Research

Phase one: Out with the old, in with the new.

WOTSERFACE/PROTAGONIST

 

Inspiration: World of warcraft goblins

Specifically their anatomy, as Wotserface’s anatomy was all over the place. Now that Tiki wears shorts, she can actually have better drawn legs. Another thing I’ve noted is that the hair colour of both prior examples is blue, and guess what our girl has? Blue hair! Goblins also appear to have skimpy clothing, which given their fantasy background as forragers and thieves makes sense.

Some versions of these (customizable) goblins have goggles too, which make a cute alternative to glasses. She still has them though, she needs them to read.

GWENDOLYN/SECONDARY CHARACTER

My inspiration for Gwendolyn came from existing female pirates, specifically the dress sense. When you look up “Female Pirate”, you get a lot of skimpy halloween costume-type things. I didn’t want this for Gwendolyn. She is busty due to her large size, but because she has them, doesn’t mean she wants to show them off, which is a big difference between Gwendolyn and Carla. This could prompt arguments between the two.

EYEVY/SECONDARY CHARACTER

My initial idea for Eyevy’s colour scheme came from DC’s Starfire. The colour scheme is bright, indicating a chirpy personality, which suits Eyevy well.

I decided to make her African American to cover represenation aspects of my game.

VAERIL/SECONDARY CHARACTER

I wanted Vaeril to resemble a generic anime protagonist, as his character tropes fit that well, Hungry, cocky and likes the women a bit too much. I decided to give him bright yellow hair as opposed to a dull brown, however. It fits him better.

CLYDE/SECONDARY CHARACTER

 

Clyde was designed by a friend, and the only credit I can claim on him is his bunny slippers.

ZEN/SECONDARY CHARACTER

meow.

Our ol’ monk is, of course, a cat! So for this guy, I researched certain types of cat to decide what breed to make our monk.

Tabby: This is Ted, one of out two tabby kittens. Tabbies are a common kind of cat, and have a distinctive “M” shape on their foreheads.

Calico:Mainly a female breed, calico cats are said in many cultures to bring luck. This fits well with my joyful, happy-go-lucky elderly man.

Japanese bobtail cats, which i have chosen Zen to be, are shown to bring very good luck.

I have tried to give him some traits of calico cats, specifically following the theme of “Lucky cat”.

 

TWIG/SECONDARY CHARACTER

This design was also submitted to me by a friend. I drew him myself however.

Twig is kinda the Robin Hood of the group, and robin hood is a legend in his own right, sparking many book and film adaptions of his story. Traditionally Robin carries a bow and sword, but our bow and swordsman are different here. Twig uses little daggers that he forged himself with the other pixies.

Research for our tiny vigilante included watching the Disney adaption of Robin Hood.

CARLA/SECONDARY CHARACTER

Carla’s inspiration comes from characters from the Zero escape series. These characters all have one thing in common. I think you can tell what.

Going from that theme, you can see why Carla looks the way she does.

Male Gaze theory + “Top Heavy” characters in media

 

MAERAL/SECONDARY CHARACTER

Phase Two: What inspires this project

The main inspiration for this project last term is the Zero Escape series. That has carried over to this one, this time instead of focusing on Zero Time Dilemma, I have turned my focus to the older installments in the series, specifically 999/9 hours, 9 persons, 9 doors, the very first of the trilogy. The game was released in Japan in 2009, and honestly does look a bit dated now.

“The game’s genre is a mix of psychological horror, mystery, suspense, thriller, and science fiction, with slight elements of humor and comedy to fill in the gaps when the atmosphere isn’t so dark. The game is divided into two parts; the “visual novel” parts in which the story is told and decisions are made to lead to branching endings; and the “escape” parts which are escape-the-room puzzles that break up the novel sections.”

Source:http://zeroescape.wikia.com/wiki/Zero_Escape:_Nine_Hours,_Nine_Persons,_Nine_Doors

This game is very unique, and although it gets confusing towards the end, would have worked as a stand alone title, as the other installments confuse the players even more.

“The nine people are forced to participate in the “Nonary Game”, a deadly game which involves numerical bracelets, small bombs in each player’s stomach that will detonate and kill them if they disobey, exploring the ship and solving escape-the-room puzzles in order to survive and escape before they drown in 9 hours. The players also attempt to find out why they were kidnapped.”

As you can tell, those bombs do detonate in several routes of the game. (Not the player characters, though.)

Playing through this installment of the game, you die a lot. As you can see, a character either stabs you (Knife), you find a submarine, but still get killed (Sub) or another character goes insane and kills you (Axe). I would probably incorporate a consequence tree like this into this game if it was ever developed, causing replayability, just to make sure the player had all endings.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEsearch

Art style research:

Art Style 1:

Concept and animation art:

Pixel Art:

Half body Sprites: 

 

 

Art Style 2: Fire Emblem Awakening/Fates

Yusuke Kozaki provided the character artwork for Fire Emblem Awakening and Fire Emblem Fates.

Concept art:

Pixel art:

Half Body Sprites: