dumping some stuff. i'm gonna try to focus on polishing the scenery next! 

some inspirationses

first im just gonna copy paste stuff we had in the google doc:

• birds!! (those are my birds)
• music

cw: I’m thinking a forest as the main zone. 8-bit top down perspective tends towards travel on a large scale but exploring a detailed forest can also feel very large. (see The Endless Forest)

• travel begins in a village/town -> field -> forest -> mountains/river/lake/cave?
• additional inspiration (webcomic) - time period/technology/etc setting
• use of transparency effects (fading rays of light) to add ambience to a pixelated forest
• flowers/seeds as a form of currency/things to collect? potions? lol
• main exploration done through top-down, but puzzles/specific portions of the game can be from a different perspective to allow for more eye candy.
  
  
  • is there a save-the-world/presence of evil that needs to be fought, or is this a sword and sorcery adventure of self discovery? (cw prefers the latter, especially given how much time we have to do this.)
  • a vague encroaching evil that gradually takes over … ??? corrupted creatures in forest -- become enemies?
  THIS (pokemon movie)
  
  
  
  This game has a nice pacing/length imo, and also features a (very drastic) change in the same environment based on story progression.
  http://jayisgames.com/games/small-worlds/ this is a game i really like, it has great music and is super simplistic but still atmospheric. when i was thinking of the musical elements i was sort of envisioning a glowy magic … thing, like the white glowies in this game. and you walk over it and then the world changes.

take of it what you will.

more environment concepts??? how many songs/stages will we have to collect?

stage 1: white/grey, almost totally silent -- crunching snow -- depressing windy

no animals or life

stage 2: bluer / more "christmassy", soft snow fall -- 

birds

evergreens uncovered

stage 3: ice breaking/thawing some running/dripping water, a couple of flowers

fox

fish???

stage 4: snow melted in increasingly large areas -- trees budding

deer

squirrels

stage 5: snow mostly gone -- kind of wet and sloppy / lots of puddles

frogs

more fish

stage 6: no more snow -- some trees starting to grow leaves 

stage 7: flowers floers floewrs flowers getting sunnier

butterfly

dragonfly

bees

more birds

stage 8: really sunny and warm, lush trees, full music

edit: heres a little pixel drafty thing

me and christina talked some stuff out

we don't know what you cs dudes have in mind for the plot, really, or characters -- here's a couple random characters i drew; we both like the bunny girl one, but we were also considering a character in russian-fashion inspired clothing, and/or a cloak (i think a red cloak would look cool)

i doodled some environments here too:

i think it would honestly be cool if we maybe opened the game in a blank white empty arctic setting, with no sound except for vague ambient noise (blowing wind, crunching snow), and then as the game progresses and you unlock music/instruments, the environment thaws and starts to spring with life (flowers, fish, flowing water, birds, talking seal etc)

ill try to draw more later today or tomorrow

CW: concept brainstorm 1

ideas from today's class - christina

I'm ambivalent about the main character design. Nat came up with a really cute androgynous bunny character that I like more than the girl character I drew on this sketch and I'd be happy to go with that. (My character designs tend to be serious/aloof which is probably not a good thing for a main character that needs to be likable.)

The three things on this sketch I do feel strongly about are the 2 user interface ideas, as well as the sprite perspective. I strongly prefer an isometric perspective over purely top-down perspective, largely because I don't want flat looking graphics.

The rectangle sketch on the top left is an idea for a frame that appears on top of the rest of the game screen during cutscenes or puzzle mini-games. This gives the player the feeling of peeking "into" the forest at what's taking place.

The rectangle sketch near the bottom is my idea for the main UI, specifically the bar of music in the bottom left. That is where the music snippets collected throughout the game will be visually represented and serves as a marker for progress through the game. Right of the music bar would be where currently acquired items are displayed. I don't think the game should be overly complicated with a lot of different items - there should be few enough items that they can fit on the bottom of the screen, and each item should have a relevant use. The diamond on the bottom right is just something I think would be useful if the game is intended for smartphones/tablets. On the upper right corner is where you'd have lives or currency, if we decide to include those aspects in the game. (I don't want it to be a game where you can just keep poking around and eventually succeed; there should be some kind of limit that encourages smart(er) decision making and resource management.)