Back To The Concepts

So, I'm going to start another post with 'so'.

So. I've reverted back to concepting. Pen and paper-type shit, y'all. Old School.
I used to traverse, from paper to Photoshop on what I found best with concept work. It even got to a point where designing characters, objects, environments, level designs was much easier on Photoshop, than paper. But as of this week I've gone all traditional and summoned out the pen and paper. I draw better with pen, as any errors in drawings or spelling is forever imprinted in front of me, as a learning/guiding process to avoid such things with future tasks.

I knocked up a 'test list' - of which is exactly what the title suggests; a set of tests that would be designed and then built and tested, in order to get a feel for the animations, designs, and mechanics I'd established within the concept work.
The reason I've recently gone back to concepting - as well as continuing with the testing - is because I don't feel like the game's design is quite there yet. There's still something missing. Maybe, eventually, I'll see that the missing thing is actually the thing I've been overlooking of recent; basic designs, cleverly designed. Not that I haven't always had that in mind, that's in fact the driving force for my project - charm, character, originality - yet, it's often overlooked when consistently feeding ideas and mechanics into it. This is how confusion happens, and an original and simple idea becomes a highly saturated task.
Thus, frustration occurs.

I've decided on concepting again to take a step back and look at the 'novelty', the 'kitsch' - to a lesser extent - of what makes a game - and indeed, hopefully mine - stand out, through (as stated above) charm and character.
And with this, I've been highly influenced by my own past experiences in gaming, music, film and TV.
It's about using an existing thing or product, what works and doesn't, and almost borrowing from multiples of these to create something that's my own, something that highlights the best and worst of nostalgia and charm to bring a fresh spin on an old idea.

For example, I've been working on 'idle animations' - of which are animations a character will produce when un-moved by the player - which aren't a necessity to video game design, they're potentially seen as novelty, yet lying in these small details comes the charm, the character. Disney and Nintendo's famed franchises flourish in charm, through small, almost seemingly unimportant features like these, these are - in fact - what makes these stand out from the rest. Anybody can replicate a blueprint, and mimic a design, but it's the masters that turn something so simple into such a wondrous and complex experience that excel, in my eyes at least.







Abrupt end.

To be un-abruptly continued...