of all my work.

Though I have started drawing more at home I don’t feel it’s to the amount I would like. For my next project I should be practising more in my free time. I have a sketchbook at home but I think it would be good to bring it in so I can draw/write more down for my ideas, I would be able to catch those little fleeting ideas that only stay with me for a second.  

Next time I think I should look at Pinterest more for my ideas as I find that a lot of my good ones start there.

Overall I think I’ve completed this project successfully.

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Sprite Sheet for Background

here are the 36 frames

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Finishing the Background

Found this really cool art piece online and decided to draw my own one. Next time I do something like this I would like to try and push myself to be more original with my work.

I remember seeing somewhere really simple clouds and they were just lines but I’m not sure where I saw them. But in any case I really liked the idea of putting clouds into the background. This whole animation is actually 36 frames, It’s just way too long, and all those frames are just for the clouds. I should have cut out quite a lot of those frames but I just kept them. The only positive I can find with this is if I wanted to add anything else to the background then I would have loads of frames to work with.

I really like artwork with light that streams down onto the ground or just through clouds, I just think it looks really cool and just adds another layer of depth to your art work.

I also got to add the rectangles, I was imagining them to be bits of grass growing on top of the rock. I like it but I don’t think it really works with the rest of the art. next time I should try and keep the style more consistent. I’d really like to try and work in the style below as I think it just looks really unique and beautiful. I should also try practicing in any styles I want to work with before just jumping right in, I think this would help me get a better grasp on how everything should look.   

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Jump Cycle for Triceratops

when looking for references for jump cycles this time I had a look at a Cougar. The bone structure is a lot more similar then that of a horse. I was planing to do 5 or more frames but decided to try and keep the amount of frames as consistent as I could. After drawing each frame I checked that it looked alright compared to the previous frames. After I had done the fourth frame I found that actually I didn’t need to add any more frames as you could see that it was a jump. I was really dreading doing the jump cycle but actually I’m really proud of myself for getting it done    

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Start of the Pogo Stick

I’m not too sure how I feel about the pogo stick, and I’m not really sure if people will be able to recognize this as a pogo stick. I can tell but I’ve drawn it and know what it’s meant to be. I’ll have to ask around and see what other people think it is 

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Bones

After Lauren asked for some darker tiles so we could make the underground more interesting, I remembered the bones I drew in my very first project. So I added some darker tiles and I also recoloured the bones so that we could use them in this project too.

I also added in some tiles so that the edges were rounded off and two other versions that could be used as floating tiles. I’m not sure if Lauren will be able to add this into the game but at least they’re there just in case.

I think this will be the tile map finished now. We don’t have much time left to be able to add in any more tiles. Especially since the collision on the tilemap has been giving Lauren grief.  

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Background Problems

when the background was put into unreal engine we found that It wasn’t big enough, there were gaps at the top and sides. Making the image bigger would easily fix this problem but then the background just didn’t look right. I had to draw the edges in so that it looked ok 

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S.W.O.T.

Strengths

I think I do well in 2D art because I really enjoy it, again with character design I really love creating new characters and then thinking of a whole new world and story for them. I’ve always loved writing stories, creating, thinking and researching for them. With 2D art I think I’m much better at drawing animals then people. I still really like pixel art and feel as if I’m improving with it gradually. I really like realistic work too and have been working on my traditional pencil drawings, I’ve got a bit better with pencil drawings but I still need to do a lot of practice.

Weaknesses

I don’t hate coding but I’m not too interested in it either, because of this I hardly do any coding and now I can’t even remember how to do it properly. If I needed to I think I’d be able to scrape together something with code by looking back at my previous projects but I much prefer the artwork and so I don’t see much point in doing that. 

Opportunities

There are lots of new game developers around me so while learning from my teachers I can also gain feedback from those who are in my class.

Threats

If I decide to use a software that the college doesn’t have then it’ll limit my work. Outside of college I don’t have any software that is needed to continue my work easily so most of my practical work will have to be done in college.

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MoSCoW

Must have

As I’m looking at creating two different characters for this project, I really need animations for both the characters.  

Should have

I should have some sort of story line for this project as the whole theme of this project has to do with a story ark.  By the end of this project I should have a working game. as I’m focusing on artwork I should have quite a few art pieces

Could have

I could do a little PowerPoint looking at the backstory and characters of this game concept. I could use chat GPT to help figure out the story

Won’t have

I won’t have any code on my half of the project as I’ll just be working of the art side while my colleague works on all the code

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Saved to Drafts

I tend to have quite a bad habit of just saving everything to drafts to go through later, which in turn just gives me more work to do. In my next project I plan to post something regularly so that the posts in drafts section don’t build up and just give me more work to do  

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Colour problems

in game there are lava pools that can kill you. considering they’re the same colour as the lava in the background it’s quite confusing to see where they are. To fix this I quite went on to photoshop and just made the background darker, I’m hoping that this will help the actual level stand out more from the background

Making the background darker helped a lot, although now the colour is actually too similar to the box so you can’t actually see the box very well.

It was a quick fix, I just had to go back onto photoshop and make the image less saturated 

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Chat GPT

Here’s a script from Chat GPT that we would have possibly used at the beginning of the game. I think it would need a bit more work and development before going into the game and we’d have to put it through Chat GPT a few more times to get something better.

INT. HELL - DAY Sludge the baby triceratops walks in with a sad look on his face. SLUDGE: (sighs) Nobody takes me seriously. I'm just a baby triceratops in the eyes of everyone. Mr. Puddles, a seal, enters. MR. PUDDLES: What's wrong, young Sludge? SLUDGE: I just wish I had a title so the adults would listen to me and respect me. MR. PUDDLES: (smiling) Well, look no further! I know just the place for you. SLUDGE: (excited) Really? Where? MR. PUDDLES: The Land of Titles! It's a magical place where you can get any title you want. I'm an unofficial tour guide of hell, so I can escort you there. SLUDGE: (overjoyed) Yes, please! I'm ready to go! MR. PUDDLES: (chuckles) Very well, but be warned, the journey is not without its challenges. The two of them start walking, Mr. Puddles leading the way. SLUDGE: (excited) What kind of challenges? MR. PUDDLES: (smiling) Well, let's just say, the road to gaining a title is not as easy as you may think. But I'm sure you're up for the task! SLUDGE: (determined) I am! I won't let anything stop me from getting the title I deserve! They continue their journey, facing various obstacles along the way, but eventually, they reach the Land of Titles. SLUDGE: (amazed) This place is incredible! MR. PUDDLES: (smiling) Yes, it is. Now, go ahead, young Sludge, and get the title you've always wanted. Sludge approaches the counter and requests his title. The clerk hands him a certificate with the title "Sir Sludge, the Respected Triceratops". SLUDGE: (excited) This is amazing! Thank you so much, Mr. Puddles! MR. PUDDLES: (proud) My pleasure, young Sludge. Now go show the world your newfound respect. The two of them exit the Land of Titles, and Sludge proudly walks with his new title, finally getting the respect he deserved. THE END

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Here’s a video of the finished game and a link to play it

Overall I would have liked to have more time to design some more tile maps so that we could have had more variation in the levels. But I’m quite happy with how it’s turned out. Who knows, maybe I’ll work on this again with Lauren in the future to develop this more

Final Outcome

https://gizmotheawful.itch.io/sludgepuddles

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pixel art

I found this really cool art piece on pinterest and I really like how it looks

I decided to do something similar but I also wanted to add in the animation of the lava as well so I’ve drawn a sketch like this.

I really like this art style below, especially how the ground has been drawn in rectangles, I think it looks really cool. I’d like to have something in the background that’s like the floor in this 

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Collectables

I’ve finally finished the pitchfork so now I just have the pogo stick, fiery hot wings, top hat and the cheese block.

Golden pitchfork ✔️ 

pogo stick

fiery hot wings

top hat 

Cheese block

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I found this really cool waterfall animation on pinterest and decided to have a go. Though this game is set in hell so I decided to make it seem like lava. I’m thinking in the actual animation in game it’ll be a bit slower then this as it’s not water.

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I was drawing this for an idle animation for Puddles but instead I just ended up using it for the animation where sludge is carrying Puddles